{"id":4779,"date":"2022-06-28T12:15:16","date_gmt":"2022-06-28T11:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4779"},"modified":"2022-06-28T12:15:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T11:15:18","slug":"ghetto-the-musical-chaotic-township-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4779","title":{"rendered":"Ghetto The Musical: Chaotic township energy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nLet\u2019s\nget rid of the ghetto<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI\nhope I don\u2019t die for a long time. I still got things I want to do\nand look at and boys to talk to.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nLet\u2019s\nget rid of the ghetto<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI\ndon\u2019t know if I wanna get married but I want to wear Bantu knots if\nI do and purple lipstick like Bianca Jagger.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nLet\u2019s\nget rid of the ghetto<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u2014 Excerpt\nof monologue read in Ayo Akingbade\u2019s film, Tower XYZ (2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWatching Ghetto\nThe Musical <\/em>on a cold Monday afternoon at St Andrew’s\nCollege, I found myself a sad commuter between frustration,\nanticipation and fatigue. I experienced it as a depressing realistic\ndepiction of poverty and struggle made bearable (or perhaps more\ncrude) by music and dancing. I suspect my feelings were directed\ntowards the content more than the aesthetic and stylistic choices\nthat brought the piece together (we\u2019ll get to that). But first,\nlike filmmaker Ayo Akingbade, I want to get rid of the ghetto\nbecause I still got things I want to do and look at and boys\nto talk to.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\ncan\u2019t speak of the ghetto without speaking of the conditions that\nnecessitated its creation (racist segregationist policies). And one\ncan\u2019t speak of the ghetto without speaking of conditions that\nresulted in its continuation — lack of transformation. And so, to\nspeak of the ghetto is inherently political. It is to speak of land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based\non the lived experiences of the struggling youth in the\ntownships, Ghetto\nThe Musical<\/em> takes\nCovid-19 as the main starting point. It speaks to the difficulties of\nputting food on the table due to lack of work and economic\nopportunities, of crime and corruption. The 11-piece cast from\nEastern Cape Theatre Artists takes us through a dizzying journey of\nlove, hope, fear, violence and redemption in 55 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nBecause\nthe piece attempts to touch on so much, a few topics, such as gender\nbased violence, are mentioned in passing and not afforded enough\nreflection considering their gravity. The sub-narratives are not\nalways coherent \u2014 two monologues delivered by chained actors with\nblood smeared T-shirts while dancers perform a powerful and deeply\nlyrical sequence leave me feeling confused. Perhaps this incoherence\nis fitting because ghetto life is bewildering \u2014 how can generations\nof people be expected to survive so much structural violence by the\nstate? And yet we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nappreciated the attempt at queering township life through a depiction\nof queer youth \u2014 although at times this ran the risk of being\ntropey where queerness is articulated with an oversexualisation of\nthe body; our main interaction with queerness is through a sexy\nrendition of a musical number about justice. For the most part, the\npiece was successful in its fluid use of language \u2014 melding\nisiXhosa, English and tsotsitaal seamlessly throughout the\nperformance. Monolingual viewers, who might have otherwise struggled\nto follow, were assisted by the highly gestural and embodied\nperformances which offered a different avenue of communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholar\nin Black Studies Dhanveer Singh Brar speaks of \u201ca ghetto ecology\nthat is manufactured in the relations between dance, sound,\nterritory, race, and class\u201d. This reading of the ghetto\ncontextualises how music is integral in storytelling, be it in\nstories of struggle or joy, something director Luyolo Shaba Sentile\nunderstood intuitively. The music carried the performance. With\nminimal use of props \u2014 tyres, crates, a telephone booth, plastic\nwash basin \u2014 and bold choices in costumes, Ghetto\nThe Musical <\/em>succeeded\nin painting scenes in our mind’s eye. The energy of the township\ncoursed through the stage, transferring itself into an enthusiastic\nand thunderous applause as the musical concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghetto\nThe Musical <\/em>will\nbe performed on the 28th Jun (8pm) and 29th Jun (4pm) at St. Andrew\u2019s\nHall.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get rid of the ghetto I hope I don\u2019t die for a long time. I still got things I want to do and look at and boys to talk … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":4780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4781,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions\/4781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}