combined workshop with NELISIWE XABA
{ January 10, 2010 @ 3:09 pm } { Comments (1) }
Got over to Amrita before everything shut down!
But all I got was a few minutes of Nelly’s video clip from an odd angle of the room (and bloody mysterious it was, too). Plus the translator was having a bloody hard time translating her story of the Venus Hottentot.
However, it turns out her session really was popular with the participants, because she did a performance too. My translator friend Dara filmed it on his phone:
Remember, there’s a reprise at the Singapore SUPERINTENSE!
At the time I was there, though, it was kind of a bummer hearing her talk about how small her South African audiences are, especially her black South African audiences.
Nelly: I wonder why I continue. For who?
She makes enough cash touring the cities of Europe, but she’s feeling jaded – should she just marry a rich man?
Nelly: When you’re no longer exotic, what happens to you? What happens to me?
KS: You find a new market in Asia!
This is why she identifies with the Venus Hottentot: fragments of her body proudly exhibited abroad, but buried at home.
interview with NELISIWE XABA, Johannesburg, South Africa
{ October 15, 2009 @ 3:00 pm } { Comments (1) }
YS: So how would you describe your profession?
NX: I’m a dancer-choreographer.
YS: And why did you decide to come to FCP?
NX: Actually I didn’t read my e-mail, so I thought I was coming just for a performance. I didn’t know it was this. I didn’t know it was a meeting. I didn’t know there were so many people coming from different parts of the world. It was a pleasant surprise.
YS: And how’s Cambodia?
NX: Ach. It’s like any other developing country, including my country also. Probably my country’s a little bit more developed, but since I’ve been here I’ve been thinking about this term "developing country". Like, when are we going to be developed? Like poverty, and the elites still running the poor, so ach, in the end it’s just the same everywhere. Somewhere when you’re poor, you’re going to remain poor for the rest of your life.
YS: And the Cambodian participants?
NX: To me, the dancers, because of the way I made a presentation, so I didn’t really quite meet them in a physical way. That’s some way I regret. Ach, I didn’t meet them in a physical way, we didn’t do things. And they didn’t talk much also.
But they remind me of a group in Mali, the young boys. These ones are probably much more, come from affluent families probably, more than the ones, this other group in Mali that I know. But they wanna do thing, they’re not sure. And the ones in Mali, they’re not even sure they have a chance to do anything else except dance. They don’t have the education. But I think these ones come from more affluent families. They don’t come fro the streets. They’ve had some kind of education. They went to school, I don’t know.
So it’s a little different, but also ach, I saw somewhere, I saw myself somewhere in them because somewhere I come from the same background. You know, changing political systems. Well, I’m not sure if we did. I’m not sure if they did either (laughs), it’s just change of change of political organisation, but no-one takes the government, the government doesn’t take any radical policy to change anybody else’s way of living or status or poverty or…
But to get politics. Politics are always [inaudible], yeah, ach, this idea of having foreigners coming to a country and teaching you about contemporary dance or about contemporary art forms…I’m not sure about. It’ s not wrong, it’s not right, but I’m still also trying to find ways.. I’m still to find out, way I fit in. Or what do I do with this contemporary art when I hear it or when I see or when I learn. When you learn a contemporary art form coming from a developing country or a third world country, what do you do with it? Are you learning something that they will never ever use, or something that is not needed in our country? Are you learning, ach, at the same time it’s silly to say you learn contemporary art because contemporary art is supposed to be new each time. but you know what I mean. it’s like coming here to teach Zulu dance. (laughs) I can probably come and perform Zulu dance, but to come and teach Zulu dance is silly. If you look at the economic value of it.
YS: Any other thoughts on the FCP?
NX: It was good for me to be outside the typical dance meeting. And to hear the other people talk talk about their work is interest. It’s nice to have come alone also, because when you are alone, some way you are forced to meet other people. But if I had come with probably a colleague or someone else, I would never meet other people.
YS: Could you tell us about a performance you’re proud of?
NX: Probably "They Look at Me and That’s All They Think." That’s probably the piece I spoke about mostly because it’s about Saartje Baartman, and the reason why I love it is because of the story, it’s because when I made it I had limited budget and things were for me organic. And there was no fight about this and that about money. And somehow was innocent, and at least it felt there were no expectations, so I had freedom. So that’s the reason why for me it was a nice piece. And also in terms of working with objects, it was probably the most successful. Yeah, they are my meeting with objects. We had a marriage. It was a good marriage.
