Connections

 

 

Cathy

Cathy Zimmerman, Ken Foster, Laura Faure, Joan Frosch, Philip Bither, Vivian Phillips, Shay Wafer and Marjorie Neset—The Africa Contemporary Dance Consortium (TACAC) U.S. representatives—all arts professionals in some fashion: administrators of centers and festivals—big and small, urban and almost rural; writers; curators; scholars.

Gregory and Phillip

The link that brings us all to a meeting in Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa is our common desire to understand, in deep and personal ways, what it is to make art in a place far from our familiar U.S. territory. And, as importantly, to develop authentic friendships with artists from this continent, that weave through our personal and professional lives in profound and joyful threads.

Shay

 Three of TACAC’s African affiliates join us for this meeting: Boyzie Cekwana, Gregory Maqoma and Nelisiwe Xaba, all South African artists of intelligence, originality and talent. Affiliates from Congo/DRC, Mozambique and Kenya were absent in person but offered thoughtful input via Cathy Zimmerman.

Laura

 It is a long way here—14 to 30+ hours depending on your starting point. We arrive jet-lagged, immediately leaping  into the striking and stimulating new work we have come far to see. Which activates sufficient adrenaline to get us through those first hours and days!

Boyzie and Neli

 In our informal but intense meetings we address issuesboth resolvable and not! It is truthful to say that our motives for being here are pure.

Joan

In other words it really is about friendship and deepening our understanding of each others’ cultures and work—no rewards of prestige or money accompany these relationships.

Vivian

 Of course we hope that our coming together will result in increased exchanges of art and ideas between African artists and our U.S. communities and, ultimately, between artists from both continents traveling, making and sharing work and becoming friends and ambassadors in a rapidly expanding global community.

Cathy & Marj

 But there is something more we talk about at our meetings and over subsequent coffees and lunches—what is it about these particular friendships that make them so important to us?

Ken...first day jet lag

Definitely a deeply-held, but frequently unacknowledged, desire to cross cultural lines, proving to ourselves and others that we really do share a common humanity.

Certainly a level of admiration for African friends’ determination to make work that is artistically powerful and original—and that also addresses issues of personal, community and global concern.  

To catch the bus

Always pursuing our curiosity about how environment manifests itself in artistic creation?

 We all share fun and laughter, wine and food—and our friendships deepen—and we all renew our commitment to dance and global citizenship.

 

History–Danced

Evening in Jo’burg

History and politics and protest should be, can be, always will be at the heart of meaningful art—including dance. This week at Dance Umbrella, the traditional Reed Dance is reconsidered, Julius Caesar revisited and Chief Maqoma remembered. Remarkable!

Near Market Theatre

 Dance Umbrella has nurtured, encouraged and presented the best of South African contemporary dance since 1989 as well as hosting important international companies. Through  the most tumultuous years one can imagine for any country the festival has continued to showcase the internationally acclaimed talents of South African dance, make South Africans proud of their dancing sons and daughter and open the eyes of the world to this pool of innovation and originality in dance. Congratulations to everyone!

Nelisiwe Xaba

 UNCLES AND ANGELS: The festival opened with Nelisiwe Xaba and Mocke J Van Veuren and an interactive dance/video work titled Uncles & Angels. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Xaba’s work would not have expected this piece to be about pudgy celestials and their kindly old uncles. And in that sense she did not surprise!

 According to Xaba, Uncles and Angels “explores questions of chastity, virginity testing, purity, and tradition…” focusing on the traditional Reed Dance as practiced for both tourist dollars and political gain in KwaZulu-Natal and Swaziland. Uncles and Angels is a dance of protest about girls and the antiquated rites that encourage sexual predators and an unrealistic approach to one of South Africa’s main social issues, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS.

Neli

 Xaba does dance like an angel, albeit a slightly wicked one. She is an elegant feminist whose powerful presence is extended and magnified through the stunning videography of Van Veuren.

Gregory Maqoma

 EXIT/EXIST: Gregory Maqoma is never afraid to tell stories, both personal and political. And in so doing he dances a fine line of literality versus abstraction. Everyone has an information threshold… “Too much information” has become a common phrase. For some pure abstraction is preferable. However Exit/Exist is NOT an abstraction to be viewed through a purely personal or a determinedly detached lens. It is a story about somebody and something to which the viewer should pay attention.  

