Remix's Lovaffair, the Jazz Festival, Great Texts and Fynbos

LOVAFFAIR FROM REMIX DANCE COMPANY

Highlight this, and book for it, because it's only on for this one week. With Lovaffair, Remix Dance Company celebrates its 10th birthday and its new home at the Baxter Theatre, where this show opens a new theatre called the Flipside.   The last production I saw was inspired by Santu Mofokeng's photographs at the National Gallery and it is hard to shake off the images they created in that space.  Like all their work, it was mysterious and moving, and the prospect of a new show is something to relish. 

For those who may have missed them, the company is  "an acclaimed contemporary dance initiative that brings together performers with physical disabilities and performers without. Remix is interested in exploring dance that values the honesty of the body and then surprisingly twists these tales and stories in space to create dance performances of unusual and outstanding perspective."  

The artist Ariadne Rudolph once spent a series of sessions drawing the Remix dancers in rehearsal, and the images she captured reflect the delicacy and deep feeling of the dance.  I am very pleased to have her permission to include some of them in the post-script at the end of this listing today.

CAPE TOWN JAZZ FESTIVAL

This is the major cultural event of the week  and the programme for Saturday and Sunday is profuse and overwhelming.  Look it up on  www.capetownjazzfest.com.   I consulted three musician friends to assist with selecting highlights from this list, but there are so many great names that between them they named almost every one!  Unknown to me until yesterday is a band called The Bad Plus, which has been recommended as fantastic.  So has the singer Rachelle Ferrel.   

A wonderful aspect of the festival every year is the free Community Concert, featuring many of the musicians, this time again at Greenmarket Square starting at 17h00 on 1 April. 

Something else to investigate is the Master Classes - last year they were open to anyone, not only advanced music students, and participants were privy to intimate performances by some of the leading lights of the festival.

EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES ALERT: NOT LONG TO END OF  RUN

There are a few shows that we should keep in our sights as they enter the last two weeks of their run.  Train Driver, the Fugard at The Fugard is one of them,  London Road at the Kalk Bay theatre is another, and the Michael Subotzky with Patrick Waterhouse exhibition at the Goodman ends then too.

There are just a couple of days to catch an exhibition with the evocative theme of Waters - Vesi� - Amanzi.  It features "three Finnish artists living in Kuopio, surrounded by lakes, and three South African artists from Cape Town and Durban, living on the shore of oceans": Eunice Geustyn, Kristiina Korpela, Leena M�ki-Patola, Witty Nyide, Jaana Partanen

and Jill Trappler.  It closes on Wednesday 31 March at 13h00

GREAT TEXTS/BIG QUESTIONS LECTURE SERIES

The Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA), based at the Hiddingh campus, is hosting a series of talks by eminent and interesting people who've been asked to "discuss one of life’s big questions, or the personal significance of a particular book or artwork."   The first season of these lectures last year was sometimes disappointing, but there were some that delivered the intellectual excitement that the concept promises.  The next one, this Thursday, looks like it will be one of those: novelist Imraan Coovadia will be talking on 'How to read Lolita.'  I am sure there are many of us who welcome a guide to reading this novel which has become so much a part of  our language and culture,  and at the same time continues to cause so much disquiet.  And how to read Nabokov's language, described by critic Michael Wood as "a fabulous, freaky, singing, acrobatic, unheard-of English."

At Hiddingh Hall, Hiddingh Campus, Thursday 1 April, 17h00, one hour long, free of charge.  For more information, call Niek de Greef  (021) 480 7156 or e-mail niek.degreef@uct.ac.za.

BOOK LAUNCHES: IN A STRANGE ROOM AND KILLER COUNTRY

It's a week for celebrated male South African novelists. In addition to Imraan Coovadia at GIPCA, there are at least two others appearing here in the days to come - Damon Galgut to launch his new novel In a Strange Room at the Book Lounge and Mike Nicol his new thriller Killer Country at Kalk Bay Books.  

