We are two and half weeks into our Young Dancers Workshop and its starting to dawn on the students that the program is almost over. Our 90 teens are preparing for their work in progress showings tonight with their counselors and I can’t wait to see what they show. These young dancers are an incredibly smart, focused and mature group. They bonded almost immediately upon arrival and have been wonderfully supportive of one another. The very first night they formed a huge circle outside the dining common to get acquainted. BDF is a place where you make friends and colleagues for life. What a great way to start a career in dance.

The teens have not only had the privilege of studying with a terrific team of  generous teachers, but also seeing showings by Adele Myers and Dancers and Kyle Abraham/Abraham.in.Motion, and performances by Rennie Harris. Kyle’s concert will close out their program this Thursday.

Our ten counselors are amazing. They bring so much knowledge, passion and creativity to their interactions with the students. YDW is not just a training program in dance–its an experience of how to live with others with respect, a sense of adventure, an openness to new ideas and knowledge of one’s self. Each night the students have a hall meeting with their small group to process the days’ experiences framed by a question. Around classes they participate in workshops led by the counselors in composition, yoga, musical theater, site specific choreography, Pilates, music and more. We are blessed to attract such talented and giving individuals to serve as the support system for our teens.

So far BDF 2012 has been a super smooth ride for all us staffers. This is a tribute to my amazing team–each and every one of them dedicated, extremely capable and generous to a fault.

We kicked off the performance season with a one-week residency by my old friend, Rennie Harris and his crew, Puremovement (RHPM) who are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year. Rennie was in fine form leading a Lec/Dem and teaching a master class for our whole program. What a blast and lots of laughs. Sage that he is, Rennie shared the history of hip hop culture, but more importantly the spirit behind it. I was thrilled to introduce our teens to this master artist and to reconnect with the company after a several years absence.

RHPM’s performances were crazy good! Both completely sold out. The audience, which was extremely diverse in age and background, went wild. I haven’t heard such screams since the last time RHPM was in the house! What a thrill to see their classic works back on our stage along with great new house dances by the women. And they got a great review: https://www.batesdancefestival.org/BDFnews.php

This weekend we present the Maine premiere of Kyle’s new show Live, The Realest MC  as the opener for the Professional Training Program. Over the course of the next three days all the teens will depart and 250 adult participants and artists will arrive. The vibe will shift dramatically and the whole atmosphere will get much more intense. So glad I had a Sunday at the lake before we dive into the whirlwind of the next three weeks.

I hope to find time to keep writing amid the madness. It is my 25th year at the helm and there is much to celebrate, contemplate and be thankful for.

I awoke an hour ago from a dream in which I had smuggled myself onto an airplane that was on some kind of clandestine or dangerous mission, some experiment, and the plane had to make a crash landing. With the scream of the engines obliterating thought, I still heard the pilot speaking, telling the ground control tower that we were coming down, that someone from an insanely non-compatible world was on board. I tightened my seatbelt as the plane descended and the pilot counted down the seconds to impact, warning of the explosion that might happen as we struck the ground. Miraculously, the plane skidded off into the grass and rolled over and I spilled from the fuselage and crawled/ran into a gully to be away from the fire.

The dream ended but thoughts emerged from the dream that connected to the performance of rbGb somehow. Maybe being at the show was like being on a strange flight; maybe the awareness deep in my subconscious is that there will be no safe landing when the flight is an interracial, experimental, dangerous journey into the unknown. But there was no explosion, and we did make it to the ground, and now there are just so many questions.

I hardly know where to begin. There was so much happening, so many ambitious lines of inquiry in play at once, so much at stake but engineered with a margin of safety that made it OK.

I left the performance frustrated that we were not guided more to answers. But [my wife] Carol said that maybe there couldn’t be answers to such big questions. The performance opened itself (and pushed us away) in complex ways, showed me a way of experiencing the “black experience” (if there is such a thing) in a humanizing, baffling, passionate and profound way.

The questions raised about how to bring green consciousness to situations in which people have other, more pressing worries, are questions faced not only in Houston, Oakland, Chicago, Harlem, but in every heart. Who can’t find reasons to place between him or herself and the necessity of change? Whose history can’t be probed for circumstances that inspire rage or apathy or slumping indifference?

