Conceived and Directed by Richard Loring
Choreographed by Debbie Rakusin and
David Matamela
At the Sony Centre, February 7-9, 2008

   South Africa’s longest running show—that has played six months in Australia, two and a half years in Europe, and toured China and India before coming to North America—is the brain-child of an expatriate Brit who wanted to give something back to his adoptive country and its remarkable peoples. Backed up by high tech lighting, costumes that are dazzling in any mode, music and lyrics (mixing Dave Pollecutt’s sentiments with the poetry of Don Mattera) that move from the nostalgic to the poignantly plaintive to the highly festive, and dances that mix various styles from the native to the Western, his show is a stunning 90-minute wonder—a celebration of fusion in history and performing art. Right from the thrilling opening procession of drummers to the final dynamic ensemble, this is a show that never rests. Sequences come at you unwaveringly, capitalizing on the historic tensions that have generated song and dance by which to re-shape the stars and sky under which so much tribulation and suffering have occurred.

   There are things in this show that have already been seen before in Gumboots and Umoja, but the motive of this production is not the through-line of colonial history or a remembrance of things past. It is, rather, a celebration of fusion—of what makes different people able to retain optimism in spite of their deep cultural and spiritual differences. The African footprint is intriguingly wide. As the ballad “You-Me” puts it, we are all born so differently, but in our anger and pain we’re just the same.  So, African wind and reed instruments join with Western instruments, English is joined to African dialects in the songs and recitatives, Hip Hop Pantsula rubs up against jive and tap, and sparks fly in an electrifying spectacle of talent. Whether in loincloths or zoot suits, whether wielding spears, shields, and sticks or toying with empty cooking oil drums or soccer balls, the men are tremendous in rhythm, flair, and tempo. “Listen up, and watch the feet,” the guys declare as they jump up to the quick Pantsula beat, but they hardly need to remind us of that. Who could ever afford to be distracted from the smooth and rough jive, the carnival release of joy, the lightning quick tap footwork, and the contest of gumboot and tap shoes? The women, shimmying, undulating, or jiving, are a great complement, adding their voices in song to the dance component, and spicing things up with some sexy allure in the urban dances.

   There are things that could be modified—such as the dense stage fog, the over-amplified sound system, and the insistent urge to be explosive in energy and colour. Momentum and volume are good things, but they benefit from creative control and discretion. Moreover, the overall density of textures (in sound, movement, colour) overwhelms the sense of a real journey into Africa, but there’s no denying that between the first spoken proclamation (“I am the quest, giver of life, Alpha without Omega. I am Africa”) and the final ensemble declaration (“Look at us. We are the future”), there has been an unmistakable imprint of the past in the present and the present in the near future. The urge to find destiny in history has been celebrated palpably, and that celebration has spread to audiences the world over. If there is a single defining number in this show, it would have to be the taut, thrilling pas de deux of two males, one black, one white, prisoners of their history of racial conflict who execute a stunning contest for power and control through ballet and modern dance, gymnastic prowess and martial arts attitudes. They begin with hostile aggression to each other but finally develop a tense but beautifully literal seesaw balancing act (both bodies joined in a single horizontal plane), emblematic of mutual respect and the spirit of integrated differences. This single dance sums up Africa’s troubled past and future hope in an image of dramatic fusion.

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