Exit/Exist: Memory Reconfigured
By Tammy Ballantyne (Guest Writer from The Ar(t)chive)
“Exit/Exist” had its world premiere in Brussels at the end of 2011 and its SA premiere at Dance Umbrella 2012 on the Market Theatre main stage. Since then it has toured internationally to great acclaim.
Gregory Vuyani Maqoma is a master collaborator — he exercises a flair for bringing together co-creators and performers and making magic. Exit/Exist reaches new levels of integrated, polished and evocative theatre dance. He reconfigures memory in a transformational and poignant performance that fuses storytelling with his own unique contemporary dance vocabulary and spirited live music.
Maqoma breathes life into a work that takes us back, navigates a story from our troubled past. But it also draws parallels with similar struggles today — it resonates with today’s land battles, ownership and struggle to hold onto identity.
We are introduced to the other characters in the story of the great Xhosa chief and distant ancestor of Maqoma’s, Jongumsobomvu Maqoma, who, in the late 1800s, clashed with the English over cattle and land and finally met his death on Robben Island. The a cappella group, Complete, are watchers, observers and commentators on Maqoma’s dance, as well as being active participants.
Simphiwe Dana’s music has been deftly transposed to a cappella; it is haunting and goose-bump delicious as the singers croon, chant and staccato-like reverberate the rhythms around the theatre.
Giuliano Modarelli’s live guitar accompaniment is so much more than that; his strings tease out this tale of land invasion; cattle-stealing; imprisonment and ultimate loss of dignity.
This is a multi-layered and multi-lingual production with superb direction by James Ngcobo, Ralf Nonn’s incredible lighting, Mileta Postic’s unpretentious video animation, sound design by Andile Kentse Mpahlwa, David Tlale’s gorgeous costume design and simple, effective set design by Oliver Hauser. All these elements are supremely magicked together in a performance work of great beauty and huge sadness.
Maqoma’s work is available to stream for a limited time on 27 August at 19:00 (SAST) and 28 August at 12:00 (SAST) via https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/whats-on-today