I may in many ways be an alien in Bamuthi’s world, but I feel like I have just spent time inside a mind not unlike my own, survived a crash landing in the company of people who share the same beginning and end as me and have many of the same questions about what happens in between those dark terminals.

This was an amazing performance. Other than [Japanese] Noh [theater], I have never seen a performance that made such an authentic whole out of the disparate elements of music, poetry, dance, text, theater, sound…… thought. It was inspired and inspiring, frightening in some fundamental way because it took hold of so much and didn’t want to let it go, at least not let it go unobserved. I would have stayed for the conversation after the performance, but [ my daughter] Delia really needed to move on from so much everything! And I don’t think I had had enough time myself at that moment to be ready to talk, though I think it was a generous gesture by the performers to welcome us onto their front porches  —- a gesture that puts a finger on one of the remarkable things about the performance as a whole, the notion that there may be safe places for conversation to take place, and that the performance itself embodied a metaphor we desperately need to project to each other, that our worlds may be very different but they are all contained in this world, and we better start talking to one another.

That awareness makes me wonder all the more about the feelings and questions I had in the first movement/part of the piece, when we were sharing space with the performers and the performance structure. Did Bamuthi intend to make that moment unsettling, off-putting, a way of conjuring the unease of voyeuristic looking? Do all encounters between performer and audience begin in confrontation? Do all encounters between black and white begin that way? Are we different people at the end of the performance? Is there a defensiveness embedded in the opening that undercuts the ending? Why are we told not to touch the performers?

The Bates Dance Festival has a long and rich history of collaboration with Bamuthi going back to 2002 when I first encountered him at a National Performance Network meeting. Since then he has become part of our Festival family…conducting creative residencies, teaching text and movement classes,  and performing excerpt from “Words Become Flesh”, and the full production of “Scourge” at BDF.

In 2011 I approached a cohort of Bates College colleagues and the newly formed Arts Collaborative about launching a major collaborative project with Bamuthi that would illustrate the benefits of embedding a visionary performance artist across a spectrum of college courses and programs. “red, black & GREEN: a blues” served as an exceptional vehicle through which to weave many content areas and concerns.  Our goals was for this project to serve as a model and to illustrate the many benefits of developing an ongoing artist residency program at Bates.

Many Bates College offices, departments and individuals, as well as community organizations, got behind this idea and supported our effort.  Together we realized one of the largest and most complex performance project in the Festival’s history.

I am incredibly proud of everyone who made this dream a reality…my friend Bamuthi for creating such a groundbreaking, original and compelling work, the extraordinary artistic collaborators who brought his words and ideas to life through sound, movement, light, architecture and video, our team of technical production wizards who took an old armory and transformed it into a theater, the faculty who committed to the vision, the students who engaged and gave their time, and the community  who came out  to experience the work.

For me personally the project was an extraordinary example of  the power of performance to question, reveal, challenge, inspire, entertain and incite us to action. rbGb tackles the biggest questions we face as humans and urges us to go forward to make the world a better, more just and sustainable place. Let’s get on with it!

In my next posts I will share some audience response to the work and I hope, if you were lucky enough to see rbGb I hope you will share your experience of the work here on our blog.

On my last full day in Joburg Neli offers to take us out of the city today to the Cradle of Humankind, otherwise known as Maropeng.  She, Mamela, Philip Bither , Edward (Neli’s partner) and one of their friends (whose name I didn’t quite master) head north into the Mahliesburg hills, a beautiful area one hour north of Joburg. I made this trip in 2010 but its’ totally worth another visit. Maropeng is a great museum that traces the development of planet earth and humankind. The museum is designed to meld into the landscape. Much of it is covered by earth like a berm house. There is a decidedly environmental slant to the presentations along with a message of equality. Ironic for it to be in South Africa with its still present Apartheid mentality.  It’s a wonderful place for young people to learn about evolution and consider the future of the planet.

