Bl_ck T_esday now leads to exceptional Velvet Spine duo
YELLOW SUNDAY Created and performed by Velvet Spine: Nicole Fortuin and Koleka Putuma. At The Company’s Garden, today and tomorrow. TRACEY SAUNDERS interviews Velvet Spine.
THE growing popularity of the annual public art festival has seen performers Infecting the City this week and no space is immune to the energetic and thought provoking performances. A‘n C in their extravagant costumes and hyper-stylized make up will be continuing their cabaret tour with Yellow Sunday after the first leg of their production Bl_ck T_esday premiered in 2011.
The dynamic duo makes a formidable pair. Individually they are extraordinary; when they combine their talents they are exceptional. Writer, dancer, director, poet and performer, Putuma was the winner of the inaugural SA Slam Poet title in 2014, but doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a poet only. She explains “I find that it is something that people have latched onto as the sole defining moment in my emerging career.”
As one of the nominees for the Rosalie Van Der Gucht Prize For Best New Director, which will be announced at the Fleur Du Cap Awards on Sunday, Putuma has certainly made her mark directing four productions in the past two years: Uhm, Mbuzeni. For God’s Sake and Know Void: An Endless Echo. Both theatre makers are multi-talented and are not afraid of making new paths. Their new theatre company Velvet Spine took to the crowd funding website Thundafund last year to raise funds for their current production to face one of the challenges faced by both industry veterans and newcomers – lack of funding.
Putuma feels that “The dilemma of various art institutions churning out new performers and theatre makers every year makes the industry highly competitive, full and discouraging, exciting for those who are up for the challenge though”. Although Fortuin finds the strictures of the sector confining she is intent on challenging them and says, “Speaking from my own experience the pressure to confine your work to a title is a challenge. I am often put into the ‘actress’ box or the “dancer’ box but I have directed and codirected works. Once someone looks at you as an actress (and especially if you're young) you have to really make an effort to make it known that you enjoy creating and staging theatre too”.
Putuma’s remark about administration will strike a chord with many a creative person: “Striking the creative balance between creating the work and the admin that accompanies the work. Especially for young practioners who are starting to get acquainted with the paperwork involved behind the scenes.”
Their first production was conceived and performed at the time the Secrecy Bill protests were being held and the content was informed by and adapted from Njabulo S Ndbele's text Our Dream is Turning Sour, a text that speaks to the journey of SA’s political demise.
They felt that, “There was a time when South Africans, particularly the formerly oppressed believed that democracy would bring about a just, constitutional state, but that dream is in danger of being destroyed”. They continue challenging the status quo in their political cabaret where Fortune thinks that “art is one of the purest and easiest ways to effect change. It is a medium that for it to be successful needs to be truthful to be meaningful. For example, in Yellow Sunday the characters reflect truthfully on opinions (be it our own or other people's) of SA politics and scandals.
They may be dramatic, over the top and exaggerated in their portrayals, but it is this exaggeration of truth that people relate to, understand and connect with.” Putuma is equally confident about the capacity for art to effect change and said, “As people we connect more with the truthful rather than the romanticized version of reality. Therefore art, has the power to reflect this in a range of genres, styles and mediums.”
They are both excited about the platform afforded by the free nature of the Infecting the City Festival. As Koleka says, “It provides the artist with a ‘guaranteed audience’ and an unpressured environment in which to test their work or share their work with people who are both the- atre going and non-theatre-going.” It is indeed the varied nature of the audience that is one of the things that distinguishes the public art festival from its counterparts on the very busy Cape Town festival circuit. There is a downside to audience members not paying for performance though and Nicole expressed a concern that “it can however perpetuate the idea or notion that artists need not be paid or remunerated for their work.”
Her concern is mitigated however by the idea “that it could encourage potential audience members to want to support local artists or theatre makers.”
The pair have big plans and for Putuma “Tackling non traditional and traditional theatre spaces. Making our work accessible online in order to build an audience beyond the live performance space and attending more art festivals” are in her immediate future.
Her colleague’s long term aspirations for the cabaret team are lofty ones, “We really want to build these characters and their stories to a point where they are household names and a body of work that people relate to and endorse much like the Joe Barber works. One thing I enjoy about Yellow Sunday is that it is rooted in SA ideas/narratives/ways of communicating. The possibility of staging such a work internationally is also very exciting.” If you want to join the vanguard of their ever growing fan base you won’t want to miss the opportunity to watch them speaking truth to power around the corner from South Africa’s central seat of power today and Friday.
Free, www.infectingthecity.com