My pal Marj has gotten quite ill with laryngitis. I spent part of the morning re-booking her ticket so she could delay her return home until tomorrow and skip a visit to Ethiopia.  We were sharing glasses of wine earlier in the week so fingers are crossed that I don’t catch her germs!

I enjoy a final lunch at Lucky Bean with Bamuthi and Hakim Bellamy who has come at Marj’s invitation to learn about the scene here. He is a poet, writer, musician, media maven, youth advocate, and really cool cat. Over lunch he tells us about his adventures yesterday visiting Constitution Hill and Court, getting lost in Hillbrow, one of the toughest neighborhoods downtown, and visiting a super cool library, print shop and media space serving youth.

Hakim & Panaibra

Bamuthi and I relish this rare chance to hang out and talk shop. Now that he is a curator at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts we have even more topics to explore. We have worked together numerous times since we first met at a National Performance Network meeting a bunch of years ago. In April we completed an 18-month series of residencies at Bates that culminated with two performances of “red, black & GREEN: a blues”. This was one of the most challenging production we’ve ever pulled off and one of the best.  B & I have every intention of continuing our collaboration but exactly how that will take shape is yet to be determined.

As I prepare to depart Joburg I am thinking about what surfaced across all these hours of performance. One encouraging change from African dance festivals is the increase in women among the ranks. While they are still a definite minority (maybe 20%) many more women choreographers presented work this year.  Choosing to be a dancer still goes against the acceptable social roles for women on the continent as wives, mothers, and homemakers.  It takes guts to pursue a career in the arts. We saw some promising efforts by Mamela Nyamza, Desire Davids, Fatou Cisse, Gaby  Saranouffi, Julie Iarisoa and Gladys Tchuimo. Let’s hope they keep at it and set an example for more young women to enter the field.

At the Africa Consortium we have made a particular effort to identify and invite women artists for residencies and performances. Our current example is Voices of Strength, a two part program curated by Cathy Zimmerman at MAPP International that features Kettly Noel and Neli Xaba (who were at BDF in 2011), Nadia Beugre (BDF 2009), Maria Helena Pinto and Bouchra Ouizguen.   The program is currently touring around the US accompanied by contextual notes from our partner and dance scholar, Joan Frosch. We are thrilled that the show is getting a fabulous response.

Neli Xaba & Kettly Noel

Another noticeable feature of many performances was a curious lack of light.  Quite a few works began in the near dark and some seemed to stay there.  Some choose to use light very selectively like a beam to move through or in one discreet area of the stage. This was obviously a choice but one I wonder about. i did not have an chance to ask the artists about this.

I have written in previous entries about the visible lack of technical training. Dancers in many parts of Africa simply do not have access to classes or even a place to practice.  Many begin by mimicking dance videos. Vincent Mantsoe and Gregory Maqoma began by copying Michael Jackson videos and look where it got them! This is one of the issues that artists like Germaine, Faustin, Boyzie, Panaibra, Andreya Ouamba, Salia & Sedou and others are actively trying to address by developing training centers and workshops.  Festivals like this one give aspiring dancers something to work towards — a chance to create and perform. Slowly, slowly the field is developing and one hopes there will be more emphasis on choreographic training in the coming years.

So my time in Joburg has come to a close for now with new acquaintances and old friendships renewed. Little by little my understanding  of this beautiful, sophisticated, complex and contemporary African continent is deepening. This place that I have been drawn to all my life is becoming tangible. I feel very lucky.

The morning begins with a nice breakfast made by our incredible jolly and cheerful housemaid, Boingi.  From day one I felt like part of her family.  Then I try to write up our activities from yesterday before its lost.  While my colleagues have been racing around visiting the Apartheid Museum, the African Market, Soweto and Constitution Hall, I have done these things on prior trips so opt for quiet mornings of blogging.

It is my last full day and my pal Vincent, has called to invite me to lunch. I meet him at Sophiatown for a delicious meal of kingclip (fish), rice, squash, spinach and beer. I am delighted to have another visit with him and to continue catching up on our respective lives.  We make tentative plans for him to return to BDF to teach and perform in 2015.  Hopefully some of my US colleagues will want to present his new solos as well.

Vincent & me

After lunch the first performance is Ali Karembe’s “Les Sorciers”. This young Mailian dancer is a formidable physical presence. I noticed him immediately when he showed up on the scene several days ago. A protégé of Kettly Noel (who was at BDF in 2011) this is Ali’s first group piece and it shows promise. What strikes me is his body intelligence and organic way of building movement.  We haven’t seen much of this. The three performers are giving us full body dancing. Much of what we have seen is not very strong technique and not much use of the lower extremities. Ali’s choreography also shows some maturity. He understands transitions (except for one bad one) and puts together a sequence of sections with a wrap at the end that I find satisfying.  Some bits could definitely be edited out but all in all it’s pretty good.

Ali Karembe

Then we’re off to Soweto once again for more performances and a big gala party for the festival sponsor, Total, as we learn driving out. First up in the little blue theater is Fana Tshabalala in “Gates of Hell I”. He is a mesmerizing performer who reminds me a bit of Vincent in his intensity.  Dressed in what looks like stocking material and elastic bands that barely cover his private parts, he offers up a searing and mysterious dance that no one sleeps through.

