Review: The Vuyani Dance Theatre

By: Melissa Berry

November 12, 2009

Conversation with Father (opening lines of Beautiful Me)

Baba, I am a peacock, I’m a peacock
I have beautiful colors
Red
Black
White
I would like to get closer to you
I dream of flying
I have five toes
I could with them
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
But I would like to get closer again
I fly
I dream of flying
I fly

REDCAT – Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theatre – is the esoteric jewel in the crown of the Downtown Los Angeles Disney Concert Hall complex and always provides the unexpected in intimate theatre and performing arts.  At REDCAT, rather than being a spectator audience, one is invited, intellectually and emotionally, to experience the performance with the performer, and the eclectic audience is those looking for a more intimate theatre experience. This one-man performance of Beautiful Me did more than just fulfill these expectations.

In this first American tour of the Vuyani Dance Theatre, South African performer Gregory Maqoma, 36, brings his past to REDCAT with an evening that breaks down into a 55-minute solo, incorporating movement, live and recorded speech, and an ensemble that is the collaboration of four diverse South African musicians. With a sitar, violin, cello and percussion, the ensemble seated off to the side of the stage conjures sounds that help create the mood and tone of Maqoma’s storytelling. Besides chanting, they also include in their singing the click sound in the manner of the Xhosa language. This is the South African language that many of us have heard in which clicks replace the “c,” “q,” or “g” for emphasis and emotion. Their unexpected and playful jam session, using this language to riff off each other, recalled the “scatting” of early American jazz, with the audience enthusiastically offering words of encouragement and just as magically moving on with Maqomo as he continued his journey by creating another atmosphere.

Beautiful Me is the product of Maqoma’s upbringing in the ’80s which provided myriad of sights leading to insights leading to his vision of becoming the new Michael Jackson and becoming a star. This youthful admiration for Jackson combined with the South African dance form lead him to form a dance group with five friends. Growing up in Soweto, he infused his country’s traditional dances into his emulation of Jackson, thereby creating his own aesthetic. Beautiful Me, in turn, is not only a self-portrait “but a reflection of African identity.” Although his dancing won him admiration from his peers, this was not the case with his father, and this schism is one of the subjects for the performance. Maqoma explains, “Beautiful Me is about relationships – relationships with other artists, with my father who was traditional in a Western sense and wanted me to play [soccer] and be a doctor, not a dancer of any form. Throughout my upbringing, I was always against my father’s wishes, so that created tension.” Maqoma’s choreographic story includes this emotional tension when growing up and his lifelong emotional explorations and adventures. All of this is presented with a kind of palpable kinetic energy that is his unique creation garnered from his classical dance training combined with his own moves.

For Beautiful Me, Maqoma collaborated with three other choreographers, Akram Khan, Faustin Linyekula and Vincent Mantsoe, who brought in dance styles that included contemporary kathak – a form of classical dance and Afro-Fusion. Maqoma chooses to “set” the key to this creative work with “possibilities of change, growth and discovery.” He states, “The possibilities are endless.” With this as a kind of mantra, his Beautiful Me is a creation of these endless possibilities that stay with the audience long after the performance has ended.

Maqoma begins the evening downstage center in a soft pool of light. He introduces himself to us body part by body part, with each having a will of its own and its singular exploration of the space around him. His body is strung together in such a manner that he can compartmentalize it at will, as when only his torso is in play, or he reaches around in a double-jointed manner and slaps his behind with a sassy spank. Working singly and working in unison, his movements are slowly involved in a rhythm created by the intricate percussive accompaniment of his bare feet. Next, he seamlessly segues into classical plies which culminate in a leap that seems to be in slow motion, encompassing the width of the stage. His sudden insertion of a definitely recognizable “moonwalk” and “slide glide” is done with sly humor and affection. It’s this sort of thing that endears him to the audience throughout this evening, by keeping him and his art so accessible. At one point, Maqoma comes downstage to an eerily lit single microphone and poses questions to the Pope (“Have you seen God?) and to George Bush (“Why don’t you pull the trigger yourself?”). There is nothing facetious or confrontational about this. It’s a simple, almost naïve and childlike question. Upon asking the questions, he returns to dancing on his multi-layered journey. He has established that he is the one and only single human dancing machine, and we are mesmerized and his for the rest of the evening.

Beautiful Me is not some specialized one-man show performed in some esoteric setting only for the initiated. It’s a piece of work for anyone who wants to go beyond their own normal day-to-day routines and see someone else’s interpretations of their own life in a completely different environment. This is the kind of performance that is essential in helping to develop global understanding. It provides some answers to global curiosity without guilt-provoking and bludgeoning us by perhaps our own lack of information. With his body, Maqomo is able to take us to these places that we could never visit on our own.