My favorite aspect of the property on which the museum sits is the long views across the open rolling hills. Today there is haze that creates layers of horizons. It’s very peaceful after the bustle of Joburg. Maropeng is a large preserve where some of the oldest human and animal remains have been discovered. Skulls like Ms. Ples were unearthed here.  There appear to be trails throughout the property and today there are over 100 mountain bikers here for the third leg of a 70k a day bike event.

After our tour of the museum and a nice sit in the sun we head off in search of a decent lunch. Its past the noon hour so possibilities are sketchy. After a bit too much discussion we finally end up at the Maropeng Hotel, a very swanky place near the museum with an infinity pool on the terrace and even more beautiful views. By now I am beyond hungry but the service is horribly slow and the food mediocre. Oh well.

At the table we are two arts curators, a surgeon, a corporate marketer/arts board person with a deep grounding in the visual arts scene, and two choreographers. It makes for interesting conversation and a glimpse into a particular slice of life in Joburg. We jump from politics to art to food to music and more.

By the time we get back to Melville I am exhausted and opt to miss the final performance of Mark Hawkins and go to bed early in preparation for my 24 hours of travel tomorrow.

As I prepare to depart I keep thinking about what I am taking away from this visit. Everyone we ask (our drivers, waiters, artists, funders, innkeeper) say that things are getting better in South Africa — the government is taking better care of the people and crime is down, but gas prices keep going up and jobs are too scarce. in Soweto there has been some successful development like a new theater complex and more restaurants and B & Bs. This is where the next Danse Afrique Danse platform will be taking place in November. Still the government bureaucracy is maddeningly inefficient, corruption is rampant and many are still suffering. This is still a very young democracy with a legacy of injustice under Apartheid. It is shocking to hear informed, intelligent South Africans say that they feel Mandela helped the whites more than the blacks in the end.  Traveling across the city one sees the disparities of great wealth and poverty.  Depending on which neighborhood you visit it might resemble the Hollywood hills or some other wealthy US suburb. On the other end of the spectrum are the dismally poor shantytowns of the townships.

What has also come across through people’s personal stories and several of the works on Dance Umbrella is the pervasive threat of sexual violence against women, children, gays and lesbians. The children who are raped and impregnated by their teachers, the raping of children as young as two as a way to avoid HIV/Aids, the grandmother who was raped and murdered, the corrective rape of lesbians (could there be a more absurd notion), the casual one night stand and resulting contraction of HIV/Aids. The threats are so pervasive to be more the norm than not and I can’t help but sense that there is a degree of acceptance that this is just life, along with a sense of horror. Rarely do these cases get prosecuted and so it goes on and on.

Another ugly truth that emerges through my conversations is the deeply embedded racism among some whites. As in the Y.S. there are people who seriously consider themselves neutral, open-minded and supportive of blacks. Yet they convey a deep rooted sense of superiority and desire to maintain physical distance. As though the black race was in some way polluted, dirty and less. Many whites grow up with black nannies who they adore to their death but god forbid they get too close to any other member of the race. Geez Louise in the 21^st century can we move on to a more enlightened and humane way of being in the world together. Our blood is red, our tears are salty and we are all going to die someday. Let’s be the best people we can for the short time we are here.

Today we had our second consortium meeting — a chance to hear from everyone around the table (and from several artist who sent news). Among us there is an amazing array of exciting thinking and work happening. Yerba Buena has just hired Marc Bamuthi Joseph as their new performing arts curator and we are all eager to see how he reinvents their programs.

Ken Foster fresh off the plane

651 Arts in hoping to move into their own space and establish more of an identity in their Brooklyn neighborhood.

Shay Wafer

Seattle Theatre Group is bringing a kickass program next season including MAPP’s Voices of Strength, Amadou & Mariam, Fela, Dance Theater of Harlem, and more. The Walker staff is rethinking their focus to reflect a more global perspective.

Vivian Philips

VSA Arts of New Mexico is conceptualizing a new mini series called Journeys featuring small works by international artists.

Cathy and Marj

Likewise the artists are deeply engaged in developing new work and dreaming big. Greg is fine-tuning Exit/Exist and has several other projects in the hopper. His big dream is to create a dance center is Soweto.

