‘Constellations’ offers momentary respite in a world too much with us
Did you hear the one about the series of SA performing arts events that was sold out in advance? Happily, this time round, it is not a joke.
Far too often, local theatre makers have to reconcile themselves to half-full houses (or worse). So I was pleased to learn that there were no more tickets available for Constellations, Third World Bunfight site-specific nighttime “happening” at Spier Wine Farm outside Stellenbosch — especially because I already had one.
Of course, Constellations is not a typical auditorium theatre experience. It is an intimate, open-air journey in which groups are guided along different routes, making micro-pilgrimages to visit artists who sing, dance, tell stories or otherwise captivate their small audiences during 20-minute encounters.
There are only six events in the series (it ends on November 19) and about 80 people can participate on each occasion, so perhaps it’s not surprising that tickets disappeared so quickly.
Nonetheless, this does attest to the reputation that Constellations has garnered since it was launched in 2020 as a conscious attempt to create employment opportunities for cultural sector workers affected by Covid-19 closures.
This year, director Brett Bailey took his inspiration from the artistic and spiritual traditions of Benin, and in particular its sacred forests dedicated to the veneration of women. A new site on the Spier estate was selected: a narrow strip of land between the Eerste and Blouklip rivers that evokes the sanctity and mystery of an island — a place to suspend disbelief and to set aside the mundane.
The group I joined for Constellations chatted eagerly as we walked in the twilight away from lawns and welltended gardens towards this wilder space; we crossed a bridge onto its unknown shores, and conversation ceased as the last light faded. In the silence, new sounds became discernible
— the crack of dry twigs underfoot, frogs in the river, snatches of song.
I thought of Caliban in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, who rhapsodises about an island “full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not”. Of course, one cannot read or hear these lines without recalling that Caliban is enslaved on the island. The magic of The Tempest is inseparable from material suffering: specifically, from the history of colonialism and its afterlives.
When the Guardians of the Forest performed for us, they did not do so in an aesthetic vacuum free of social or political context. Great care was taken to craft a sublime experience: paraffin lamps hanging from the bows, tree stump seats arranged in semicircles, darkness beyond. But while such a setting, combined with the commanding presence of the Guardians, might lead to something like transcendence, the performances themselves reminded us of the world we had left behind — or rather, reminded us that we can never fully leave that world behind.
The four Guardians visited by our group were Mandri Sutherland, Ncebakazi Mnukwana, California Janson and Ché Adams. If Janson’s entrancing guitar and mellifluous singing soothed, Sutherland’s discomfiting performance installation provoked.
Mnukwana’s combination of voice, uhadi (bow) and kalimba (finger harp) briefly transported her listeners into another realm; yet she gently insisted that we remain attentive to the racial and linguistic dynamics that were evident in our engagement with the music. Adams’ potent flamenco dancing
THIS YEAR THE EVENT AT SPIER TAKES ITS INSPIRATION FROM BENIN’S SACRED FORESTS DEDICATED TO THE VENERATION OF WOMEN
reinscribed — with every tap of her shoes or beat of her bare feet — the implicit (sometimes explicit) feminist manifesto that drives Constellations 2022, resisting the violence of patriarchal subjugation.
It is not possible to listen to the sounds of Caliban’s island without acknowledging humans’ exploitation of one another and of the natural world. The distant hum of traffic along the R310 that runs past Spier inserted itself into the soundscape when the music faded. Perhaps Constellations, like all rituals, is not ultimately about escaping the everyday.
Perhaps it is about accessing, albeit temporarily, a deeper truth or power, and carrying this insight into the quotidian streets, shops, offices, homes and virtual spaces we inhabit.
Alternatively, like Caliban, we may long to remain immersed in the vision of an arts-inspired dream — only to find ourselves awake in an uninspiring, compromised, messy world marked by systemic oppression and personal tragedy. “When I waked,” Caliban laments, “I cried to dream again ...”