Ears Wide Shut

KZN Dance productions twirled, kicked & flung me thoroughly into the festival earlier today. Their production …If The World Was Listening, choreographed by Sandile Mkhize, is a high-intensity, questioning, and thoughtful dance work. Performed with prowess, a series of vignettes ask “What would you say” if the world was listening…?

According to the programme, each vignette grew out of the cast’s personal stories shared during the creative process. And it shows. Powerful performances resonate throughout; the dancers are totally engrossed in their movement, in the stories their bodies tell.

We reveal and conceal ourselves through our stories. Who listens? Who is interested? Who cares? In …If The World Was Listening, we witness a spectrum of stories which different lives experience, influence, share and witness. Personal interactions, love, betrayal and rejection, self-discovery, devotion and patriotism, forgiveness, are expressed amidst interrogating social issues – sexuality, gender differences, modernity vs traditionalism, and domestic violence. The personal and societal are inextricable; the production looks at how they intertwine…

In the first episode, a young woman (Lorin Sookool) is uncovered, exposed, but resists expectations. Her skin crawls. The newspaper-tutu encircles her – is it the state of the world she can’t reconcile with? And as tutus in ballet represent order, rules, discipline… what role does the media play in controlling us?

Later, with exquisitely controlled technique, the women (Sookool, Leagan Peffer, Kristi-Leigh Gresse and Julia Hosmer) perform a seductive routine conjuring a strip show for one seated man (Monde Marafane). They are confident. They are gum-chewingly assured of themselves. They’re in control – of the situation, of their sexuality. But with their objectification and with the male gaze ‘consuming’ them, controversial questions are nudged at: who indeed is in control? Who’s pleasure is satiated, and at the cost of whom?

Recognisable though some of the contemporary dance repertory is (to eyes which have watched loads of physical theatre and contemporary dance), it is clear that the melding of different dance techniques is where this company is forging their edginess. They are working towards, perhaps not building a new dance language, but allowing a dance multilingualism to serve their stories and “message”, their vision. It is refreshing. It is exciting.

The festival’s “first show free” is good marketing. …If The World Was Listening’s opening show drew a crowd of 100-strong. And they loved it. I thought it was an especially strong piece of contemporary dance theatre. An audience member sitting alongside me (who happened to be Adrienne Sichel) summarises it best: “That was a substantial start to the festival”. Agreed.

 – Sarah Roberson

Click here for production information. The next show is tomorrow 03 July @ 10am @ Centenary Hall.