Gregory Maqoma and Phlip Bither

Boyzie is working on the final part of his trilogy and trying to live a saner life. Neli is exploring how to extend “Uncles & Angels” into a video installation and photographs for galleries. They are all and strategizing ways to change the arts culture in southern Africa to be more responsive to artists.

Boyzie Cekwana and Neli Xaba

Together, through honest dialogue, we renew our commitment to our shared goals and discover what the next steps might be.  Thanks to our new funding from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation we will move forward introducing US artists into the mix in a more intentional way. We plan to gather again during the Danse Afrique Danse platform hosted by Cultures France in Joburg next November. We also hope to invite one of our African artist affiliates to the next National Performance Network meeting to introduce them to this important consortium of US artists and presenters.

Moving on… After a much needed afternoon rest we head off to see PJ Sabbagha and The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative’s “One Night Stand”at the Wits Theater. The program notes describes this as “a provocative exploration of the many ways we are infected on a daily basis by the many viruses that invade our lives and take over our bodies.” PJ has been active in the fight against HIV/Aids.  In visiting with him earlier this week he admitted the piece was in an early stage of development and was quite chaotic and messy (his words). After seeing the piece I would have to agree. The dancers were terrifically athletic and daring but the piece seemed to have very little structure or, frankly, much identifiable connection to the theme articulated in the program. The music, run from the sidelines on a laptop, was repetitive, pounding electronica that did not enhance the action from my perspective.

I had loved PJ’s work during the 2010 Dance Umbrella and so wanted my colleagues to be wowed by his new show. Fortunately they are all sophisticated curators and could see the intelligence and intent behind the work.

Next Philip and I head off to Moyo Restaurant at Zoo Park to hear some local music. Philip seeks out music in every city he visits and had been trying hard to find the best venues here in Joburg. His sources told him a bunch of good musicians were gathering at Moyo tonight to jam. When we arrived we discovered one singer with his acoustic guitar just finishing his last set. The dinner crowd seemed little interested in his music, lovely as it was. Since we were there and our driver had departed we settled in for dinner and a chance to catch up one on one. The opportunity to really talk to one another is rare in our field. Most often when we are together it is at a conference where everyone is racing around seeing work or in a big group meeting.  I am always delighted when a chance comes to spend more quality time and hash over issues of common concern. We had another such opportunity in November 2010 when Philip, Marj and I were in the Masa Mara of Kenya.

Neli, Boyzie, Vivian & Mamela

This morning we are off to a breakfast meeting with about 40 theater and dance artists at the Market Theatre organized by the director, Malcolm Purkey. There is a bit of confusion at the start as the restaurant we are supposed to gather in is closed. Our empty stomachs growl and coffee is needed by all. We finally get situated across the park in a Sophiatown café and much socializing ensues.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet a range of folks involved in the arts. I chat with a retired cultural attaché who serves on the Market Theatre board, and with Michelle Constant who direct BASA (Business and the Arts South Africa). I mention the informal network the affiliate artists are trying to create and their dire need for administration support to form some basic infrastructure. She seems enthusiastic and quickly formulates an idea for how to fund a one-year position to assist them. I lure Greg over to join us and am excited to think something might happen to help their nascent group develop.  Apparently the artists met with BASA last year but nothing came of it. Well one must keep at it and I hope they will.

In the afternoon Neli takes myself, Cathy and Mamela out to Sandton, a ritzy northern suburb of high end shopping malls, the US Embassy, galleries, hotels, etc. We visit the original Goodman Gallery, one to the most established galleries in Joburg where there is a show of work by women including two stunning photographs of Neli’s piece, “Uncles and Angels”. The curator, a smart young woman, joins us for coffee and fills us in on recent shows and activities at the gallery. Neli seems to be quite connected to the visual arts scene. The Goodman is a beautiful space –all white everywhere with nice library.

