{"id":4800,"date":"2022-06-29T12:11:09","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T11:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4800"},"modified":"2022-07-13T10:22:25","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T09:22:25","slug":"seven-ways-to-say-goodbye-bearing-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4800","title":{"rendered":"Seven Ways to Say Goodbye: Bearing witness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\u2018Jabu.\u2019 A\nname. The only word uttered on the stage of Seven\nWays to Say Goodbye<\/em>\nis simply spoken. It is delicately given voice by a dancer who looks\nbehind another, walking off into the darkening lights. \u2018Jabu.\u2019\nThe sound is not said to mean anything. It is just a name. The name\nof a dancer who has just exited the stage. It is smooth, short and\nclipped, as though there is nothing really to be said. The soft call\nreminiscent of the everyday ways we call after our loved ones. We\nsay, \u2018Ma\u2019, and then come up with a reason afterwards. Jabu does\nnot turn. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nthing about death is that it is final. The life of a body moves as\nthough in a straight line, birth\nto death.\nWhen Jabu Siphika leaves the stage, they leave. Entrances and exits\nin rows of rectangular light\nshafts\nare perhaps the only straight lines in Seven\nWays to Say Goodbye<\/em>.\nBut this elegy moves to the rhythm of grief rather than dying. Bodies\nswirl in endless circles. They are rotations of joints contracted and\nextended paying witness to the fact of mourning as a cycle and not a\nlinear process. In this\nwork choreographer Lliane\nLoots constructs a list of seven observations made in Durban during\nthe Covid pandemic, the endemic poverty following\nmultiple\nfloods, the terror of the\npolitical\nand social unrest with\nlooting and burning leading to more than 330\npeople dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Death\nis final, but mourning is a cycle. The piece begins with a single\nperformer spiraling in a grey-blue Japanese-styled dress over large\nblack pants. Ludovici Einaudi\u2019s \u2018Solo\u2019 plays. In the long shaft\nof light another dancer joins in a navy-purple dress of the same\nmodern Japanese cut, and they orbit each other, spinning\nin\ntightly controlled circles of arms and torsos. They continue in\nwhirls only their technical training could allow them to perform\nwithout a drop of sweat. On their knees they straighten and bend\ntheir arms from the floor towards the heavens, cupping the\ninsubstantial air as though releasing it and gathering it back. The\ngesture has the sensibility of a detached prayer – a wheel of asking\nand circling back to asking again, without stop. There seem to be no\nanswer expected. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ninitial pairing stop to witness the second pair, and the second and\nthird pairs do the same as another pair enters and begins their\nrotation. They could be nurses in a clinical ward. The aesthetic is\nso ascetic. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once\nall four pairs are in an ensemble swaying and\nwhirring\nin different shades of blues and greys, they could also be the dead\nspilled by torrents of water. If the cool blue lighting symbolizes\nwater\ndepths,\nthe dancers could be embodiments of our national subconscious. There\nis a communal call to the things Seven\nWays to Say Goodbye<\/em>\npresents. \u2018Jabu\u2019, is a name, and perhaps it could be any name,\nyour name, their name, our name. A call\nreceiving no response. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\na large-scale projector creating an immersive background for the\nelegiac dance, Loots types, as though in thought, amending some words\nas we watch, \u20181. Things to provoke memory\u2019 until, \u20187. Things\nthat are precious\u2019. As number 1 proceeds,\nthe dancers who witnessed one another and their partners turn to face\nthe audience. It is unassuming, the gaze. But it is direct. It\nseems they are asking questions of us \u201cAre\nwe here? Are we present to this moment? Are we heeding the call to\npay witness to the dead?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cycles of grief become frustrating to watch. The nonchalant manner in which Seven Ways to Say Goodbye<\/em> performs its act, its call to witness, becomes exasperating when searching for the grief to move forward and out of the cyclical pattern. The music, sourced from recorded songs, gloss over some evocative choreography where bodies are carried in oddly frozen shapes and multiple magnificent movements. But there is no spectacle to be observed in this piece. This appears to be an ethical choice in the manner of witnessing that the Flatfoot Theatre Company holds under Loots\u2019 choreography. When Max Richter’s* track \u2018Solo\u2019 plays a reprise, it is easy to roll one\u2019s eyes and wish for that better score. Then the projector becomes a black-and-white photo album. Precious austerity. It catches critique with its bare humanity. This work is about people. People died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a touch of watery lighting swirling on the walls next to the audience, the piece performs its final call to witness, by immersing everyone into this memory in the subconscious of South Africa, haunting us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Max Richter’s work was initially referred to as that of Ludovici Einaudi.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Credits:
Choreography: Lliane Loots (in collaboration with the dancers)
Dancers: Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Yaseen Manuel, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Siseko Dube, Ndumiso \u2018Digga\u2019 Dube and Sbonga Ndlovu.
* also acknowledged is Kristi-Leigh Gresse who was part of the original cast but who is not performing in this iteration of the work.
Lighting and Audio-visual design: Wesley Maherry
Costume Design: Greg King <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Jabu.\u2019 A name. The only word uttered on the stage of Seven Ways to Say Goodbye is simply spoken. It is delicately given voice by a dancer who looks behind … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4904,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions\/4904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}