Imagine it’s October 13 1990. Simon Nkoli is leading the first Gay Pride March in Africa, four years ahead of Nelson Mandela’s presidency and South Africa’s first democratic elections. Picture a classic fashion runway, as used in Black Queer Vogueing events. Performers walk the catwalk, competing in different categories, with song and dance battles. Sometimes it is playful sparring, other times it is all-out style war. Large video projections show images of Nkoli, his letters from prison, Sebokeng township and anti-apartheid protest marches.
This is Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera, which premieres at Johannesburg's Market Theatre, about the life and trials of the gay anti-apartheid freedom fighter who was imprisoned for four years after the famous Delmas Treason Trial (1985-1988). Nkoli was at the forefront of South Africa's queer liberation movement. If it weren't for him, the country wouldn't have been the first to explicitly protect sexual minorities.
With a cast of more than 26 singers, dancers, voguers and musicians, the contemporary production fuses rap, opera, protest songs and archival audio clips. Part opera, part vogueing-ball, it's as fierce and fabulous as Nkoli was.
“Think if Hamilton and RuPaul’s Drag Race had a baby in South Africa. That’s Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera," says S’bo Gyre, co-lyricist.
It was created and composed by internationally renowned composer Philip Miller, whose recent successes include the soundtrack to the uShaka iLembe score, collaboration on William Kentridge’s The Head and the Load and the Reuben T Caluza B-Side concerts with composer Tshegofatso Moeng.
Nkoli is directed by award-winning UK director and screenwriter Rikki Beadle-Blair (Noah’s Arc and Stonewall). “I have always wanted to work at The Market Theatre. The home of protest theatre in South Africa,” says Beadle-Blair. “Simon loved glamour. We can’t think of a better way to tell his story. To combine his story with vogue-ball culture — a celebration of possibility, defiance, activism, dance, glamour and escapism.”
With choreography by Llewellyn Mnguni, costumes by Mr Allofit, multi-media projections by filmmaker and celebrated video designer Catherine Meyburgh, musical direction by Moeng and produced by Harriet Perlman, it’s a show not to be missed.
Nkoli is a South African icon, but many people don’t know his story. Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera sets out to change this. Never in this country has a vogue-opera like this been imagined. It talks to opera fans and those who have never been to an opera, but regularly attend vogueing nights, balls and drag clubs.
Next year it will tour internationally. Celebrate and be part of its birth in Jozi from November 17 to 19. Tickets are available from Webtickets.
Follow @NkoliVogueOpera for more.
What Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera creatives have to say
Rikki Beadle-Blair, director
Vogueing is inherently political because it is a defiant act by people who may or may not be political, but don't feel empowered. When he was offered books in prison, Simo didn't want the heavy political books because he was already living such a politicised life. He wanted escapism, he wanted glamour and romance, and wanted to be as multilayered as his life was.
Philip Miller, co-producer and composer
I wanted to make something that would speak to a different kind of audience; a young audience, a more diverse audience racially, and to speak to the LGBTQIA+ audience. I wanted to make something that, whether you're a lover of Giacomo Puccini and Richard Wagner, or whether you only listen to Beyoncé, you'd want to watch something like this. I wanted a style that would link opera to contemporary music that relates to the now and what people are listening to today.
Initially, I wanted to make a disco opera because Simon loved disco, but I thought that would date me. So I considered what young people were doing in this country and all over the world, which is vogueing, and which has become a phenomenon.
We need to localise vogueing and make it South African. This is where the music comes in, through rap by Gyre Sbonakaliso Nene, the sampling of various sounds, the fashion by Sikelela and the dance moves by Llewellyn; and other aspects which speak to the people involved in this project.
People always ask how I start a piece of music. Strangely, inspiration can come from a text in the archive, a sound in a documentary, a piece of video or a sound piece in an archive. With Nkoli, that's how it happened. I dived into the different archives, from media, television interviews and his letters in the GALA Queer Archive to media reports in newspapers. Reading it all, I started to think, that's a wonderful idea for a song.
Siya Motloung, singer, plays Nkoli
I feel honoured to be part of telling this story — it's an important story that needs to be told. I relate to some of Simon's struggles with expressing his masculine and feminine traits as a gay man. It's such a privilege for me to teach young people about Nkoli through my portrayal of him because he's an important figure who wasn't celebrated for his contribution. It's important for me personally because it's a celebration of my queerness through another famous character.
Llewellyn Mnguni, choreographer
Vogue is an expression of queerness and how it broke boundaries. It's a great element in the show because I combine contemporary dance vogue styles and African dance.
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