Acknowledging the Zulu rickshaw drivers of South Africa’s apartheid past, We Wear Our Wheels With Pride is a hybrid show of live performance and video capture with digital effects that proves how potent music, movement and community are in bringing an audience on board.
We are invited to join together in summoning our ancestors, and each dancer assumes the persona of a driver or horse. The vocal gymnastics of singer Anelisa Stuurman add to the mystique and celebration of the history of the Rainbow Nation.
Orlin’s choreography, in collaboration with and performed by Moving Into Dance Mophatong (MIDM) has an exhilarating force and immediacy, popping with energy and colour.
Video artist Eric Perroys and costume designer Birgit Neppl have weaved their work into a satisfying whole that suggests movement, reverence, joy and resilience.
The video work included moments of movement against the stillness of a moment, at one point swirling to suggest the tracks of a rickshaw ride, at another magnification and duplication of what we see on stage.
The audience is encouraged to become part of the soundscape as well as adding layers of movement. It was fascinating to look around at the pure vivacity in the room as the rickshaw dance took hold.
The dancers (Sunnyboy Motau, Oscar Buthelezi, Eugene Mashiane, Lesego Dihemo, Sbusiso Gumede, Teboho Letele) offer up a playful, yet respectful callout to Black South African culture. They are graceful but defiant, proud in their athleticism.
Although all make an impact, whether solo or in ensemble, I’d like to mention Dihemo for her fierce, dervish-like movement, and Letele for his warmth and impish style. The headdresses the group wore for much of the show were beautiful and fun.
The show end with the gut punch reality that the 1970s rickshaw drivers rarely lived past 35, and what young Orlin (a white South African) saw and admired as a child was only part of the story of a shameful period of segregation and slavery.
They will be remembered by this passionate and remarkable piece of work.
4 stars.
Southbank Centre and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels present the UK Premiere of Robyn Orlin’s We Wear Our Wheels with Pride performed by Moving Into Dance Mophatong (Queen Elizabeth Hall, 21 – 22 March) as part of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival.
Image credit: Jérôme Séron
Congratulations Robyn Orlin and all the dancers and artists. A beautiful concept. Wish I could witness.
Sharon Katz