We move on to a swanky little café for some lunch and enlightening conversation about our individual family histories. We are relishing the chance to get to know one another better and go deeper into our understanding of how we have become who we are. Without sharing any personal details I will just say that the potential for violence is omnipresent in the lives of many people on this continent — especially women. As Americans we are extraordinarily fortunate to live in relative safety and we should not take it for granted for a moment.  For us the violence and abuse is covert if it exists whereas here it is very overt. Listening to stories of the harsh realities and threats that must be endured here adds a powerful dimension and rational for the work we are seeing. These issues must be exposed and what better way than through performance.

Back at the Market we attend performances by Alfred Hinkel and Robin Orlin, both dance icons in South Africa. Alfred’s piece “Dansmettieduiwels”  (an unholy mass) is based on the theme of the stereotypical Roman Catholic priest as a child sexual predator. The piece was created in response to the suicide of a young man who grew up in one of the local missions schools outside of Capetown and was becoming a priest. Set to the sacred music of Johann Sebastian Bach, mostly his Mass in B minor, and with a backdrop of iconography from the Vatican and Roman Catholic Church, the ugly story unfolds through the demented lens of this ‘unholy’ worldview. We see Adam and Eve, Cupid/Eros the erotic angel, the commanding and masculine priest/overlord, and a boy who is ultimately and quite brutally raped.  Sexually suggestive acts course through the work. The dancing is spectacular and very physical.

Alfred has trained these dancers in his technique which he has been developing for more than 30 years, first at JazzArts, the company he directed in Capetown, and now on his own. He is teaching a workshop for about 20 young dance artists in conjunction with Dance Umbrella. One of them is Lucky Kele who has spent two summers at BDF.  From Lucky’s description the approach to training and creation is based on improvisation and internal sensing — working from the inside out. One can see watching the dancing that there is a strong technical foundation but also a level of embodiment and commitment to the characters. The boy is particularly astonishing, as he looks all of 13 and has only studied with Alfred for 5 months, we find out later. In fact, he is 17 but still he does an amazing job of holding his own among the more accomplished and older dancers.

Once again in this work we are confronted with a harsh reality of life here – the sexual abuse of children that is overlooked and left unprosecuted in most instances. Catholic missions dot the countryside every 200 kilometer or so. While pedophilia among priests has been a major story in the US and the British Isles, clearly it is going on everywhere and must be exposed and addressed worldwide.

From this hideous and beautifully wrought work we go directly to experience Robin Orlin’s signature work, “Daddy, I’ve Seen This Piece Six Times Before And I Still Don’t Know Why They’re Hurting Each Other”. From the sublime to the ridiculous, Robin’s work features the originally cast of Neli Xaba, Gerard Bester, Toni Morkel and others in a completely over the top, totally whacky, wildly manic slapstick performance event that is absurd, hilariously and exhausting. We are crowded into a small room with a giant raised staged that takes up most of the space. The audience stands around the perimeter and is often cast into the action.  The opening image is of a very tall Neli (standing on stool it turns out) center stage in a long red velvet evening gown putting on the airs of the ultimate diva and bossing everyone around. Actor/director Gerard serves as master of ceremonies hopelessly attempting to corral the performers into behaving. In the ensuing hour an a half we are treated to leopard undies, dancing plastic windup duckies, a frenetic African dance routine by 16 youngsters, a stage methodically covered with hundreds red plates, and a synchronized dance with platters (a la 60’s variety TV choreography) that is shot from above and viewed on four monitors hung in each corner of the room…need I go on. When a 300 lbs woman from the audience is brought on stage to do a romantic duet with Gerard to some sappy love song, and ends up astride him doing the bump and grind, the whole audience loses it in howling laughter.

This nutty piece has toured the world, apparently with wild success. It helped launch Neli’s career in Europe and was considered worthy of a revival this year at the Umbrella. In fact, it sold out so quickly they added show this afternoon. I guess everyone needs a good laugh now and then.

I started the day with a much needed walk around the neighborhood. Despite the heat and humidity it felt great to take a brisk walk as we have been doing way too much sitting and my body is complaining vociferously. We dancers know when our psoas is unhappy!

We gathered for a lunch meeting at The Lucky Bean to discuss next steps with our Africa Consortium partners. The conversation among this group is always rigorous, thoughtful and full of heart. I am honored to be in the mix, to have these extraordinary opportunities to come to Africa and to collaborate with my peers to learn, discover, support and present contemporary choreographers from across the continent.

