A breath of French air
Head down to the Market Theatre complex to see Zanele Muholi’s intimate work. THE MARKET THEATRE AND IFAS BRINGS 2017 TO A SPINNING END
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq. Last weekend The Market Theatre Foundation and the French Institute of South Africa (Ifas) celebrated their fifth year of collaboration with another staging of Tordre, a pulsating, moving and visual dance feast.
In 2017, the two parties continued their memorandum of understanding to promote cultural cohesion between the two countries. What has made this partnership so exciting is that, once detangled, it’s a promotion of arts – and 2017 served up many highlights.
In less than a year, Ifas has supported the Market Theatre to present the South African-born choreographer Robyn Orlin’s, In A World Full of Butterflies, It Takes Balls to be a Caterpillar in the John Kani Theatre, followed by The Night of Ideas at the new Market Photo Workshop, the Fête de la Musique programme at both Windybrow Arts Centre and the Market Theatre precinct, and finally The Alchemy of Words at the Ramolao Makhene Theatre, which was also part of a masterclass for the Market Lab students.
Another major event has been the opening of Zanele Muholi’s latest exhibition last month, which coincided with her receiving a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Arts and Literature) Award by Christophe Fernaud, the French ambassador.
Muholi studied advanced photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, and in 2009 completed an MFA from Ryerson University, Toronto. Since graduating from the Market Photo Workshop, Muholi has built a formidable career as an internationally-acclaimed visual artist, activist and photographer.
She was the first black artist to have a solo show at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She was also featured in the seventh Performa Biennial in locations throughout New York City.
Muholi co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002 and in 2009 founded Inkanyiso (inkanyiso. org), a forum for queer and visual (activist) media.
Muholi’s self-proclaimed mission is “to rewrite a black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond”.
She continues to train and co-facilitates photography workshops for young women in the townships.
“Zanele’s works serves as an inspiration for social justice movements and hope for young and emerging photographers from communities that society has pushed to the margins,” says Lekgetho Makola, the head of the Market Photo Workshop.
Muholi opened her exhibition Faces and Phases at the Market Photo Workshop Gallery on November 17. This is the only project in Africa of its kind and it celebrates the 11th anniversary of Muholi’s acclaimed portrait series documenting black lesbian and transgender individuals from South Africa and beyond.
Last weekend’s Tordre saw French-Algerian choreographer Rachid Ouramdane, co-director of the Centre choréographique national de Grenoble, present two dancers, Lora Juodkaite and Annie Hanauer, who take their audience in an intimate measure in time: a sort of infra-dance, based on interior impulses from which glimpses of a whole relationship with the world emerge.
The two performers have been closely involved with Rachid Ouramdane’s work for a number of years. It is their distinctive physicalities that finally unite through a series of raw and captivating self-portraits, threaded with emotion.
It is the story of the Lithuanian dancer Juodkaite who, spinning dizzyingly on the spot, has developed her own way of moving which accompanied her since childhood.
It is also the story of British dancer Hanauer, moving with an articulated prosthetic arm which is both an extension and an integral part of her body. In their own way, they have each developed a know-how and come up with a way of working. – Citizen reporter