 Exit/Exist is the historical and familial tale of Chief Maqoma, Gregory Maqoma’s ancestor. While the theatrical accoutrements of storytelling are all about, they never overwhelm the strong, pure, beautiful dance and music of Gregory and his collaborators.

Gregory

  Chief Maqoma and the Xhosa nation battled the English over land and cattle, wanting their existence to be about more than simply existing. The Chief’s fight for freedom for his people moved the cause forward then and now his descendent, a dancer, continues the struggle to make all African voices heard.

 The music performed by the group, Complete, feels like it represents decades or even centuries of voices raised in hope and protest.

 I hope Gregory Maqoma never stops being the dancer in his dances. I can see him at 75, still completely mesmerizing in these remarkable solos with music as the equal partner to the dance—the story never overwhelming but never missing either.

 QAPHELA CAESAR! Is a big dashing dance opera of which Julius Caesar would surely have approved.  It was performed in the Old Stock Exchange Market Hall which gave it just the right aura of self-importance (in a good way!) and encouraged hectic over-the-top behavior and emoting.

 Jay Pather, director and choreographer, is making a political statement as well as revisiting this classic tale as an always great framework for creative storytelling. He says, “My interest lies in the tension between the ‘Caesar’ and ‘Brutus’ characters, representing the good fight of the past and the political expediency of the present…”

 Qaphela Caesar is full of confusion and contradiction but one is always curious about the next evolution of character and setting and action—never taking anything for granted based on previous familiarity with the story.

Work ... and then more dance

 One test of any work is whether it engages you in spite of jet lag. I can attest to the fact that these three pieces easily overcame any tendency to lag. EXCELLENT FIRST WEEKEND.

Stamped!

Only 112 to go

Lesotho: Country #84 on my world tour. Remember the rules (to count a country as having been visited) are that you must have read at least the Wikipedia description of what your new passport stamp represents; travel around on that country’s surface roads or streets or tracks or paths for a few hours; eat something local (like the Lay’s potato chips from an authentic Lesotho service station where you also use the facilities); and take photos.

Road to Lesotho

 It is not that hard although it does take some time and money. But along the way you will likely have the experiences that stay around in your memory long after any particular flight, hotel or special cuisine has faded into oblivion.

 

Left early!

 

 Yesterday, Lawrence Kwinda, who owns and operates Kwinda Tours and has become a friend over our trips to Johannesburg and Dance Umbrella, drove me to Maseru, a most undistinguished town, just across the border in the Kingdom of Lesotho, a peculiar little enclave totally within South African borders.

Rainy morning road trip. YES

 It was a 14-hour day mostly in the car, snacking on road food, and viewing many miles of South African and a couple of hours of Lesotho countryside. A day not so different from any of my 12-15 hour drives to San Diego or Minnesota.

Please be patient...

 Except that my passport is now just a little weightier and, Lawrence being a prolific historian, ethnographer and storyteller, I am far more engaged in and knowledgeable about the past and present of South African people and places.

In the car--through the countryside

 The drive from Johannesburg to Lesotho is pleasant, the scenery mid-America-like with flat or gently rolling cornfields and cattle ranges. We crossed the Vaal River and the adjoining Transvaal countryside and Lawrence pointed out markers of Afrikaner history which are prominent in this part of the country. While wisely not throwing away an often painful past, South Africans are busily locating and studying the original South Africa of the Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, Ndebele, etc. When these accounts are fully incorporated into the already thoroughly documented Dutch/ British/Afrikaans narration and the stories of this last astonishing century then the magnificent tapestry that is South Africa will be complete. It’s not at all dissimilar from what we are doing in the States at the insistence of Native Americans whose history is finally on the road to being acknowledged and appreciated.

Sometimes it's all a blur

 Even if one has a general interest in history, what makes it all immediate is connecting a friend or acquaintance or family member or hero with a time and place—linking past and present. In this case, Lawrence, but also through one of the artists here—more about that later.

 

Lawrence--grand storyteller and historian

 The history that became real to me was that of the Lemba tribe or Black Jews of South Africa of which Lawrence is a member. The Lemba have traditions completely unlike any other African tribes or ethnic groups and similar to many aspects of Jewish culture. I only had the vaguest of knowledge of this and now suddenly I know someone from this most mysterious and fascinating of people. If you’re curious here’s a good link: African Lemba Tribe – eNotes.com   

Golden Gate National Park

 The almost six hour drive to Lesotho was packed with Lawrence’s stories of his life and times, becoming a successful entrepreneur while exploring his own background and celebrating the political and social changes in South Africa. Doesn’t get any better than a road trip with road food (potato chips and yogurt drinks) and good stories.

