Neli Xaba in her Kliptown installation performance as part of X Homes Johannesburg
Bristow, in the Market Theatre Foyer, at Dance Umbrella, and her choreographed solo, eleve(i)ate 2 in Grahamstown and at the Drama for Life Sex Actually Festival; Thabo Rapoo’s striking Afrofusion ballet Batsumi for Moving Into Dance Mophatong; Acty Tang’s totally engaging autobiographical installation Inscrutable about his Chinese identity on the NAF Main programme; Mamela Nyamza’s conceptually daring Mendi for Jazzart Theatre trainees at Dance Umbrella and Cherice Mangiagalli’s gender swiveling, The Place of the Wo(Man) for the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company men. The prize for the most outrageous shows goes to Mark Hawkins and director Robert Whitehead for the revival of the drag dance spoof Doo Bee Boobies (at the Joburg Theatre Fringe) and I Have Nothing To Wear! The Anti Fashion Show (also featuring Neli Xaba and Toni Morkel) at South African Fashion Week, in Johannesburg. Landmark events were GIPCA’s ‘pre-post-per-form’ colloquium, and performances focusing on interdisciplinary performance and performance art in February; the French Institute of South Africa collaborative, Crossings – the international artistic residency facilitated by Vincent Sekwati Koko Mantsoe and Michel Kelemenis, which twinned choreographers and dancers with composers and lighting designers at The Dance Factory in late July; and the Goethe-Institut and Dance Forum’s national ‘Dance Archive’ workshop in October.
Image Nadine Hutton
“2010 was another watershed year” This was in fact a red letter year for collaborations. High on the list is Gregory Maqoma’s Blue Blood (commissioned by the Afrovibes Festival in the Netherlands), a workshopped interaction between legendary Durban musicians Bafo Bafo (Syd Kitchen and Madala Kunene) and Vuyani Dance Theatre dancers, Luyanda Sidiya and Shawn Mothupi. The most accomplished venture was Jay Pather’s Quaphela Caesar! – A Multimedia Massacre of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (born out of the director- choreographer’s 2009 Donald Gordon Creative Award) presented by GIPCA. While the Cape Town City Hall was a frame for the 2010 Spier Contemporary Art exhibition (co-curated by Pather) this historic building became a full-on participant in installation performances in 14 rooms from 18 to 22 September. Layer upon layer of astutely crafted irony, fuelled by our socio-political history, conceptually brilliant African-inspired aesthetics and potent metaphors came alive through the architecture in tandem with the intelligent bodies of Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, Jazzart Dance Theatre, actors Mwenya Kabwe and Mark Hoeben and students from the University of Cape Town schools of dance and opera. This was the perfect way to end a year of inventive dance making. CF