Gregory Maqoma is infuriated by the flagpole that has dominated the national conversation for the past week.
The globally celebrated dancer, choreographer and wildly inspired producer of some of the most profound spectacles to grace stages across the world is flying to Austria after our lunch at Dolci Café in Craighall Park to perform Broken Chord with composer Thuthuka Sibisi and a cast of singers and dancers.
But the flagpole is eating up all the bandwidth.
We pause to discuss our lunch choices. I chose Dolci for the zucchini fritti. They are sinful and I have followed the superlative chef Luciana Righi (from Tre Nonni and Assaggi) wherever she may go for a fix of these delights.
Gregory has an intense local and international performance programme lined up for the next couple of years and says his body is feeling its age, so he has to run a tight ship.
“It’s hard work … The body has changed over the years. It gets hard to keep the same kind of energy and to take up the movement.”
I can understand why he chooses a very light salmon crudo dish, and I try to pretend my steak salad will offset the fried delicacies I have just scoffed — practically alone.
No-one who has witnessed what he does with his body and the incandescent work that he orchestrates comes away untouched. He weaves sound, voice, costume and movement into an experience that is at once cathartic, inspired and all-consuming. It is like being in the centre of a collaborative storm that gets hold of your emotions and rattles them loose so as to reset them in a profoundly new way.
I tell him I have been reading about research into how choral singing and dance can unblock the neural pathways laid down by trauma, and literally reset the body and the mind. He answers that has had people come to him after a show to say that is precisely what they felt. That they had been in therapy for years and this one performance had moved them forward in incalculable ways.
It is the kind of work that could reset our national trauma if everyone had a chance to witness it
It is the kind of work that could reset our national trauma if everyone had a chance to witness it.
His themes are universal but acutely local. Take the work that he is performing in Austria, which he says was born “purely by accident” during a visit to the Apartheid Museum.
“I walked into this exhibition about the first professional South African native choir to tour in London in 1888. The work was by composer Philip Miller with William Kentridge and the strangest thing happened — I started to dance in response to [it].”
Gregory did some research on the choir. “It was not easy, they had to overcome so many stereotypes, people touching their hair and surprised they could sing the European repertory. And I’m really interested in how this story reflects in the now, and the dynamics that are playing out with the politics of migration, the permits and closing of the borders and the selection of who is and isn’t allowed to come in.”
From September his Vuyani Dance Theatre company will be touring Germany and North America. And then he is premiering a musical, Mandela, at the Young Vic in London.
His passion for dance started early. “Growing up in the township I lived close to a hostel … It was so intriguing for me as a child to see them performing and preparing for [traditional dance] competitions that happened every weekend. I felt this was something I really wanted to do.
“But it was when I saw Michael Jackson on my television screen and seeing what he was able to do, to use simple gestures and make people scream and to be moved to tears by just one move, I thought that is something I want to do. To use my body to allow people to tap into their own emotions.”
I
We are already coming out and telling South African stories to the world – and telling the world what’s possible in this country. And we have a minister who is only talking about a R22m flagpole
— Gregory Maqoma
He went to the Moving into Dance school in Newtown and the rest is history.
When I ask him how he sees the future for dance and the broader creative community in SA, Gregory gives vent to his frustration.
“I mean support from government would be great. Here we are packing our bags and going to raise the South African flag, literally all over the world. We have artists who are already flying the flag and all they need is the support and the recognition … We are already coming out and telling South African stories to the world — and telling the world what’s possible in this country. And we have a minister who is only talking about a R22m flagpole.”
He says the minister, Nathi Mthethwa, and the department of arts & culture have not acknowledged concerns raised by the South African Theatre & Dance Foundation, which was formed as a way to work with the government on the artistic community's needs.
“Our sector employs 1.7-million people and accounts for 7% of the GDP. That’s huge... 80% of the budget goes to maintaining the bricks and mortar, yes that is important, but it is also about keeping those buildings alive and running. If there is no content, there is absolutely nothing. That doesn’t make sense.”
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