In a Strange Room is described on the publisher's website as  "The most intense and passionate novel to date from Man Booker-shortlisted author Damon Galgut." 

The launch of In a Strange Room is at the Book Lounge, on Wednesday 31 March, at 17h30 for 18h00.

Leon de Kock reviewing Mike Nicol's Killer Country in the Sunday Independent said, "If you have to spend a weekend alone, with only one book for company, you'd want one that reads as slickly and as compellingly as Killer Country." 

The launch of Killer Country is at Kalk Bay Books, on  Wednesday 31 March, 18h00 for 18h30. 

PLANT SALE AND FAMILY DAY AT THE GOOD HOPE NURSERY

The Good Hope Nursery is really worth knowing about.  It is one of the longest-established nurseries specializing in indigenous plants, started more than 25 years ago by Gael and Roger Grey, and they count Kirstenbosch and Table Mountain National Parks among their customers.  Initially a wholesale nursery they now welcome the general public.  On Easter Monday they will be holding a "Fynbos Family Day"  with children's entertainment, fynbos walks, plant talks, expert gardening advice,  and 20% off on plant sales.  It's four and half kilometers south of Scarborough on that beautiful road over the mountains from Simonstown. 

Fynbos Family Day  Good Hope Nursery on Monday the 5th of April from 10am – 4pm

For more information please contact Roushanna Gray, events manager on 021 7809299 or 0722344804.

Post-script


Three drawings of Remix Dance rehearsals by Ariadne Rudolph

Books, Performances, Rare Plants and Poems

BOOK LAUNCH TONIGHT

From the Book Lounge newsletter, a notice for this Wednesday of what sounds like an exceptionally interesting conversation. They're launching Bury Me at the Marketplace, a collection of Es'kia Mphahlele's letters from 1943 to 2006, and co-editor Dr N Chabani Manganyi will be in conversation with Professor Harry Garuba. Dr Manganyi is a distinguished clinical psychologist and author. Professor Garuba teaches in the African Studies and English departments at UCT and is renowned as a poet as well as a scholar. I found two poems by him on "African Writing on line" and they're so wonderful I've printed them at the end of this listing. The book they're talking about is of course another reason to be there. From the publishers' website: This selection of Mphahlele’s own letters has been greatly expanded; it has also been augmented by the addition of letters from Mphahlele’s correspondents, among them such luminaries as Langston Hughes and Nadine Gordimer. It seeks to illustrate the networks that shaped Mphahlele’s personal and intellectual life, the circuits of intimacy, intellectual inquiry, of friendship, scholarship and solidarity that he created and nurtured over the years.
At the Book Lounge
Wednesday, 24 March, at 5:30 for 6:00pm




OUT THE BOX FESTIVAL OF PUPPETRY AND VISUAL PERFORMANCE

There are so many inviting things on offer in this programme, it's hard to limit one's choices to a sensible number of shows.
Check out the programme at www.outtheboxfestival.com

I won't repeat the blurbs, but when I see something outstanding I'll post a little review (as with Nkosazana and Hatched below.)

I'm planning to get tickets for "High Diving", "27 Windows,4 Doors,2 Taps", "Inua", "Angel" "Eu Peca de Terra ll" and "Stadium" and Jill Joubert's "Sealskin"; and films of 1) War Horse and 2) Hispano-America shorts; and the Handspring talk on Sunday.



NKOSAZANA

Nkosazana is a collaboration between actor/writer Cindy Mkaza and director/writer Leila Anderson, which I caught on the first night of Out the Box It's the story of a girl growing up in an African rural culture (implicitly Zulu.) In the frame of magic realism, sociologically real elements like polygamy and AIDS co-exist with talking snakes and bargains made with one's ancestor underneath the sea. Alone on stage, Mkaza plays the heroine of the story at many stages from child to eternally old woman . She uses direct story-telling, acting, and at times pure dance (quite exquisite dance.) But it's never about virtuosity itself, it's about making meaning and it is captivating entertainment. Collaborations do present particular challenges, and there is some disjuncture here between two distinct story-telling styles. But the play between different kinds of expression is also what makes the work so strong, and fresh, and at times magical. Catch it in the Playroom on Hiddingh campus at these times this week: Monday 22 at 14.00, Tuesday 23 at 18.00 and Thursday 25 at 21.00


INUA

I'm really sorry I missed this one - it's the talk of the festival. Let's hope that it returns to a stage in Cape Town sometime soon !