 

Into Lesotho

 

 The little piece of Lesotho we managed to experience consisted of the miles between one check point and the next which was in the city of Maseru. While we enjoyed the assortment of green hills, rocky outcroppings and modest red cliffs, the real sights of the Kingdom were obviously in those distant mountain ranges. That is always the problem isn’t it? So many inviting skylines, so little time.

And just on the other side lies.........

 Lesotho is a poor country with a huge HIV/AIDS problem and the disparities between it and its huge rich neighbor on all sides, South Africa, is apparent the minute the border is crossed. It seems the big attraction in Maseru is gambling with the main cultural attractions being casinos!  Since it was Sunday the Visitors’ Center was closed as were the nearby restaurants so our visit to Maseru was short.

Maseru

 Back home through Bloemfontein and a look at its quiet Sunday streets and into Johannesburg, tired but happy. A new stamp in the passport, good stories and feeling of being a little more connected to the land of South Africa.

Outside of Bloemfontein, commemorating the horses of a particular battle/war

One Night Stands

 

Looking for George...

LAST NIGHT: I spent last night with a very pleasant Chinese man. We shared two meals and slept for seven hours only inches apart. Our communication was fairly typical for encounters of this kind: we exchanged the basic pleasantries early on and then had a brief, slightly more intimate, exchange upon our leave-taking. I did not detect any sociopathic tendencies during our hours together, only an endearing trait that makes him a real sleep-mate—he sleeps with his head covered. I am rather looking forward to tonight. Another night, another man—or woman as the case may be. Meals, intimate exchanges, sleep. Alas this did not happen—three seat configuration in this very nice Airbus, shared by a German couple who spoke—German!  The closeness, the intimacy—all gone.

He was not waiting for me in Economy

 LOOKING FOR GEORGE: Life on the road…me and George. I keep searching for him…in every airport…in all the world…hoping that there he’ll be—right over there in that waiting area or standing in line at Security or picking up a yogurt and a Herald Tribune at that kiosk. And maybe, just maybe, tonight I’ll be with him. Although with a million frequent flyer miles I don’t suppose he’s traveling economy class! Damn, seems I missed him altogether on this trip.

Frankfurters in Frankfurt

 WIENIE TOURIST: I’m in the cozy restaurant overlooking the runway at the Frankfurt airport, eating FRANKFURTERS as one should while here. This airport is the only place I go in Germany so…and when in Germany one should …. But the frankfurters look and taste like the most ordinary of American wienies and the potato salad is quite oily but also sweetish and tart and rather nice in its own Germanic way. I had to go through fairly rigorous security twice to have these frankfurters– with large mean women manning the posts. But then I land in at the Oliver Tambo Airport in Johannesburg which is clearly one of the nicest airports in the world so all is well.  

There's always one more blog to write

 ABOUT LAST NIGHT: I really should say a little more about last night’s companion. Because he is taking over the world you know. From Beijing –in Houston to open a new business—a welding business. His firm distributes welding supplies and he is very excited about the potential of Houston and all of Texas out there welding away with Chinese equipment. But now he is on his way to Barcelona to check up on one of their Spanish distributors. AND he has been in 70 countries, almost all in which his company has business interests.  He was very impressed by my 83. No one else is ever awed by that number because most Americans have no clue about how many countries there are in the world. So at the moment I’m okay with the Chinese at the top in the new world order. (Not really but it could be worse—as in Republicans)  

The world is still SOMEBODY'S OYSTER...Whose?

 

 AND IN THE NEWS…: I spent 48 hours before I left without turning on TV because I couldn’t. I had Direct TV suspend my service! So by the time I saw Anderson Cooper on the airport TV last night I felt very happy…for a minute…until I realized he was still talking about how Whitney Houston died. Hey America, the Chinese are taking over the world, there are strikes and economies going down in Europe, women are running some countries and doing as well as men (maybe better), people are starving and fighting and dying and the ocean is rising and Anderson Cooper is still talking about Whitney Houston. I WILL BE OKAY WITHOUT CABLE. Read newspapers everyone. And watch “The Good Wife” on your computer. IN JOZIE now…Jozie is how the real Johannesburgers refer to their city. I love it here—in Jozie.  

Ladies who lunch...and talk dance in Jozie