Fana in “Gates of Hell”

Soweto Terrace

Fana was followed by two, long, uninteresting solos. Then came a quartet from Cameroon by Bertrand Marc Moda Yakana that opened with a beautiful and evocative scene — pools of light each illuminating one dancer with a piece of clothing hanging overhead.  These guys had a more developed movement vocabulary making use of the lower limbs. They employed good use of the stage and a movement thread of full body shaking that repeated through the work. Once again it went on too long.

After a pre-show cocktail hour out on the terrace as the 250 Total employees arrived we got to the main event, PJ Sabbagha’s “One Night Stand”. This was an interesting choice for the sponsor’s evening. I saw this piece in February at the more intimate Wits Theatre. While PJ had tidied it up a bit “One Night Stand” is still a wild, chaotic ride for twelve amazing dancers. This is the kind of full out, release based, upside down dancing we are quite familiar with in the states.  One of the two women is a sleek acrobat with phenomenal extension who gracefully flips around the stage to our astonishment. A small dancer with a Mohawk, Charlie, is a firecracker of a mover doing six pirouettes and flipping in and out of the floor at lightning speed. A dj spins the score in the corner and the dancers trash the stage with paper flowers and clothes that come off and on throughout the piece.  In one hilarious section a drag queen bemoans many unrequited loves, in another the boys try to woo the acrobat smothering her with flowers. Many scenes unfold and fold into one another in this highly entertaining work. I can’t help but wonder what the Total folks thought.

Helen & Annie at the gala

The party continued after the show with a live string quartet and plenty of drinks and finger food. As we were pretty tired we managed to convince, Richard, our driver to take us home. With 14 people stuffed into the transpor,t including a rather drunk Boris, we made our way back to Melville taking the long way so folks could see the “calabash” stadium in Soccer City built for the World Cup in 2010. It is the sight of a big rugby game tomorrow between the world’s two best teams, South Africa and New Zealand. They are expecting 90,000 people.   Would that dance attracted even a fraction of that crowd!

I am beginning to weary from our long days and have opted to miss a few late night performances. One reaches a point where it is just not possible to sit through another overly long and poorly constructed work without breaks to digest and articulate a response or to get a meal. There seems to be quite a lot of dissatisfaction with the current format of the platform. Too much of the work is really not ready for touring and is undermined by the artists efforts to make pieces long enough to meet the time requirements of programmers. Accomplished artists are programmed side by side with very young ones which does not serve either group. The activities have run consistently behind schedule with many changes that cause confusion. Many artists have not gotten the amount of technical rehearsal time they were promised or needed which has added stress to an already tense environment. Organizationally it is not always easy to discern who is responsible for what and stitches keep getting missed but nothing major. I sincerely hope the organizers will be open to feedback and will consider ways to strengthen to festival in coming years.

On a more positive note it has been wonderful to mingle with such a large group of African artists and European and US presenters. I have had time to visit with some of my US colleagues and get to know them better.  There is much lively conversation and exchange in between the performances.

Martin Wechsler, Kyle Abraham & Carla Peterson

Today we began at Dance Factory at 3pm and then moved on to Soweto. Of note was Moektsi Koena & Haja Saranouffi’s piece, “Just We”. Koena attended BDF in 1997 and I haven’t seen him since so it was a real pleasure to reconnect.  He moved to Madagascar nine years ago where he and Gaby Saranouffi run an annual arts festival that brings artists from across the globe. “Just We” incorporate a dj, a pile of clothes and wigs that were changed in and out of throughout the piece, a ceiling hung with many microphones that are batted abou,t and effective lighting to define scenic changes and sections. It was great to see Moektsi dance again after all these years. He is a vibrant spirit with a good sense of humor. The piece was funny, well put together and nicely danced.

Just We

We also saw a sparse, post-modern quartet by four recent graduates of P.A.R.T.S. who hail from Tunisia and Morocco. The structure was smart and efffective. The tone was distinctly different from much of the other work we are seeing.

I may be leaving something out here and there because they scrambled the schedule so much that the booklet is no longer accurate and I didn’t have the sense to write down the new order of what we saw.

Soweto Theatre

Bamuthi, Marya Wethers & Marj Neset in Soweto Theatre

Back in Soweto (a 30 minute drive without traffic) we saw a work by Boris Ganga Bouetoumousssa  that was interminably long and felt quite manipulative of the audience, as well as two others works that are scrambled in my brain!

Last night we did not have the stamina to make it back to Wits Art Museum for a work entitled “Penis Politics” by Thabiso Pule and Thami Manekehla. Those who attended said that for Johannesburg it was quite bold and daring.   Choreography for and by the penis–in full frontal view, nothing less! Certainly helped to shake things up a bit.