HATCHED

After seeing Hatched, I would go out of my way to see anything by dancer/performance artist Mamela Nyamza. Mamela was born in Gugulethu in 1976 and trained in the Zama Dance School from the age of eight; later she studied ballet at the Pretoria Technikon and won a scholarship to the Alvin Ailley American Dance Centre. She created and performs Hatched, and it's like a film in which almost not a single frame is wasted - there is so much that is beautiful, strange, and arresting. It works through images and movement, and I won't try to describe it further - just to recommend this incredible artist.
You can still catch the show at Out the Box in the Rehearsal Studio at Hiddingh on Friday 26 at 19h00 and Saturday 27 at 21h00.




RARE PLANT FAIR THIS SATURDAY

This sale happens twice a year, once in autumn and once in spring, and it's not to be missed for gardeners, especially plants people. About 25 specialist growers sell plants of every description "from trees and shrubs to bulbs, succulents, orchids, grasses, perennials and much else." Last time lots of them were hardy but it's not restricted to indigenous species. Expect to find beautiful and/or fascinating variations on plants you already love, as well as some altogether new botanical discoveries. And feel free to ask questions, many growers are passionate specialists who love to talk about their subject.

Rustenburg Wine Estate in Stellenbosch
27 March 2010 Time: 9.30-4.30 Entry: R10
Contact Barbara Knox-Shaw for more info: 021 8440154 or 078 0212101. For directions, go to www.rustenberg.co.za




EXHIBITIONS ETC.

I'm planning to see:

The Spier Contemporary at the City Hall
Michael Subotzky with Patrick Waterhouse at the Goodman
Fritha Langerman's Subtle Thresholds at the SA Museum

........but not the top-most priority in a packed week as they'll all be there next week! So will the play London Road at Kalk Bay Theatre which I've heard is a must.




WOLF HALL

If I'd had no competing demands on my time this week, I would have been reading day and night - Wolf Hall has got me by the scruff. The 2009 Booker winner by Hilary Mantel is a big book and a big story, set in the political world of sixteenth century England. I am not generally a reader of historical novels and the Tudor genre has always seemed to be at a very far remove. But from the first page Mantel pulls you in to a world that feels astonishingly real, with sensory detail that you can feel on your skin and characters that take root in your mind. Though the physical world of the book is so distinct from ours, the human world is not at such a remove at all - plotting and machinations in the corridors of power are our daily fare in twenty-first century South Africa. With Wolf Hall you can go to the heart of all the intrigue and fascination of that world, while at the very same time being transported to somewhere radically different.




Post Script

Two Poems by Harry Garuba, author of Shadow and Dream, professor of African Studies at the University of Cape Town


Monkey Love

hanging from the branches of your arms
dreaming of bananas,

I long only for things prosaic
things without poetry or fire

like bread and flesh and earth
like soil and seed and water

like the body evidence of sweat,
undeodorized, fresh with odour,

neither seas nor sunsets will serve this need

I long only…

to clasp the trunk of your body
and hug you like the monkey hugs the tree

a hairy love in an embrace of leaves







Death of a Poem


(For Sesan)

there is a lie in every line that rhymes
a line in every rhyme that lies

to tell the tale of a boy who loved beauty
so much he could not take the warts
that punctured the rhyming lyrics of his life
the debris and the log that punctuated
the flow of the river and the grace of the seagull

he couldn’t take it here
and one cloudless day
sunshine pouring like crystal showers
his spirit soared above the skies
leaving behind the lies in the rhymes

This dull, dull craft of words
Can it capture the dark delight of his life?