(Reviews from the artSMart team
currently in Grahamstown at the 2016 National Arts Festival)
A joyous
celebration of dance! (Review by Verne Rowin Munsamy)
... feathers..., Moving Into Dance Mophatong’s addition to the 11
days of amazing, was just that - amazing!
Director
Mark Hawkins, the previous Artistic Director of now closed Fantastic Flying
Fish Dance Company, boasts to me before the show that they had just received a
Standard Bank Ovation Award. Crowds flocked to Centenary Hall, to bear witness
to this spectacular dance experience. We watched in awe as these well-lit,
toned bodies rippled through space, soared through the air and caught one
another with gentle trust.
There were
three dance works, directed by Hawkins, choreographed by Sunnyboy Motau (My Black is Black), Sunnyboy Motau Rachel
Erdos (fight, flight, feathers, f☆☆☆ers), Oscar
Buthelezi (Roads)and Eugene Mashiane.
The works feature Sunnyboy Motau, Oscar Buthelezi, Muzi Shili, Eugene Mashiane
and Teboho Letele, who demonstrate brilliant strength, emotion and masculine
bravado. Each choreographer utilises the dancers’ strengths in diverse ways to
show off technique, agility, passion and overall breath taking dance.
The first
piece, my favourite, showed a delicate relationship between two males, learning
from and helping each other find their ‘wings’, while the second piece, a solo,
cleverly used a jacket to depict the struggles of one man within himself,
trying to face the world and the third piece had us engrossed as all four
dancers take the stage in a piece about manipulation and conformity.
The contact
improvisation sequences are very reminiscent of the works that Flying Fish once
made and the piece ends with feathers being released onto the dancers as they balance
on each other. A joyous celebration of dance! - Verne Rowin Munsamy
There is one more
performance of "... feathers ..." today (July 10) at 10h00 in the Centenary Hall.
For more information
on the National Arts Festival click on the banner advert at the top of this
page or visit www.nationalartsfestival.co.za