TOWNSHIP TROUBADOURS
Langa has never seen anything like it — circus meets cabaret meets inspired craziness. By Leigh-Anne Hunter
A circus-cum-cabaret brings inspired craziness to Langa, writes Leigh-Anne Hunter
HULANI Headman, aka DJ Fosta, walks into Guga S’Thebe Theatre in Langa with a spring in his white sneakers. “Fosta is Xhosa slang for forcing things to happen in a positive way,” he says, his lanky body in constant motion as he speaks.
The successful DJ producer from Langa wants to continue the legacy of the great musicians from the area who include Brenda Fassie.
“There’s this belief you need to be in Joburg to make it. I’m proud of my township.”
As Langa’s unofficial cultural ambassador, Fosta heard that Trash Cabaret was coming to his kasi. A gala of 70 performers that started in Observatory in 2013, they needed a venue and Fosta knew just the place.
The show’s ringmaster, Riaan Smit, rolls a cigar at one of the theatre’s pallet-hewn tables. The theatre was built from scrapyard waste, including shipping containers. Perhaps that is why, when it’s lashed by the southeaster, the theatre has the feel of a creaking barge at sea. Smit scouted 20 venues before he came to the theatre. “I saw it and thought, ‘Yeeees!’,” he says. It embodies what the show is about — a recycled fusion of artistic talent.
“There’s no show like this in the world, in that there’s always circus and then there’s cabaret,” he said.
The audience is invited to come in character. “Everyone is a performer. People walk in here and they’re a higher form of themselves, whatever they can dream of, and it makes me so happy to have a hand in that.”
In his ringmaster coat, Smit too is a more exuberant version of the unassuming man in jeans. Even sans his magic coat, Smit pulls you into what he calls “a different world” with his voice. He’s a blues singer whose style was inspired by the throat-singing of a tribe in Namibia where he was raised.
“Here you’ll have a 20-piece band,” he says. “And here . . .”
He moves around the empty theatre, conjuring up a picture of the 1 000-odd people moving (there’s no seating) through the dancing girls (“There’s a little bum here and there”), drummers, fire-breathers. Once a Samurai rocked up from Holland; the cabaret draws talent from near and far.
“It’s one constant 360-degree show,” says Smit. Each show has a different vibe which, he says, is influenced by the venue. At one show, trumpet players blared atop machinery. The last event, held at Durbanville’s Hillcrest quarry, was sold out.
Smit started off as band leader for Trash. The ringmaster role was a natural progression. It’s the live music that turns what could be a haphazard sensory binge into a harmonious sensory binge (picture an aerialist with a violinist below her, matching her moves). Smit, with his conductor hands instead of a whip, guides the wild, roaring creature while allowing for spontaneity. The result is not so much a performance as one moerse party.
The “perfect show” happens, he says, “because we trust another person to do what they said they would”.
“The best part is learning from these people . . . It’s all about collaboration.”
People told him he was crazy to take a cabaret to the township.
“What we’re trying to do here is change perceptions. We need to be more African and mix more.”
We walk along Langa’s Washington Street to a building site, soon to be Langa Music School, Fosta’s project, one he’s passionate about.
“We’re hoping it’ll be a nest for young artists,” he says. They’ll learn about the music industry from local and international DJs like American DJ and Skrillex.
Students will work as interns for Guga S’Thebe Theatre events, Trash Cabaret being one.
“It’s an event that’s never been done in the township,” says Fosta. “It’s a dream to be involved.”
For many, he says, it’s “a big chance,” because the show recruits many of its performers from the area where it is staged.
Fosta was the go-to guy. “I know every musician here. What I love is that the performers get equal profit share, so locals treat it as their event.” Low-priced tickets are put aside for the community.
“Most of the performers haven’t got to the big stage and have nothing to show to get there. We put them on a pedestal and say, look how great they are,” says Smit.
The Unknown Dance Crew (now not so unknown) — masked hiphop dancers from Ocean View — is one of the show’s mainstays. “These are a group of guys from die blokke who’ve come out of the roughest background and are doing something spectacular,” Smit says.
Actionarte is another act that typifies the raw talent Trash has dug up (as the show’s charity, it receives some of the profit). The eight-member circus troupe is headed by Danish musical theatre teacher Hanne La Cour and her partner, Marlin Roos. Roos’s parents were among the first coloured South African circus performers (his mother did horse acrobatics). They also run life-skills workshops for kids in Hanover Park.
“The area has a lot of gangsterism and drugs,” La Cour tells me as her toddler, Emilia, the youngest of their circus family, chews on a juggling club. “We saw the way circus could transform lives. We use juggling, for example, to teach concentration.”
In “Trash Cabaret: Live in Langa”, La Cour will show off her speciality — swinging around while suspended from her hair. “I’ve gone from a 30-second hang to 10 minutes,” she says.
Smit says another reason he fell for Guga S’Thebe Theatre is its robustness. “We have a team of firefighters at the ready.”
On more than one level, he says, “Trash is the biggest risk everyone involved has ever taken.”
The theatre’s facilitator, Marco Morgan, says this is what the theatre was intended for. It was built in 1999 as a space for Langa’s arts community to draw in other Cape Town residents as an alternative to the “Baxters and Artscapes”.
“It’s a celebration of art and I think that’s quite amazing.” A place where frustrated jugglers and hairsuspension artists can shine.
Plans to take the show overseas are under way. “It’s our baby,” Smit says and I’m reminded of Emilia’s smile as she balances on top of a human pyramid formed by Actionarte. “So all of us need to help raise it.” LS
Trash Cabaret: Live in Langa is on November 26 at 7pm. Book at quicket.co.za