Archive for south africa
August 3, 2007 at 4:43 am · Filed under dance, TONY, performance, choreography, andre lepecki, MAIA, south africa, robyn orlin, susan broadhurst, johannes birringer, aesthetics, dance umbrella
Posted by Maia Jordaan
Photo by Jean Pierre Maurin
One day not too long ago I decided to do a web search on Andre Lepecki. I had done this search many times before as I am researching the relevance of Lepecki’s proposals to South African contemporary dance. I am not quite sure what prompted me to do this search yet again. The click of the search button marks the beginning of a whole new journey … something I had longed for … to give voice to my opinions on dance performance. Specifically on South African dance performance as so little is written about it (both locally and internationally). The entry that would bring me into contact with The Winger was a link to a post by Tonya on her blog. She and Tony were discussing starting a reading group on Lepecki’s book Concept & Presence.
I was intrigued by this lovely lady … she is both intelligent & witty & writes fantastically about a whole range of dance. As many of you know by now Tonya put me in contact with Tony & the rest is history … my passionate interest in dance & Lepecki’s writing prompted Tony & Kristin to invite me to become a contributor.
I will be using these posts to tell you more about dance performance in South Africa. I have a keen interest in what is happening on the fringes – what Susan Broadhurst calls liminal spaces & according to Johannes Birringer, border performances. I belief it is within these borders – or gaps as I like to call it – that exciting and fresh ideas are being proposed by both established and up-and-coming choreographers.
These gaps are marked by a questioning of established dance/performance aesthetics which is an important and necessary aspect of breaking boundaries and rupturing the conventional to cultivate growth in choreographic innovation.
In South Africa, this lineage of questioning (characterized by performativity, presence and conceptual dance) can be traced to Robyn Orlin’s work. Today, Robyn lives and works in Europe. It is telling that one of Orlin’s latest works was a collaboration with Vera Mantero, whom Lepecki aligns with the characteristics of contemporary European choreography he highlights in Concept and Presence (2004) & Exhausting Dance (2006). South African dance researcher, Jill Waterman points out “challenging the notion of comfortable genres of dance and theatre categories is, on many occasions, the central thrust of Robyn Orlin’s performance pieces”.
http://www.robynorlin.com
The Paris Voice has this to say about her work:
“With enigmatic and provocative titles like daddy, I’ve seen this piece six times and I still don’t know why they’re hurting each other, South African choreographer Robyn Orlin has sparked more curiosity worldwide than anybody in the dance scene since Trisha Brown during the 1960s.”
Carol Pratl
At the moment she is working on a new work for South Africa’s annual Dance Umbrella in March next year. “I always go back to South Africa - because my dancers are there, and my family - for one project a year…”
I’m very excited about this new work and encourage you to go and see her work if you ever have the chance. Have a look at her great website to get an idea of her quirky humour and fantastic use of imagery.
Recent Posts by maia jordaan
June 28, 2007 at 10:38 pm · Filed under dance, butoh, MAIA, south africa, acty tang, physical theatre, sifiso majola, heike gehring, dance umdudo
Posted by Maia Jordaan
The Silent Wail of Melisande
Photo by Cuepix/Christiaan Louw
I recently had the pleasure of meeting up with Acty Tang, recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Choreography (South Africa) to talk about his new work, Chaste. Emotions surrounding this work are running high as performers are dealing with highly relevant and personal issues of love and the repressed unconscious. This Butoh-inspired physical theatre work is an iconoclastic interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé. Acty believes this work is about the awakening of desire that has the potential to conquer the repression of law, patriarchy and religion. Performed by Acty himself, a dancer Sifiso Majola, an actress Heike Gehring and two singers this work is bound to provoke stereotypical renditions of what constitutes dance. The politics of dance has been inherent to Acty’s work since he presented his first butoh-inspired dance work at the Dance Umdudo in 1999. Last year Apology for a Stranger questioned why dancers make work and what audiences desire to see. In this work he apologized for his inability to dance and asked “What is there left to make work about, except the act of making work?”
AmaQueerKwere
Photo by Suzy Bernstein
In terms of content, Acty keeps going back to the theme of love. Thematically it involves politics because he looks at the homoerotic on stage in a country where it is still not acceptable at a very basic level. For him, love and desire are very closely related. In AmaQueerKwere (2005) he explored desire across time and space through Sontag’s notion of the erotic, approaching meaning through the sensual. And in Beloved (2004), even though the title refers to love there is no exact love object in the work. Some of his other works include And the Empty Space of His Shadow (1999), Ndilinde - Wait for me (2004), Apology for a Stranger (2006) and The Silent Wail of Melisande (2006). Thematically, it is about the
politics of LOVE. Acty sees love and justice as very much linked: he believes there will be healing and community love but born through huge amounts of trauma, struggle and injustice.
The Silent Wail of Melisande - Studio Shot
Photo by Chipo Laba
At a very basic level Butoh takes the body out of the social realm (which is filled with trauma and resistance) into the extraordinary and spiritual realm. The white painted body classically used in Butoh also relates to South African Xhosa initiation rituals, where black Xhosa boys paint themselves white and live in the bush to exit as young men. This happy
coincidence is very similar to the original context in that it refers to a making other and a link to the spiritual. It also speaks to a local audience who might not be aware of butoh and immediately transports the work to a spiritual realm.
The Beloved
The Beloved
Photo by Elsabé van Tonder
More about Acty …
http://www.artslink.co.za/dance.htm
Recent Posts by maia jordaan
June 28, 2007 at 9:21 pm · Filed under dance, welcome, TONY, wingers, reading group, MAIA, maia jordaan, south africa, rhodes university, gregor rohrig, robin orlin, first physical theatre company, nicola elliott
Photo by Gregor Rohrig
Our apologies for dragging our heels a bit on introducing this lovely lady (her profile page has been lurking on the right side of the winger for some time), but computer and internet troubles in her native South Africa and busyness here at the winger caused some snags that have now been worked out.
Ms. Maia Jordaan’s profile reads like a list of individuals you would need to put together an entire production - except she can do everything herself… “director/choreographer, producer, performer, set/costume designer, stage manager, company manager, marketing manager, teacher and researcher…” Quite an impressive list of talents! She is studying at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, where she’s working towards a practice-based Masters in Contemporary Performance.
Maia is currently working on her thesis dissertation in which she “explores Lepecki’s proposals on the characteristics of contemporary dance/performance to three South African works:
Robin Orlin’s daddy, i’ve seen this piece six times before and i still don’t know why they’re hurting each other (2000), and
The First Physical Theatre Company’s 16 Kinds of Emptiness (2006).
This is part of what Tony Schultz thought would make her both a fantastic contributor to The Winger as well as a great addition to the Reading Group, in which Tony and Maia will be discussing and dissecting Andre Lepecki’s Exhausting Dance. Check out the Reading Group page to get a copy of the book, see what they have written and discussed so far, and throw in your own thoughts!
Welcome Maia!
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
