The loneliness of being together Submitted by johan.myburg on Fri, 09/05/2014 - 11:46 ..Author(s): Johan Myburg. Lonely Together – Gregory Maqoma & Roberto Olivan Dance Umbrella (Market Theatre) Johan Myburg / taadaa.co.za There might have been two dancers on the stage, but there were three performers. With their Lonely Together the artistic triumvirate, Gregory Maqoma, Roberto Olivan and Laurent Delforge, offered the audience a performance of dance and sound that hovered on the perpetual questioning of ‘otherness’, ‘sameness’, ‘foreignness’; a performance that questioned the meaning of belonging and utterly one that quivered with a sense of fragility. From the moment the Brussels-based musician and sound sculptor Delforge, also known as Squeaky Lobster, took control of the extended array of sound equipment at the back of the stage up to the last solitary movement of Olivan alone on stage, Lonely Together explored aspects of different private inner worlds and equally aspects of (often alleged) shared understanding. Within this context Delforge created music that he describes as ‘an ode to the freedom to try and the beauty of failure’. Right from the start, in the opening scene with both Maqoma and Olivan on stage, the divergent approaches to dancing became apparent. They execute similar movements filtered through their own individuality, perona and perhaps societal influences: Maqoma coming across as more romantic and lyrical and Olivan as more direct, in a 21st century kind of way. In a solo sequence, illustrating why he is such a sought after dancer and choreographer, Maqoma conjured up a trans-like scene, complete with mesmerising simulation of the minutest contractions, as if entering a world where he could not be followed. Drawing on his Catalan culture and traditions Olivan’s folk dance echoed Maqoma’s performance – it is merely something that the audience member can access from outside. You watch the two men performing as an outsider. As a foreigner. Even more so when you don’t have access to the words spoken on stage since they are not English… Olivan is the Catalan choreographer and director of Enclave Arts Del Moviement in Deltebre, south of Tarragona. He met Maqoma at PARTS in Brussels in 1996 while studying with Anne Teresa de Keersmaker. Since then they have embarked on their own careers. Olivan soon started his own creations while teaching and collaborating internationally. Maqoma, although working very actively with the dance community in South Africa as director of Vuyani Dance Theatre, regularly presents his works at stages such as Théâtre de la Ville where he is associated artist nowadays
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 07:03:08 +0000
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