Dancing between the ancestral and the urban
by Bongekile Mkhize
On Tuesday 6 September JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience played host to Fana Tshabalala and Edna Jaime. Tshabalala a South African dancer/choreographer who is no stranger to JOMBA! presented his solo Zann, while Jaime, who visits the festival for the first time as part of this year’s Mozambique-focus, offered her solo Um Segundo (One Second).
A steel bed with a foam mattress dressed with a checkered blanket, the kind often seen in South African rural homes, a small square-shaped bedside table with a night lamp, a wooden study desk and rocking chair are all set on stage. White A4 sheets of paper are strewn randomly across the stage. The sound of classical music by Thulani Chauke fills my ears, my attention is piqued as Tshbalala begins his solo. Titled Zann, the work explores unstable psychologies and delusions of freedom. One, by one, by one, Tshabalala points out the set pieces on stage and light illuminates them, there is a loneliness evoked in the action. Deprived of human interaction, he is left to his own devices with his things.
The set evokes ever-present dichotomies between rural and urban South African cultures and his costume may well be his Sunday best. Tshabalala dances passionately and with focus, exploring sometimes awkward and jerky movements, and at others longer more languishing ones. At the peak of the solo, he performs a duet with the rocking chair summoning a sense of nostalgia, longing and perhaps slight madness. Sheets of paper float down from overhead — pages in the book of his life — unfinished. His movements soften, but then become more frantic he seems to be trying to escape this room. Something is holding him back. The work oozes a sense of delusion — at wanting to be free, but not quite knowing how. It’s these contrasts that capture the essence and mood of Zann.
After a short interval, Edna Jamie begins her Um Segundo (One Second). Her style embracing a fusion of forms from contemporary dance, traditional African dance and popular dance forms that exude sexuality. On stage to the left is a couch, and opposite it is a small black and silver box. The lighting layers the work as we see Jaime transform from human form to dancing silhouette on the cyclorama.
Jaime is rebellious and sassy as she holds centre stage. In her programme note, she offers that her body “moves between the ancestral and the urban, the real and the virtual as she comes out of her comfort zone and firmly declares the future is now!”. Offset with imagery that evokes recent Covid-life, she picks up a mask from the box on stage, puts it on … she is suffocating from it. After some struggle, she takes it off and throws it away. A Portuguese monologue plays as she dances, she talks about this mask that covers her and threatens her freedom. She does not feel like she is seen or noticed, it hides her beauty — all that is under is hidden and even a nod of seduction cannot be noticed.
Finally, she finds comfort lounging on the couch with her phone in hand scrolling through as the stage lights dim, and the blue glow of her smartphone screen flickers on her face.
As an evening the programming of these solos offers a rich engagement between ancestral and urban identities in contemporary Africa. A wonderfully complex and critical exploration of contemporary African experiences that has one last performance tonight — 7 September at 7pm at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.
JOMBA! runs until Sunday 11 September, a full programme is available online at: https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za.