We began the day at Dance Space attending an incredibly informative discussion. The first section led by dance writer, Adrienne Sichel, focused on the history and development of South Africa dance which is the basis of her newly completed book that we all hope will find a publisher soon! Worth mentioning is the fact that not until the 90′s were there policies in place to allow/support dance participation and activities by black South African artists. It was acknowledged that, as is so in the US and elsewhere, the younger generation often does not learn about the history and context of the forms they practice. This was an effort to establish context for everyone in the room and stress the need to disseminate historical information more broadly.

Speakers at Network Talk

Carla Peterson and Marj Neset at the discussion

Attending were artists of all ages as well as programmers from Europe. The conversation moved on to the importance, and many failed attempts, to establish an enduring dance network. Several efforts were referenced that have not survived. At issue were the problems of artists not being willing to work on behalf of the larger good of the whole arts community, not being able to agree on strategy, and not being able to muster the extra energy required to keep up the fight, among others. Everyone seemed to agree that the lack of funding was a major challenge to moving any initiative forward.  Impassioned pleas were made for the community to join forces to advocate for the performing arts sector noting that ONLY if people join together do they have the power to effect change. There was an obvious sense of frustration that the dance community was very fractured and a united front has not been established. Several individuals shared existing network models such as Arterial Network and IETM that might be taken advantage of.  European and US attendees chimed in that these problems are not unique to South Africa but that we have each faced the challenge of finding agreement in order to advance a cause. Many excellent comments were added to the discussion including Germain Acogny’s that “poverty is big business” and it is imperative to show the other side of Africa to the world — one of  beauty and richness, one that is intelligent, innovative and contemporary. To combat the  images of the media that only shows war, poverty and despair.

Hakim Bellamy takes notes

Today was a big day for our small Africa Consortium contingent as we convened a meeting over lunch with some of our artists partners (Boyzie Cekwana, Panaibra Gabriel, Faustin Linyekula, and his wife, Virginie) to visit, learn of everyone’s recent activities and discuss potential next steps for the consortium. Sadly we were missing several of our partners (Opiyo Okach, Neli Xaba, Gregory Maqoma, Cathy Zimmerman-MAPP International, Ken Foster-Yerba Buena, Vivian Philips-Seattle Theater, Shay Wafer-651 Arts, Joan Frosch-University of Florida-Gainesville, and Philip Bither-Walker Art Center). But Marc Bamuthi Joseph (now curator of performing arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts), and Mamela Nyamza joined us for the first time.

Africa Consortium gathering

Every time I have an opportunity to meet and listen to these amazing artists (and my esteemed colleagues) I learn more about their interests and point of view, their strategies for achieving their goals despite very challenging conditions, and their incredible perseverance and commitment to their home communities. Each are building infrastructure to support and grow contemporary dance and sustainable communities in Kisangani (Congo), Maputo (Mozambique), and Durban (South Africa). Many more efforts are underway across Africa.  The rub is that nearly all the support to realize these projects comes from Europe often with desired outcomes attached. Most commonly the Europeans seems to be interested in investing in the development of work for export.  Our artist colleagues noted their strong interest in seeing the direction of this flow reverse so that work is being made for African audiences and a system for touring it on the continent comes into being.

From our meeting we headed off to Wits Theatre to see Vincent Mantsoe perform his newest solo, “Skwatta” (meaning camps). No one inhabits the stage the way Vincent does nor embodies the story/character/aura/spirit of the work. He is unique among performers. We bear witness as he travels to another world and back again. His intent and focus are transmitted through every fiber of his being. His movement has a sharpness and clarity that is remarkable. As we watch time is suspended and we enter a rare world with him. The local audience seems delighted to have their hometown star on stage and showed their appreciation.

Then we shuttled back to Newtown to the bus factory for a site performance by Sello Pesa that took place on a main thoroughfare. Mind you it was 5pm rush hour. The audience lined up on one side of the street in front of an abandoned lot while a cast of proper ladies and gents sat in chairs across the way listening to a formal and vacuous speech on urban renewal being recited over and over again. Near the end of the piece a fancy black car pulled up to take the speaker away. Meanwhile Sello and another dancer proceeded to roll out into the street, run through traffic, drag 50 gallon oil barrels across the road,  and generally put us all on edge. It was hard to watch. A third dancer in a motorcycle helmet rolled his head up and down  along a wall that bordered the sidewalk. After awhile this actually lost its agency and we wandered off for the next show at Dance Factory.

Sello Pesa Performing in the street

Sello Pesa cast

Germaine Acogny & Helmut watching the show

It was another very long day of dance watching and we returned to Melville very late and starving. Fortunately we were able to persuade one 7th street restaurant kitchen to reopen and feed us all. So pasta at 12:30pm and straight to bed, ugh! 7th St is the one commercial street in our cool neighborhood. Its lined with bars, restaurants and shops and all of six blocks long. Its a real scene on the weekends with the bass pounding into the wee hours.

me, Marj, a French friend and Kyle

On a few of our days we were able to carve out time for lunch at our favorite restaurant, The Lucky Bean, which serves divine food and wine. Fortunately our mornings were sometimes free. Otherwise I would not have written a word.  As it is I am having trouble keeping up and remembering what we saw from day to day.