"You can't just be an opera singer," commands the big voice from the feisty little woman, as baritone Mandlenkosi Mkhize attempts to mate Rossini's melodies with Zulu rhythms.
The Barber of Seville gets bizarre treatment from a singer who has a toy Zebra - with a mischievous life of its own - strapped to his body.
Figaro goes bush.
Completing this infectious bout of lunacy is silent dramatic tenor Thamsanqa Khaba, half-man half-giraffe, who is wielding a camera and a projector to marry projected images of bread with Mkhize's belly button on black gauze.
This is all in an afternoon's work for the cast of Robyn Orlin's When I take off my skin and touch the sky with my nose, only then can I see little voices amuse themselves.
All the performers, with the exception of Orlin stalwart Toni Morkel, are opera- trained, including flamboyant Australian artist Melissa Madden Gray who has to give birth to a croissant. Not only do they have to know their way around the evergreen classics, the six intrepid actor-singer-dancers have to be handy, in character, with shoplifting surveillance cameras and individual projectors.
They have to pick their way over a spaghetti of electrical cords while mastering musical chords. Why?
"I want the images to move," is the laconic reply.
Orlin is excited to be returning to The Market where her professional dance theatre career took off in the 1980s. Making provocative performance is still her main goal: "It's not pure opera by any means. It's a game. It plays with performers, their volatility, their struggles and how they come to terms with opera in the context of South Africa."
"When I take off my skin..." is an evolution of what she started 10 years ago in solo pieces for two opera singers, including Gloria Bosman. Both works, performed either under Church Square, or in Newtown's then cavernous Electric Workshop, involved loaves of bread denoting the proletarian facet of South African society.
The bread, circa 2005, is still working class. French audiences can expect to see baguette's. And of course that elitist croissant.
Then, and now, Orlin is interested in decontextualising mainstream first world opera inspired by "incredibly talented" South African singers.
"I wanted to explore that. I also wanted to comment on the state of opera in the world.
"It's really a colonial white elephant which a lot of people see and spend a lot of money on. But it never shifts. It's a bit like classical ballet. I don't know if I'm critiquing opera the same way I do when I play with ballet. Maybe I am."
As a result, the aesthetic white elephant is getting a booster shot
of conceptual ironies straight from the heart of darkest Africa - quite literally. The lighting, co-created by Orlin and technical director Michael Maxwell, plays with light.
The makeshift white drapes used in rehearsals at The Dance Factory constantly irritated her.
"We are dealing with Africa, not Europe. I don't want to have a white background to accentuate a black skin. Out of the darkness, I want skin to shine."
The globetrotting Orlin is currently fulfilling her filmmaking ambition. This month, she does the final mix of "hidden beauties/dirty histories", which airs on Arte, the Franco-German arts channel, in May.
"It's a movie full of conflict. The dances from the mines are so beautiful, yet they are filled with such a dirty history. I'm not glorifying mine dances like a tourist. I'm making fun of tourists. I'm also commenting on South Africa becoming a tourist attraction, and that we have forgotten our history."
The all-South African cast of Gerard Bester, Toni Morkel Nelisiwe Xaba, Rodney Buyeye and Richard Manamela were filmed in a Paris studio last year. This footage will be complemented by archival material to evoke Orlin's childhood memories of mine dances in Johannesburg, the first movement which influenced her.
Decades later, she is a celebrated international artist. But that Jozi drumbeat and heartbeat has never left her. Bring on the African arias.
- When I take off my skin... tours France from February 8 and is presented by The Market from April 21 till May 1.