Zinobulali Goduka

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THERE IS AFRICAN contemporary dance theatre and then there is Gregory Maqoma, a choreographer who has the courage to flip the form and slash it into multiple yummy pieces that only he can serve. You will be in awe. Maqoma’s Genesis: The Beginning and End of Time, is a dance opera which performs at the Joburg Theatre until 21 March 2026.

Maqoma’s work has a tendency to leave you trembling in anguish. It’s an experience you might not be able to rationally find the vocabulary to describe. How could it be possible to say so much with just music and movement? Maybe Genesis will lead you to the source of the hurricane of emotions typical of this choreographer. Maybe it will lead you deeper. 

Maqoma has a way of pulling at your heart with an image that should be relatively ‘normal’, but, gosh, the cultural motifs paired with live music slow cooked in the pulses of the dancers, give you no choice but to weep. 

The multi-layered set evokes an altarpiece but serves as pragmatic platforms for live musicians. White drapes fall, doubling up as a surtitle surface, lending English readership to an isiXhosa and Arabic script.

But then there are the costumes. If Maqoma’s use of lace in his work Cion triggered you emotionally, bring tissues for Genesis. You may be reduced to a pile of mush in the face of the relentless beauty in the wise and astounding use of lace.

This production’s look and feel is very grounded in text: the drapery, the scrolls, the colours feel like you are in a world of words embodied. Imagine yourself walking in paths and walkways that are the gaps between sentences. And that text is diverse, reaching from the Bible to the work of Karthika Naïr and that of Nhlanhla Mahlangu, for instance. It’s a script which palpably smashes the idea of revolution against colonialism and subjugation. The production emphasises the tendency of the human race to heal and renew the body, the spirit and the collective. 

The heightened contrast of western Opera and African folklore genres is a tonic. The talented cast carries you into sonic highs and lows, reverberations and screeches with textures and tones, with celebratory passion.

The production does feel a little like a box-checking exercise in terms of the wide range of genres that feature, however. It’s a very big show that sits well on the proscenium and opens its heart at you.

• Genesis: The Beginning and End of Time is directed and choreographed by Gregory Maqoma. Produced by Gregory Maqoma Industries and Kgopolo Kgoma, it features creative input by Karthika Naïr (librettist), Shanell Winlock Pailman (movement analyst); Nhlanhla Mahlangu (musical direction); Oliver Hausa (lighting); Willy Cessa (set); Blackcoffee (costumes); Barry Strydom (props and stage management); Katlehlo Lekhula (props and rehearsal stage management); and Seanclere Hlongwane (sound engineering). It is performed by (musicians): Bongiwe ‘Mthwakazi’ Lusizi, Anelisa Phewa, Anelisa ‘Annalyzer’ Stuurman’ and Yogin Sullaphen; and (dancers): Nathan Botha, Gilbert Goliath, Monicca Magoro, Thabang Mdlalose, Noko Moeketsi, Tshepo Molusi and Roseline Wilkens and is onstage at the Mandela Theatre, Joburg Theatre complex in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, until 22 March 2026.

• This review was premised on Genesis’s season at the Pam Golding Theatre, in the Baxter Theatre complex, in Rondebosch, Cape Town during February of 2026.

• Zinobulali Goduka was a participant in an arts writing masterclass presented by TheatreArts in Cape Town under the initiative of Caroline Calburn and the mentorship of Megan Choritz, Yazeed Kamaldien and Robyn Sassen, January-March 2026.

• Goduka performs her work Beyond the Body, at the POPArts Theatre in Parkhurst, Johannesburg during April of 2026. It is a 12-minute piece, part of the theatre’s Mother Tongue festival, and concerns an ailing twin who seeks to exhume her brother’s remains and transport them to her homeland, but she is barred by property laws of the owner of the land where he is buried. She is racing against time with her health and that of those who are holding her brother’s historical bones hostage.