Space, Issues and SA Contemporary Dance
- Details
- Category: Theatre
- Published on Wednesday, 04 January 2012 10:52
- Written by Moses Serugo
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Dance Week Uganda returns for a ninth edition in 2012 and as in years past the annual contemporary dance showcase will be restricted to a paltry three days at the National Theatre auditorium in Kampala. Yet the wooden stage and attendant seasonings like lights, crimson and black curtains and an audience seated on cushioned seats but confined to four walls shouldn’t be the dancer’s only space.
The 23rd Dance Umbrella (February 24 to March 6,2011), South Africa’s premier contemporary dance event seemed to rewrite the rules when it came to thinking (and choreographing) outside the theatrical box. Take South African choreographer Sello Pesa’s choice of a downtown Johannesburg road as the venue for his dance piece Inhabitant.
The audience is seated on either side of the road in downtown Johannesburg. There is no bell to cue the show’s start. The only hint that Inhabitant is underway is when a dancer lies in the middle of the road. Upon sensing oncoming traffic, he rolls to the side of the road towards the pavement. Another dancer, wearing a helmet runs his head along a city wall. Other dancers blend in with the scrawny men who haul monstrous bags of city garbage much like horses drawing wheeled carts. The putrid stench from open sewers is discomforting for the audience. But Pesa seems to want to make a strong point; “hey you toffee-nosed folks, this is the underbelly of Johannesburg (and its inhabitants) outside the glittering golden central business district of upscale Sandton.” 
Nigerian choreographer Qudus Onikeko whips up the “debate” about dance space one notch in his semi-autobiographical documentary Do We Need Coca Cola To Dance? This is not about the “coca-cola-nisation” of contemporary dance. Instead Onikeko alongside his white dance partner would like “dance-philes” to appreciate that a beach in Yaounde, a narrow alley in Cairo or the patio at a Johannesburg eatery can all serve as dance spaces. After all he believes that dance is an art form that requires neither pen nor paintbrush. Only one instrument is necessary for one to dance- the human body and a given space. The unannounced street performances in the documentary are “a way of taking the art back to the people who inspired it, but rarely get to see” probably because of the claustrophobic nature of theatre spaces.
And taking his acclaimed piece My Exile is in My Head to the confines of a theatrical space at The Dance Factory is not about shooting himself in the foot. The piece requires that he create an illusion of dancing on a book page. Text from compatriot Wole Soyinka’s book The Man Died is lit onto the now “white” stage and kudus is literally dancing on a “page”. His rather philosophical take is that “exile is not being about relocation or departure but the tragedy that such a loss of home constantly brings to one’s existence.” However, Onikeko’s “dance-ability” is the one thing the audience takes away from the performance mostly because he seamlessly infuses capoeira, hip-hop and Yoruba dance rhythms into choreography. What we also see is a restless head, whose cranial [dance] emotions escape through an unkempt tuft of hair right through his human frame to the soundtrack of a haunting hard rock live guitar score.
Malcom Black’s Off Key is proof that those living with disabilities do not only think they can dance. They can actually dance whether they are wheelchair bound or coping with a hearing impairment. The able-bodied who help to cue the dancers do not take away their shine in this simple love story where unseen, unforeseen forces or cupids if you like help him to find meaning. The love affair instead radiates from the impaired dancers to the audience who far from pitying them burst into a thunderous if anything to acknowledge this triumph over adversity.
Its abstract texture aside, contemporary dance, even with its abstract texture, has often gotten its performing art validation for articulating issues. Some of the 20 works at the 10-day Dance Umbrella 2011 served as a barometer of social issues affecting contemporary South Africa. Take Mamela Nyamza’s solo Shift loosely based on Eudy Simelane, the South African national women’s football team player and lesbian activist, also a victim of corrective rape. The audience is spared Simelane’s brutal end in which she Simelane was gang raped, beaten and stabbed 25 times in the face, legs and chest and then her body was dumped in a creek near her home.
Instead, the athletic Nyamza tones it down to a feisty gymnast who engages the audience, asking them to throw tennis “balls” and badminton shutter “cocks” she dodges with shrieks and screaming. The “phallic” symbolism here could not have been more profound. Works like Cherice Mangiagalli’s Russian and Chips had more shock value than coherent dance grammar. A female dancer walks in holding a tray. On it are a humongous sausage lying between two Irish potatoes on a tray. The statement on domestic violence a la munching the humongous sausage and quashing the potatoes smacks of Lorena Bobbit-ism. The crimson scarf around her neck and the splattering ablution in the bathtub are more effective as anti-gender violence statements.
Race continues to be an issue in post-apartheid South Africa. Redha’s Giselle, set in apartheid South Africa is a spoof on the Immorality Act; the obnoxious piece of legislation that banned mixed marriages. Enchanting dance technique oozes throughout Tshwane Dance Theatre’s coherent story telling about a girl (an awesome ballerina at that) in love with a boy on the opposite side of the colour divide. Sprinklings of spoken word and the signature foot-twisting, knee-buckling township Pantsula dance make Giselle entertaining to watch even for the ballet-phobe.
Dance Umbrella 2011 was also full of treats for the escapist; that patron who delights less in social commentary and more in sensational lighting, extravagant costume, and sculpted, fluid dancing bodies. Mark Hawkins’ Hotel soared here. It likens the human mind to a “Hotel” in which people, thoughts and ideas check-in and checkout. Here a bride shoots her groom on their wedding night, homosexuals canoodle in just their underwear, crossdressing males and leotard-clad, wigged females dance with magnetic cabaret seduction. Hotel steers clear of a preachy social thread to deliver deep poetry, functional retro music and a little culture shock (for the inhibited dance patron).
Perhaps social issues will feature prominently at Dance Week Uganda 2012 with commentary on the Walk to Work protests, the first anniversary of the 2010 Kampala twin World Cup final bombings, the desecration of the prized Mabira forest, et al. Hopefully it will not suffer a funding deficit this time. Vital lessons can be picked from Dance Umbrella, which has to thrive even after a two-decade long support from a principal sponsor ended. At least sideshows like the marathon Fringe and Stepping Stones programme guarantee incubation of young talent that will fly the contemporary dance flag high. That and the benevolence of dance-philes should keep the fire burning. That there is now a proliferation of dance studios in Kampala offering open class tutelage, there may be hope for dance after all even with the continued restriction to the National Theatre as prime dance exhibition space.
MOSES SERUGO ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )