CDC’s ‘Blue’ to highlight male dancers

Cara-May Marcus

Cara-May Marcus

Published Nov 25, 2014

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CAPE Dance Company artistic director, Debbie Turner, and choreographer Christopher Huggins have been talking about Blue for a while now.

“Because it was high time we had our own all- male work,” said Turner. “To profile the male dancers on their own is fantastic. It used to be that the male dancers were the frame for the female dancers. But, today new choreography places equal demands on men and women.”

Huggins’ Blue was choreographed for the Philadelphia Dance Company. He says he kept as much of the original, but tailored the solos “because every boy is different”.

Originally, Blue was part of a showcase called We Too Can Dance which was a celebration of black dancers in 2004.

Huggins’ assistant, Levi Marsman, came out a week before the choreographer to get the CDC dancers started on rehearsals. The 26-year-old danced in Blue when Philadanco did a celebration of Huggins’ work last year, and often acts as répétiteur since Huggins is so much in demand.

“The big thing here was that so many of the men hadn’t done Christopher’s work before, so the biggest task was making sure they understood his style. Also, because it’s all men in Blue, there’s so much aggression in the movement, so much testosterone on stage, so it is about finding the fluidity while also holding on to their masculinity.

“Blue is all about big, clean lines and, yes, there is showing off in the third section, but also a bit of ‘we can do the technical work too’,” said Marsman about working with CDC.

There are 18 dancers in this year’s showcase, and while the nine men will be handling Blue, the men and women get to do Huggins’ show-stopping Bolero, which is set to Ravel’s pulsating score.

He has also choreographed another new work for CDC, a pas de quatre for three men and one woman entitled In the Mirror of Her Mind. This is a semi-abstract piece in which the woman reflects on her loves and losses.

Another ballet which will be presented is Belinda Nusser’s Fade Out.Five, a contemporary work commissioned in January using the company’s Thundafund New Work Campaign, and first seen at the Baxter Dance Festival.

Bradley Shelver’s popular Scenes, first presented by the CDC last year, will form part of the programme, as will a new piece by Mthuthuzeli November for the CDCII Repertory Ensemble, CDC’s youth development company.

Mbulelo Ndabeni will be seen when he dances in Blue, but he also choreographed The State In-Between, as pas de deus with Simon Muller, formerly of Cape Town City ballet, and now UK-based.

Ndabeni trained with Dance For All, but was based in London as dancer, choreographer and teacher with the Rambert Dance Company until July.

Another dancer who returns from overseas for the CDC showcase is Cara-May Marcus, who has been working in Seattle for the past two years.

A long-standing member of CDC, the 23-year-old was working with Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance.

Marcus says a valuable lesson learnt from working with Byrd is to approach every dance piece with honesty – meaning learn what the emotion is you are supposed to be expressing, and don’t pretend or act, but express the emotion.

Marcus will also perform her own solo which explores the text of John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

The particular world she was fascinated by was Rückkehrunruhe, which means “that feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness”. There is a lot more to the word (check the fascinating dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com for more truly obscure words).

However, Marcus wants to explore that concept of “am I taking all the lessons I have learned and using them, or just holding on to the lessons and not applying them”. She starts off on a pillar, with everything perfectly in place, and as she dances she shows that things become a bit messy, because you have to apply what you learn and live your life.

Once this CDC showcase is done, Marcus relocates to London to see if she can make a go of a dance career in the UK: “I learnt in the US, don’t have expectations because you might be closing the door you didn't even know existed.”

• Performances of Blue run from Thursday to December 6 at 8pm at Artscape Theatre, with a matinee on December 3 at 3pm. R140 to R160 from Computicket.

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