Multi-layered piece confronts prejudice
CHOREOGRAPHER, dance artist and activist Mamela Nyamza recently completed a successful run of the thought-provoking Rock to the Core and follows it up with another of her acclaimed and confrontational works, De-Apart-Hate, at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio, where it will run until Saturday.
Meeting Nyamza, I am struck by a quiet assertiveness and confidence.
After working for two decades honing her skills, Nyamza, the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist winner, is one of the country’s foremost choreographers and dancers, offering works that are constantly evolving, probe, challenge and that never allow her, nor the audience, to sit on their laurels.
Rock to the Core grew out of the protest she and a few other women staged earlier this year to raise consciousness about the lack of transformation in the arts. It interrogates socio-economic disability and delivers a punch as it aims to shake all there is to challenge with the status quo of the arts in South Africa.
She says that in the same way rock music in its style shocked the world, her work wants to “rock the art fraternity to the core” by demanding change – not only among artists but in its mainstream exclusive theatres.
The controversial play, featuring the multi-award-winning Chuma Sopotela, Zikhona Zee Jacobs, Indalo Bennet and Buhlebezwe Siwani, recently had its premiere at the Cape Town Fringe Festival.
In De-Apart-Hate, Nyamza, with Aphiwe Livi, confronts prejudice in a multi-layered piece that reflects the complexities of current issues in society and the world. She says it is not overtly about apartheid or about race, but more about power structures.
“We use religion to symbolise all the pervasiveness of oppressive and divisive forces that infiltrate all society. In the Bible there are ‘hate verses’ that talk about oppression and against homosexualism. For this reason there’s a rainbow bench as part of the set in the play,” she explains.
“I like to play with words in my work – my work is always edgy. It is about unsteadiness and anxiety. It’s about shifting, shuffling, re-adjusting discomforts as well as personal and collective battles against intolerant systems.
“In the township women are so ostracised and my work embodies not only defiance, but dismantling and detonating all those institutional myths and fallacies that keep people apart.”
Nyamza’s edgy and thought-provoking work is in demand over the world, and while she was born and grew up in Gugulethu and lives there when she is not overseas, she returns frequently to Catania, for example, to showcase and mentor her innovative choreography.
She has performed Rock to the Core and De-Apart-Hate at the 14th edition of the Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam – a festival promoting young pioneers and established talent in theatre, dance, music, poetry and design from Africa in The Netherlands.
And as soon as the run at the Baxter is over, Mamela will go on to perform the two works at the Spielart Das Festival in Germany.
Talking about being on the road so frequently, she says: “It’s not always easy but it is work. Travelling overseas can be a lonely business, especially at the end of then day when you go back to your hotel. It’s kind of bitter sweet.”
No stranger to rejection and “the other”, while Nyamza was formally trained in classical ballet, because of her athletic body she never quite fitted in.
“I was consistently ridiculed by my childhood peers for my physically athletic frame, and the ultimate rebuke and rejection came from my classical ballet teachers. So I was inevitably drawn to the politics of the body.”
She thus tackles the status quo of classical dance by unapologetically demystifying and deconstructing the traditional methods and logic of ballet.
She says to this end her work is intensely personal. “It becomes me and sometimes takes the heart out of me. It’s often raw and some would say it’s uncomfortable and it opens up wounds to speak out.”
Nyamza has worked and trained with just about every top choreographer, from Adele Blank to Dada Masilo and Eileen Westergaard, in her illustrious career and is constantly involved in developing artistic provocative works about interaction and introspection of who we are as people and artists in South Africa.
*De-Apart-Hate runs at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio until Saturday at 7.30pm, with a Saturday matinee at 3pm. There is an age restriction of 14.
Tickets cost R100. There is a student and seniors’ special of R60 on presentation of valid relevant identification.
Booking through Computicket on 0861 915 8000, online at www. computicket.com or at any Shoprite or Checkers outlet.
For corporate, block or school bookings, charities and fund-raisers, contact Sharon Ward on 021 680 3962 or e-mail Sharon. ward@uct.ac.za or Carmen Kearns on 021 680 3993, e-mail Carmen. kearns@uct.ac.za