“UNDERTOW” EXPLORES PATHER’S DESIRE TO RETURN TO THE BODY AS A SITE OF STRUGGLE
By Clare Craighead (Guest Writer)
In his programme note for the 23rd JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience’s “Legacy Artist Platform”, curator, choreographer, academic and activist — Jay Pather notes: “‘Legacy artist’ is a daunting mantle to wear” and indeed in a context like South Africa notions of legacy are muddy terrain. “I never felt like I was passing any legacy…” admits Pather. He continues this train of thought in a brief interview by adding, “if anything a festival like JOMBA! creates a legacy through providing some kind of stability for works to appear and re-appear”, and indeed in a context where there is no clear art/institutional trajectory as may happen in the Global North this has been the role of many of our country’s arts-based festivals. Like many artists of his generation, Pather stepped into a need, responding to historical racial injustices that through racist laws disenfranchised the majority of South Africa’s people. Indeed this is true of many local artists of Pather’s stature, there are similar and compounded needs now, and so perhaps “legacy” here is a space for introspection, reflection and renewed, or perhaps reinspired action.
Pather, who is known for his political dance-making, has never shied away from uneasy and difficult terrain in his collaborative creations. Distinctly South African, his interest in the clashes of cultures, forms, styles, histories; and unearthing necessary dialogue in the spaces between has always been at the heart of his work. Aesthetically, his iconic multimedia, intercultural and politically engaged work offers simultaneous record and response of/to histories uncovered, and realities underspoken.
Originally titled Legacy? by the artist, now billed as Undertow, Pather’s curated “Legacy Platform” programme includes excerpts of selected works created with his Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre between 1998–2018. The selected works, all originally performed live, are woven together in a composite narrative that reflects, as Pather says “the festering of the [South African] state as it is connected to an unforgiving patriarchy”, true to form, Pather and his Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre speak truth to power through embodied protest. His intention here, to “move through this trajectory of trying to shift borders, against the backdrop of a failed state, where this history and present reflects a body that is sore”. Qaphela Caesar, rite, Hotel, Kitchen and Body of Evidence all feature in the specially curated programme, alongside Pather’s iconic Shifting Spaces, Tilting Time.
While Pather describes the process of curating this programme as a “difficult, brutal act”, since none of these works were intended for digital distribution or consumption, he is no stranger to revisiting his works. Often re-conceiving, re-situating or re-constituting works from his oeuvre in different spaces, in different countries, on different platforms and sometimes even with different bodies — Undertow is the newest addition to this legacy!
Undertow will premiere on the opening night of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience at 19:00 (CAT) on 24th August.
The CCA’s JOMBA! 2021 runs from 24th August to 5th September and can be navigated free of charge via the website www.jomba.ukzn.ac.za or subscribe to the JOMBA YouTube channel here: https://www.YouTube.com/Jomba_Dance
A full programme is available via the website.
