LIKE BEETHOVEN’S FIFTH Symphony or Van Gogh’s ear, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake has become iconic in a very broad understanding of what western culture is. Go to anyone in the street and competently whistle the tune of the Song of the Cygnets and they will know what you’re on […]
WHEN YOU ENTER the theatre, you might be full of frissons of excitement contingent on the promises of Fire and Ice, the name of this double bill danced by Joburg Ballet. As the works unfold, you might feel oddly let down. At best, the ice you will experience […]
BOOKS AND THEIR inflammable contents, the perennially absent South African father, and unleashing the wrath of decolonised feminist fury are the issues central to the works staged by Themba Mbuli in Dance Umbrella, earlier this month. Mbuli’s topics are hot and relevant and the presentation is clear and […]
SOMETIMES A WORK reaches your sensibilities in an ineffable way, giving voice to your most secret and unuttered notions of the rawness of loss, love and letting go. Sometimes that work can touch all those nerves and succeed in being so supremely beautiful and wistfully unhinged that you […]
THE TROUBLING TRUTHS of the prevalence of the selfie and the way in which contemporary society is so deeply focused on its cell phones is something that has been pondered by thinkers and hacks alike. Social media seems to be here to stay, and it’s pulling our values […]
LET US BOMBARD our audience with flashing lights, a small dark venue simmering with the residue of stage smoke as they come in, and bits and bobs of sampled sound, thrown at them with such aggression that the context is illegible and the synapses of their brains forget […]
COMPLETE WITH FEATHERS and upside down books, disabled dancers and movement evocative of ancient African dance traditions, to say nothing of their own, Moving Into Dance Mophatong presented itself on Dance Umbrella this year, with due aplomb and an earnest attempt at a snap shot of life, the […]
YOU NEED QUITE a tough stomach and heart to sit in the audience of Sello Pesa’s Bag Beatings, a work, which on one level is the most articulate and astute comment, so far, on the imminent demise of Dance Umbrella. It’s an angry work premised on extreme violence, […]
ONCE AGAIN, FEMINISM is de rigueur in our society and young women espousing these values emphatically believe themselves to be the first of their kind, as they spearhead a wave of political correctness in behaviour and talk. But what of the men? Fana Tshabalala throws some choreographic light […]
CONTEMPORARY POLISH COMPOSER Krzysztof Penderecki is known for, amongst other things, the bravery – or madness — to allow performers freedom of diverse expression within a defined rubric. So, in works of his which deal with issues such as witch hunts and nuclear bombs, for instance, you get […]
Geoff Sifrin
Robyn Sassen
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