YS: Could you describe it a little?
NX: Well, how we started the piece. I had the storyline, not concrete also, because I didn’t want to really follow word to word, or the whole history of Saartje Baartman, because my story was not also Saartje Baartman’s story. So to make the piece I asked Carlo Gibson to make a sketch for me. He’s a fashion deisgner. Ach, he’s more an artist than a fashion designer, but also he makes his living from fashion. So he made the skirt, and what I told him was I want a skirt… the brief that I gave him was I want a skirt that I could use as a screen. So this skirt has to be able to open at some point. So he made the skirt. I suppose, well, some people call it a wedding dress. You could call it a wedding dress or whatever. That’s not what I was trying to do.
So I improvised a lot, we workshopped the piece. And also Carlo worked as an outside eye, to call it director, but he’s not really a theatre director, but he has a good eye. But at least he’s more, he has humour and he’s innocent, there’s something innocent about. He’s not innocent, he a 30-whatever year old man. Probably innocent is not a good word. Probably naive.
So that’s how we made the piece, from improvising, and of course when the skirt came we had some much possibilities, because the skirt is made form a thin, really really thin material, the same material that they sue to make a kite, so it’s very light and also, ach, now I don’t remember. I don’t think using shadow was ever an initial idea. I don’t think so. But after finding the possibilities that the skirt could do, then other things like the ladder came into the piece, and shadow. The shadow puppetry, shadow performance.
YS: And can you tell me something about the state of contemproary dance in south Africa?
NX: I don’t know. I’ve been travelling a lot, so I don’t get to watch the rest of the festivals, so it’s hard to say. but some way I feel like we’re going down instead of going up, or it’s getting worse instead of getting better. I think people are not as daring as they were maybe 10 years ago, or they’re not hungry to do things, but hungry in a sense that they need money. Hungry to create, or I dunno, and I might be wrong. I dunno. As I say, I don’t see many performances to really comment.
(Note: this interview actually took place in Jan 2010, and has been back-dated for the sake of tidiness on the blog)
Ng Yi-Sheng
A dancer and a choreographer Nelisiwe Xaba was born in Soweto, South Africa, she studied at the Johannesburg Dance Foundation and went on to futher study dance at Ballet Rambert in London. Before starting to create her own performances, she had danced in South Africa for Pact Dance Company and had also worked with a choreographer Robyn Orlyn.
Her performance this evening entitled Plasticization is a breathtaking and humorous solo, which tackles the subject of the body and the contemporary attitude towards it. It speaks of the body’s freedom as well as its entrapment, it speaks of erotica as well as politics. The author changes several identities in the course of the performance by the minimal usage of instruments and says that this performance is essentially about the ambivalent love-hate relationship that we have towards the plastic: it protects us on the one hand, but nature is unable to digest it on the other.
Plasticization (20 minutes)
Choreography and dance: Nelisiwe Xaba
Costume: Strange Love
from https://aksioma.org/nelisiwe_xaba/
Search domain esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/Nelisiwe_Xaba]
https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/Nelisiwe_Xaba
XABA, Nelisiwe (1972- ). South African dancer and choreographer (also called Neli Xaba).. Nelisiwe Xaba was born and raised in Soweto (South Africa), and received a scholarship to study at the Johannesburg Dance Foundation (JDF).
XABA, Nelisiwe (1972- ). South African dancer and choreographer (also called Neli Xaba).
Nelisiwe Xaba was born and raised in Soweto (South Africa), and received a scholarship to study at the Johannesburg Dance Foundation (JDF).
After studying dance in London (with a 1996 Ballet Rambert Scholarship) she returned home to join PACT Dance Company, where she was company member for several years, and with whom she toured to Europe and the Mideast.
She worked with a variety of choreographers, visual and theater artists, particularly Robyn Orlin, with whom she created works such as Keep the Home Fires Burning, Down Scaling Down, Life after the credits roll, and Daddy I’ve seen this piece six times before and I still don’t know why they’re hurting each other, which toured for several years in Europe and Asia, winning the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.
In 2001, Ms. Xaba began to focus on her own choreographic voice, creating solo and group dance works that have been performed in Africa and Europe, including Dazed and Confused, No Strings Attached 1, No Strings Attached 2, Be My Wife(BMW) (commissioned by the Soweto Dance Project), and Black!.. White and Plasticization.
Ms. Xaba has also collaborated as choreographer and dancer with fashion designers, opera productions, music videos, television productions, and multimedia performance projects.