A Swedish alliance in motion

WHAT do young people have to say about the world in which we live? What happens to the individual in a volatile global economy? Over the past year, The Baxter and Scenkost Sormland – a Swedish theatre company – asked people in Sweden and South Africa to talk about their hopes, dreams and ideas.

The images have been distilled in I Hit the Ground Running, a dance and music performance piece coming to the Baxter Flipside.

The score is by Swedish composer Tebogo Monnakgotla and five Swedish musicians: Åsa Karlberg ( flute), Johannes Thorell ( saxophone), Camilla Arvidsson (violin), Hanna Dahlkvist (cello) and Jonny Axelsson (percussion).

The dancers live in Cape Town and have worked with choreographer Ananda Fuchs to develop the piece. Design is by Marcel Meyer and lighting by Benever Arendse.

After the Baxter season, the production will tour Sweden.

The collaboration came about after conversations between Baxter chief Lara Foot and Maria Weisby, who heads production company Scenkost Sormland. Foot says they had been chatting for years about doing something together. Scenkost Sormland produces more than 1 200 performances in collaborations with musical ensembles, theatres, dance groups and cultural groups.

This venture with the Baxter is a three-year project. The plan is to create a different work each year and stage each piece at the Baxter and at Scenkost Sormland’s theatre.

Foot says Sweden has long been involved in funding and supporting the arts here, from anti-apartheid plays to the present.

Composer Monnakgotla was born and grew up in Sweden, but her father is South African.

I Hit the Ground Running began

IN MOTION: Berniece Valentine, Andile Vellem, choreographer Ananda Fuchs, Shaun Oelf, Grant van Ster and Leilah Kirsten star in I Hit the Ground Running. ● Encore! This play about a prima donna who gets ready for an evening’s performance is on from Monday to August 31 at 7pm at the Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Observatory. It is written and directed by Debbie Robertson and performed by Chris Fisher and Tarryn Saunders. Tickets are R40 from 021 447 3683 or www.theatrearts.co.za. After this, the play will be at Alexander Upstairs in Strand Street, September 2-4 at 8pm. last August. A Swedish contingent came here and Ananda Fuchs went to Sweden with Nicolette Moses, an associate producer and planning manager at the Baxter who over- sees dance and curates the theatre’s annual dance and film festival (October 3-12).

Fuchs invited dancers Grant van Ster, Shaun Oelf, Andile Vellem, only 40 seats, so it is advisable to book at www.webtickets.co.za. Tickets are R100. ● Footloose: The Waterfront Theatre Company’s 21st anniversary celebration production of the Broadway musical is at The Masque Theatre from August 28 until September 7. Shows are at 8pm Monday-Friday and at 2.30pm and 6.30pm on Saturdays. Tickets are R80-R100, from 021 788 1898. – Robyn Cohen Bernice Valentine and Leilah Kirsten and encouraged them to draw on their own experiences to interpret the sequences.

For example, Vellem is hearing impaired and the way he navigates the world shapes his performance.

Fuchs selected images to project on stage to give the audience context.

The production opens with the 1953 painting Golconda by surrealist Rene Magritte. The dancers are dressed in suits and bowler hats, echoing those in the painting. They are anonymous, alienated as in Magritte’s landscape. As the production progresses, they disrobe, “like layers of an onion”, says Fuchs. Each layer reveals another costume put together by designer Marcel Meyer.

● I Hit the Ground Running is on at the Baxter Flipside from Thursday to September 7 at 7.30pm, with a matinee on September 7 at 2pm. Tickets R80 from Computicket at 0861 915 8000.

cohenry@netactive.co.za