THERE’S NOTHING LIKE a total tonic this late in the year, to give you enough enthusiasm to encourage you that everything’s going to be okay. The Locksmiths Collective, a group of eight local dancers in their work Musical Chairs – back on stage by popular demand at Theatre on the Square in Sandton, until 8 November – is precisely that: good for the heart and soul, spirit and sense of being alive.

And from the get-go, these dancers, who play the whole repertoire of the audience tricks with plants and participation, gestural dialogue and danced emojis that you can call relate to immediately, are on fire. Their limbs work as though they are entities with minds and wills of their own, and their muscles operate like mercury, yet the flow of dance is tight, from the core and performed in satisfying unison. It’s dance that gives music ranging from Amapiano to House and more, physical beats and gestural apostrophes in all the right places.  

Every dance work must tell a story and contemporary dance has a reputation, in this department, for the obscure and deeply serious. In Musical Chairs, you will find stories upon stories, but none that you need to wrinkle your brow over – these are vignettes about games-playing and relationships, about respect and romance, about kasi culture and worldliness — all told with the quick shorthand of the cartoonist, and performed with the sleight of hand and -eye tactics of the clown.

But this is no circus:  The story lines are threaded around and through the choreography, engaging the principles of the parlour game Musical Chairs with levity and earnestness. Campbellocking and Hip Hop jostle in complexity and clarity alongside one another in this work that will keep you focused on every one of these dancers and the language they speak with every muscle and joint. Story threads are cast and dropped in the face of others. The music and steps evoked are as much about popular culture as they are about unstoppable energy that is infectious and beautiful.

You know you need this. Go, now!

• Musical Chairs is directed by Hungani Ndlovu, Sipho Didiza and Aurelie Stratton. Produced by Genesis Shirindza, Aurelie Stratton and Daphne Kuhn, it is written and choreographed by Genesis Shirindza and performed by Ceejay Anthony, Yemimah Jacobs, Omphemetse Kopeledi, Kgothatso Lebeko, Pacou Mutombo, Hungani Ndlovu, Genesis Shirindza, Nicolas Strous, Casey Jade van Wyk and Jordan van Wyk. It is stage managed by Regina Dube assisted by Melidah Thakadu, with technical management by Loftus Mohale assisted by Reggie Mathebe at Theatre on the Square in Sandton, until 8 November 2025.