Joan Frosch, me and Philip Bither at the Lucy Bean

We continued our meeting with Neli Xaba, Boyzie Cekwana and Gregory Maqoma over at the Dance Forum the home of Dance Umbrella and Vuyani Dance Theatre. Three of the most important dance organizations in Joburg (Dance Forum, Dance Factory and Moving Into Dance) have spaces side by side  across the park from the Market Theatre in a sort of arts district. This area has been greatly enhanced over the last several years and more improvements appears to be underway.

During our meeting we had a chance to hear about the recent activities of these affiliate artists and what has be going on vis a vis support for dance. For some the National Arts Lottery has been a god sent.  Gregory’s company, for example, has received a three year span of support as has PJ Sabbagha’s Hidden Angle Collaborative. Others are not so fortunate and struggle to make and show work. As with life, politics are unavoidably present coursing through the conversation.  Artists are deeply frustrated by the lack of support, understanding and infrastructure for the field. There is no mechanism for touring, few opportunities to perform in their home countries or across the continent and few options for developing new work. Yet things are better in South Africa than in many other places on the continent and artists persevere finding ways to realize their projects. Our American artists could learn some things from these resourceful and determined art makers.

What strikes me most about the work of African contemporary artists is how deeply grounded and informed it is by harsh realities of everyday life — violence, injustice and corruption. The desire to expose, comment and create change is a profound thread coursing through much of their work. The more I learn about the lives of these individuals and the conditions in which they are working the more my respect and admiration grows and the more committed I become to their artistic voices.

This is especially true of the women for whom being an artist requires incredible grit and determination. Unlike in the states, here men dominate dance and outnumber women in great numbers.  There are scores of terrific male dancers. I have chosen for the present to focus on these fierce, charismatic female choreographers who have not had the same exposure in the US to date. Similarly, our consortium partner, MAPP International, will  launch a  US tour this fall of ‘Voices of Strength’ a two night festival of work by women featuring artists from South Africa, Momzabique, Morocco and Mali.

Back to the present… after a torrential thunderstorm (which are a nearly daily occurrences here) we made our way to Dance Factory for a shared program featuring new works by Mari-Louise Basson, Fana Tshabalala, Boyzie Cekwana and Mdu Mtshali. The evening offered some terrific dancing.  I appreciated the tone and performance commitment of Fana’s piece “Gates of Hell” but it was Boyzie’s three minute “Thinking Out Loud Experiment,” that contained the seeds of an interesting work by a mature artist.

Last  night we attended the Dance Umbrella fundraising gala and performance at the Market Theatre where most events have been taking place. This is a wonderful old building with a grand foyer, and a bar and restaurant that serve as the gathering place where audiences and artists mingle.

The gala was much more modest than in 2010, due no doubt to the loss of their largest funder FNB.  Director Georgina Thomson and project manager David April hosted the event that was smattered with videos and live performances excerpts. All the dancers were spectacular but my favoritel was an excerpt from Gregory Maqoma’s piece “Skeleton Dry”.  We were eager to lend a hand and talk with current and potential sponsors about the importance of DU in the ecology of Southern African dance but sadly none of the staff seemed available to introduce us to their sponsors.

Afterwards we gathered on 7th St. in Melville for dinner and lots of catching up

l-r: Shay Wafer, Ken Foster, Vivan Philips, Cathy Zimmerman

with Boyzie Cekwana, Neli Xaba and Mamela Nyamza. Nothing takes the place of just getting to hang out with these amazing artists and learn more from them about their lives, their work and conditions on the ground. We are very much looking forward to our two days of meetings with them that begin tomorrow. It has been such a gift to have had  major support of the Doris Duke Foundation, NEA and now Robert Sterling Clark to convene, learn, exchange and develop partnerships.

Gregory Maqoma

Having an opportunity to spend time with Neli and Greg, along with the many other artists who are here with whom we have history,  is an incredible privilege that speaks to our shared desire to build long term relationships and enduring partnerships.  We are slowly building up our knowledge of the contexts in which they work, deepening our understanding of the issues that drive their work, and growing our friendships. It is an amazing experience.

