Daring. Bold. Venturous.
Double Bill: Synapses & Broken Chant is an intriguing production and deserves more than the two in the crowd we were.
Part One: Synapses.
Raezeen Wentworth is rather funny, she has good comic timing and an interesting onstage persona. My fellow audience member chuckled throughout at her antics. She uses a projector and a cardboard box to create interesting imagery. She plays games: pass the ball, hopscotch, singing to her prince… yes she repeats “there’s no time to play”.
It’s meta-theatre. It’s postmodern, contemporary, experimental physical theatre. And it’s an observant look at hysteria, a “physical response to trauma”, we hear. While she plays her hopscotch about “countries”, she names Somalia and Nigeria. She comments and associates Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram respectively. Is the warring and unspeakable violence happening on the continent the cause of her hysteria? Are her games an escape from this?
There isn’t time to play for those whose childhoods have been taken away from them. We should all be hysterical about this.
Part Two: Broken Chant.
Sonia Radebe performs a contemplative work about African ceremonies and as the title suggests, a breaking down of them, of dance, of family. She begins by unpacking and ritualistically arranging a spiral of enamel cups on the stage. She hums softly. A didgeridoo track plays. Her hum grows to resounding song.
“One foot. Two foot” she repeats. Her movement through the spiral of cups invokes imagery of negotiating domestic spaces, of treading carefully so as not to upset the space. But as her careful tread develops into a stomping toyi-toyi, so does “one foot, two foot” become “ffff, ffff, ffff” – a transformation.
A mesmerising and moving dance unfolds. In it she seeks balance, she struggles with emotional burdens, she calls relentlessly to people who are not there “uphi Dudu? uphi Sephuma?” The stirring climax leaves us shaken from Radebe’s vulnerable and tumultuous solo.
Radebe is a phenomenal mover and I don’t throw the word out lightly. Each step, each twitch, each shudder, reach, pause, extension – is imbued with the utmost quality and intention. The house should be full for this alone.
– Sarah Roberson
Director: Khayelihle Dominique Gumede
Choreographers: Nhlanhla Mahlangu & Sonia Radebe
Music composed by: Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Click here for production info. Double Bill: Synapses & Broken Chant is on tomorrow 8 July @ 12pm @ PJ’s.