cion; requiem of ravel’s bolero

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cion; requiem ofravel’s boleroGregory MaqomaVuyani Dance Theatre

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Interview Gregory Maqoma

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dates & running time Fri 21 June 2019, 8.30 pmSat 22 June 2019, 8.30 pm

venue Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Grote Zaal

running time 1 hour 10 minutesno interval

languageZulu, English

introduction by Bart Luirink7.45 pm

The Welcome Table – Afropean Sat 22 June, 12 pmInternationaal Theater Amsterdam

Listening Party: Eddy de Clercq Sat 22 June, 10 pmInternationaal Theater Amsterdam

credits

choreography, dance Gregory Maqoma

supporting movement analyst, dramaturgyShanell Winlock

rehearsal assistantLulu Mlangeni

musical direction, compositionNhlanhla Mahlangu

composition assistantXolisile Bongwana

costumesBlackCoffee

set design, technical directionOlivier Hauser

lightMannie Manim

propsWesley Mabizela

soundNtuthuko Mbuyazi

sound engineer apprenticeKatleho Mokgothu

dancersOtto Andile Nhlapo, Roseline Wilkens, Thulisile Binda, Smangaliso Ngwenya, Katleho Lekhula, Itumeleng Tsoeu, Lungile Mahlangu, Ernest Balene, Nathan Botha

musiciansThabang Mkhwanazi, Sbusiso Shozi, Simphiwe Bonongo, Xolisile Bongwana

productionVuyani Dance Theatre

coproductionThe Market Theatre

founded byThe National Lotteries Commission

media partnerCreative Feel

media sponsorshipKaya FM

author of CionZakes Mda

wereldpremiere24 May 2017Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa

websiteVuyani Dance Theatre

interview GreGory maqoma

by Karen Welling

Art is Gregory Vuyani Maqoma’s way of reacting on the way peo-ple interact with each other. In his production of Cion; Requiem of Ravels Bolero, the South African choreographer and dancer examines the recent dark history of his native country. In the 80’s and 90’s the abolishment of Apartheid and the establishment of democracy was accompanied by violence and a large number of deaths. This period is the context for the 1995 novel Ways of Dying by South African author Zakes Mda. The novel’s protagonist, Toloki, is a professional mourner who goes from funeral to funeral to offer consolation to the stricken families. Just over a decade later Toloki featured again in Mda’s novel Cion, which is set in the United States where the professional mourner is now based because of ‘the lack of interesting deaths in a South Africa that has become a stable society’. This Toloki is the central character of Maqoma’s adaptation of Cion. The music of Ravel’s most fa-mous composition, the Bolero, is performed by four Isicathamiya-

singers, replacing the usual instrumentation. The music offers the pulse for a compelling performance, a lament for the departed souls. At the same time Cion is an optimistic work that counters the dark cloud, giving us the hope that humanity still exist.

Gregory Maqoma knows the Netherlands very well. He’s a regular visitor for over twenty years now, and more than that: Amsterdam is the only city in the world, besides Johannesburg, where he would consider living. He got to know the city as open and tolerant and with a broad interest in other cultures. A city offering opportunities for those looking for them. And he knows the Netherlands well enough to add with some restraint: ‘although things may be different nowadays with this government’. In the nineties Maqoma came over for the first time, as a dancer in the South African company Moving into Dance Mophatong. In subsequent years he and his own dance company, Vuyani Dance Theatre, were regular guests at most of the Dutch festivals, such as Holland Dance Festival and Julidans. Moreover, from 2004 to 2010 he was responsible for the Dutch Afrovibes festival, and he is still associated as dance advisor with this festival. He is ‘honoured and humble’ to be part of the Holland Festival this year, and with no less than three of his own productions – Beautiful Me, Requiem Request and Cion; Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero. On top of that, he is the choreographer of this year’s opening show, The Head & The Load.

You take a distinguished position in this year’s festival, as some sort of intermediate between the two associate artists, William Kentridge and Faustin Linyekula. You collaborated with both.

‘They are both artists I hugely admire. With Faustin I come a long way. First time I met him was in 1996 in Kenya, where he was in exile. Faustin is very unapologetic in terms of his artistic inten-tions. And this is something that I really like about him: his staying true to his place of birth in Congo, Kinshasa, but also very strongly rooted to the continent, and at the same time being a global cit-izen. He deals very much directly with the issues of his country, of himself being exiled, issues about names and how names become part of your identity and really define your history. Faustin’s name had to be changed three times, because of whoever was in power in Congo, decided what names were no longer acceptable and had to be changed. By acknowledging all those histories, all the past – which is what I share with him – we are also acknowledging centuries of our own histories.’

‘Our choreographic aesthetics are very different though. I think in terms of our research processes, there are similarities: we both dive a lot into research, into understanding and reading and researching the subject matter. But the outcome is very different. We started working together in 2000 in Vienna on a work called Tales of the Mud Wall. My interpretation of this work was through movement. I love moving in the space, engulfing the space, allow-ing the body to be the point of reference in terms of the move-ment vocabulary. For Faustin it’s in the naming, it’s in the words, in the imagery; it is less of the movement that is important, but more of the images that he creates. In this work he didn’t move at all. Interestingly he created an image of him carrying a lightbulb on his back and he stood there for about an hour. That was such a strong image that said so many things. So that’s where the differ-ences are. Tales of the Mud Wall is the work that really cemented our relationship and I kept on inviting him back to South Africa, either to collaborate with me or to teach and to work and we con-tinued our relationship in that way.’

