Maqoma “Exit/Exist” showcases an eclectic style, with a strong message!
By Svan Buchholz
Just like the ebb and flow of life, the audience of the dance theatre piece “EXIT/EXIST”, is taken on a journey from present to past and into the present again, by South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma. Slowly, as if the dancer on stage is being born, the lights fade in and present Maqoma in a golden suit, only showing his back, whilst using isolated ticking movements in his hands, as if he was reaching for something and staying in total synchronicity with the bird-like soundscape.
The physical isolations in his body match his soon disturbed loneliness on stage, when four men wearing masks and different traditional African costumes, enter from the left, one after the other, to sit down onto grey stone blocks. As they start singing as a male choir of deep voices, Maqoma moves stage left to slowly take off his suit, puts on a black and white attire and entering centre stage again, holding a two-sided horn in his hands.
Whilst dancing fluidly with this iconic object, he stretches his limbs towards every compass point and fills the bright lit white dance floor with almost ritualistic movements, integrating undulations and floating movements in his whole body. No matter if moving with a blanket around his body or playing with what seems to be yellow cornflour poured onto the stage out of grey flour sacks, you can clearly see Maqoma’s wide variety of dance influences, yet he plays with these dance-conventions on stage. His feet are moving fast but precise almost as a medley of isiPantsula and Flamenco. The turns that he includes frequently, are highly controlled just like in Kathak and in Ballet, yet the body part isolations which he integrates in his physique remind the viewer of a hybrid dance form mixing Umxhentso, Boogaloo and Popping, and Bharatanatyam.
Blending dance with live music, singing, screen work and physical props on stage, every art form flows so perfectly in sync with and into the others. Drawing a bow from the past of his country by telling the story of how his ancestor Chief Maqoma had to fight for his land against colonial forces, he reminds us how many people still have to fight against racism today too. When the piece concludes, Maqoma is dressed in his golden suit again, bringing the audience back to our contemporary, the backdrop slide asks “and now?”…thinking about the recent Black Lives Matter protests…this question and dance piece bind history with the present.