Neli Xaba

Yesterday (Sunday) we had a casual breakfast on the terrace with time to catch up, process and plan. Just being able to sit outdoors in the balmy air is a great relief and pleasure for me coming from a Maine winter. I feel hugely better and different in this climate.

Then it was off  to the Rosebank Mall which includes an African craft market and an enormous flea market as well as a typical mall. My approach is to survey the whole market and then decide where to shop. I remembered certain items or vendors I hope to re-find and sure enough we did.

Many of the craft stalls carry the same items and I am quickly overwhelmed by the plethora of merchandise on display. It becomes a blur that I must wade through to ‘see’ what I am looking for.  Looping back around i honed in on the colorful, leather-wound bracelets and beaded, ball necklaces I had hoped to find again. Cathy and I also found nifty cotton dresses that will be perfect for a variety of summer activities –so all in all a rewarding shopping adventure.

We returned to our favorite lunch joint, The Lucky Bean, for a leisurely lunch and more brainstorming about future consortium plans and projects.  And then it was off to The Old Stock Exchange downtown to experience Jay Pather’s “Qaphela Caesari” (translation Beware Caesar), a site-specific event that began on the second floor with a series of thin installations in abandoned, empty offices. Among the more interesting rooms was one with a series of empty suits hanging from the ceiling and two figures sprawled on the floor. In another room a secretary was shredding paper until it began devouring the space.

We then moved en masse to the trading room – a gigantic, mysterious space that resembled an odd sort of place of worship with stained glass windows and pews (stalls for the traders) and lots of strange equipment.  For the next hour and a half the performance unfolded in a series of shifting scenes around the space with a cast of 15 performers including an exotic dancer, a sangoma, and a Shakespearean actor. The audience was invited to shift their location and focus repeatedly as scenes moved from the main floor to the pews to the balconies where the trading boards were located. Video screens were mounted around the room with scenes from the child protests in Soweto among the footage. A dark, melodic and evocative score filled the space beautifully amplifying the action. There were big unison sections of very physical and virtuosic dancing by the full cast (on the dirty, concrete floor, which was distressing to me). Stretchy strips of fabric were employed throughout the work as metaphorical umbilical cords (or chains) binding the players together and to the story, and providing an effective architectural definition to the space. Extractions of text from Julius Caesar were sprinkled through the work as were elements of traditional ritual, exotic dancing, popular song (Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” lip-synched by a drag queen) and more.

In the program notes Pather says “The themes of political betrayal, power and prophesy explored through image, dance and sound found resonance in The Old Stock Exchange. Like much of South Africa today it is a space of contradiction and fragmentation as much as one of coherence and possibility.”

The final scene brings the audience into the main foyer of the building, a space with lots of glass, external red elevators carrying passengers up an down, and a mile high ceiling. Here a rock band played loud music while people sipped wine and wondered what now???

Dance critic, Adrienne Sichel offered a smart and informative Q & A with choreographer, Pather at the conclusion.

Our night ended with a little nibble of mediocre sushi on 7th St before retiring for some much needed rest.

For a different perspective on our time here in Joburg check out Marj Neset’s blog at: http://mneset.wordpress.com/

We are into our second full day of dance going, fine dining and catching up on our sleep from the 14 to 38 hours of transit we collectively endured to get here.

The weather is warm, humid and hazy with bursts of thunder and rain at night mixing into the distant soundscape of the lively bar scene just two blocks away. Last night I swear I heard a mean djembe solo that went on and on playing familiar rhythms I knew from years of African dancing.

Seventh St. in Melville is a happening scene especially on weekends. Swanky bars and restaurants line the street with a used bookstore, grocery store, pharmacy and dress shop sprinkled in. One can play, eat, shop — even hear live music — and take care of practical needs. Our favorite spot for great food and wine is The Lucky Bean because its sits at the far end of the street where its quiet and they have lots of outdoor seating – and did I mention thoughtfully prepared and delicious food. Yes I am a foodie!