‘Working with William was for The Head and the Load, but I’ve al-ways known about William Kentridge. I was first introduced to the work of the Handspring Puppet Company and I knew of his char-

coil drawings and his films. I was always intrigued by him. He has a way of taking subject matters and bringing them to life. When he started The Centre for the Less Good Idea, I was one of the first people he invited to curate the first season. Requiem Request started in the Centre. I decided to dig in the music of Ravel’s Bolero for I felt strongly that the music was very close to the struc-ture and the sense of infinity of the music that is created in the traditional African setting; where there is a sense of sitting around a fire or dancing around a fire. The music gave me also the sense of a requiem, a lament. I now wanted to bring it into the context of African traditional music and to use voices in order to create this requiem. In honor of those who died. I was also relating it to an incident that happened in my country, the shooting and killing of the miners.* One of the people who was responsible is our current president. It was in his mine that this happened. I wanted to make a lament for the departed souls of those that died in our country for simply voicing their own political views – those polit-ical views only demanding some quality of life. After 25 years of democracy I wondered what had changed. During the Apartheid government the movement of the people of the homeland was to dig gold, to dig diamonds, materials they would never own. And today that is still the case. So I selected a group of singers that are actually coming from the homeland, in Johannesburg seeking opportunities. The singers still live in shacks, under conditions that are appalling. I still grieve for them, for that change in our coun-try. I grieve for those who died trying to change the conditions.

That feeling of empathy, of being interested in the other, andfascinated by the choices people make, was something Maqomagrew up with. He describes Soweto, Johannesburg, where he wasborn, as a cultural melting pot. He lived quite close to a hostelwhich housed migrant workers from different parts in SouthAfrica. He used to watch their traditional dance forms and gotintrigued by both similarities and differences in terms of culturesand traditions. Even before he started his formal dance training,he was dancing in the streets, together with Vincent Mantsoe, thechoreographer who then lived in the same township. They were

* (The Marikana massacre started as a wildcat strike at a mine owned by Lonmin. On the afternoon of 16 August 2012 members of a contingent of the South African Police Service, opened fire with assault rifles on a group of strikers. Within minutes 34 miners were killed, and at least 78 were wounded. From his position on the board of Lonmin, former union leader Cyril Ramaphosa could have argued for a better deal for the workers, but instead agued for the police to move in. In a message to fellow directors he insisted on concomitant action to address the situation.)

already fusing styles, taking the pop culture of that time on televi-sion – Michael Jackson, George Michael – and mixing it with whatthey were picking up of the traditional dance in the streets.’

What is the role of music in your work?

‘The music, the body, the senses; you cannot separate the one from the other. It’s what you hear, it’s what the body reacts to, what produces then the movement. Music is very much part of who we are. It defines the pulse of the nation, it is the energy source of my work. But also, I use music not just as an element of rhythm; it is in itself a statement, it is in itself an extension of what I can’t describe in the body. The music is able to capture these emotions, and translate those emotions.You worked in Requiem Request together with an Isicathamiya-choir.* In what way did you develop this Request into Cion; Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero?

I took my inspiration from Toloki, a professional mourner, from the books of the South African writer Zakes Mda. I read Ways of Dying a long time ago, and when I was thinking about making Requiem

* (Isicathamiya is a harmony based type of singing, developed bymigrant Zulu communities, which can be best compared to a cappella. Isicathamiya choirs are traditionally all male. Its roots reach back before the turn of the 20th century, when numerous men left the homelands in order to search for work in the cities.)

Request, I came across Cion. It fascinated me, that character of Toloki digging into the history of South African politics of the 80’s and 90’s, but also in the post-Apartheid era. He travels to the US and comes across the history of the runaway slaves. As an exten-sion of Requiem Request, I took the subject of death, again as a form of lament, and brought the histories of American slaves into the histories of Africans, who are now enslaved in today’s modern history. They are enslaved by the powers that be, they are en-slaved by greed, by the inhuman nature of our leaders today. How we have always been professional mourners, how we always, in our black history, had to mourn. Still, Cion is really about: let’s hold on for a moment, let’s pause for a moment, let’s think about who we are. What is our contribution to this world, what is my action and what is the repercussion of my actions to the other?’

South African dancer, choreographer and teacher Gregory Vuyani Maqoma (1973) is regarded as one of the most talented creative artists of his generation. He grew up in Soweto, and first starteddancing in the late 1980s, as a way of es-caping the growing political tensions of his birth-place. He started his formal dance training in 1990, with Moving into Dance Mophatong, and in 1994 won the FNM Vita Pick of the Fringe prize for his first choreo-graphic creation for this company. In 1999 he was awarded a scholarship for further studies at P.A.R.T.S. with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. In the same year he also founded his own dance company, the Vuyani Dance Theatre. His career really took off after this and many prizes and awards followed, including in 1999, 2001 and 2002 the FNB Vita Choreographer of the Year award, and in 2006 and 2007 the Gauteng MEC Award for Beautiful Us and Beautiful Me. In 2012 he received the Tunkie Award for Leadership in Dance and in 2014 the New York City Bessie

Award for Dance. In 2017 he was the recipient of the prestigious French title of Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Maqoma enjoys collaborating with other artists, and has frequently done so, for example with Akram Khan and the London Sinfonietta, singer-songwriter Simphiwe Dana, and the theatrical creator Brett Bailey. Maqoma was an associate artistic director of Moving Into Dance Mophatong and the Dance Umbrella festival, and from 2004 to 2010 was re-sponsible for the Dutch Afrovibes festival. Gregory Maqoma is performing at the Holland Festival 2019 in his own chore-ographic pieces Beautiful Me, Requiem Request and Cion: A Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero. He is also the choreographer of this year’s opening show, The Head & The Load.

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