Last night we got down to business attending Neli Xaba’s new 30-minute video/performance at the Goodman Space – Arts on Main – a really cool space the Goethe Institute has developed downtown in an industrial neighborhood. This  complex houses William Kentridges studio, a print shop, high end fashion design workshop, a snazzy cafe (Canteen), and two or more raw performance spaces.

Neli Xaba Uncles & Angels

Neli came to BDF last summer along with choreographers Kettly Noel and Mamela Nyamza.  She was in the early stages of developing this work, “Uncles & Angels” that comments on the revival in South Africa of the Reed Dance. In 2011 more than 50,000 young girls participated in this massive ‘celebration’ of chastity and virginity that presumes to be an effective tool in curbing the spread of HIV!

“Uncles & Angels” is a solo work that pairs virtual imagery with live performance to question the enforced chastity of young girls. Neli is at once a woman and a girl, provocative and innocent, obedient and shamed. Her talent for effective, funny costuming is present in her white furry undergarments topped by a beaded hot pink mini skirt of sorts with a furry halter top that doubles as an animal skin headdress.  Her multipled images line up to mirror her antics and on obediently opens her legs for a virginity exam. There’s a stairway to ….hell (?)  littered with high heels, some funky hip shakin’ booty moves and a pretty powerful mirror cast on the absurdity of this pseudo symbolic ‘reed dance.”

From there we went directly to the historic Market Theatre for Dance Umbrella’s opening night performance of Gregory Maqoma’s new work, “Exit/Exist”.  Gregory has been an artist in residence at BDF on several occasions since 2005 and we presented his exceptional work, “Beautiful Me” in 2009. Tonight the house was full and what a fabulous post-apartheid mix of art lovers. Over its’ 24 years Dance Umbrella has succeeded in building a strong and diverse audience for contemporary dance and I am so glad they have found a way to continue hosting this important festival after their long time sponsor, Standard Bank pulled out two years ago.

“Exit/Exist features an absolutely extraordinary quartet of singers, all formerly with Hugh Masekela’s band, along with one of the most sublime guitarist, Guiliano Modarelli, I have ever had the privilege to hear.  Seated behind a scrim the singers also play supporting roles in the story of Maqoma, a renowned chief of the Xhosa nation who waged war with the English in the mid-1900 to liberate  land and cattle. A piece of old history known by but a few.

Gregory donning a gorgeous shimmering silver suit performs a subtle, detailed, mesmerizing dance delineating the stage all the while with his back to us. Never has a clothed back been so expressive. This abstract opening section is stunning. Still a work in progress, as the piece continues Maqoma’s plight and demise is told in quite literal terms through the text, props and imagery. The program notes say that “the core of the piece is about memory, rephrasing the notion of existence and the notion of simply existing in order to exist.”

A reception ensued after the performance and the crowd of happy opening nighters poured into the lobby devouring the buffet and spilling out into the square to socialize.

Serendipity is my favorite aspect of travel. Those delightful moments when one encounters the unexpected. Coming to a festival halfway around the world – or anywhere—part of the fun is who you see and reconnect with. Then there are all those new folks to meet. Now that we, the Africa Consortium, have been visiting the continent for over eight years, attending festivals and visiting with artists on their home turf, we know people. So last night we got to reconnect with some of our friends and get our festival groove on.

Continuing with the notion of serendipity, this morning we went to Wits Theatre for Stepping Stones, the annual festival showcase of young talent featuring 50 groups over two days. At the entrance to the theater was a large group of kids in a circle/crowd taking turns dancing to a single young drummer. They were practicing their moves for the show and having a blast. So many lit up, glowing faces and boy they were throwing down some pretty funky, nasty moves.  What a scene – it was for me almost the best part of the show.

Then it was off to another yummy lunch at Melon on 7^th St with our colleagues Shay Wafer from 651 Arts and Vivian Philips of the Seattle Theatre Group.

Tonight I will revisit Gregory’s performance –always love the chance to see a piece more than once and dig deeper into the layers of information that make up any good work.

For another perspective on our time here in Joburg check out Marj Neset’s blog at: http://mneset.wordpress.com/