When ideas and words fail, there’s always dance

Absolutely nobody in the arts and culture sector supports the construction of a 120m flagpole to display an outsize SA flag at a cost of R22m. That didn’t seem to matter to Nathi Mthethwa, indisputably the worst minister to hold this portfolio in the postapartheid era (and a contender for most inept cabinet member altogether, which is saying something).

This wasteful vanity project, this exercise in crass nationalism, is an insult to all of us — the latest in a litany of devastating blows to the arts industry struck by the very person who is tasked with protecting and promoting it.

But what is to be done? No amount of agonising by columnists or social media outrage has been able to persuade President Cyril Ramaphosa to relieve Mthethwa of his position. Artists have occupied state buildings and they have arranged widely publicised protests. They have organised new representative bodies and lobbied for change. All, it would appear, to no effect.

“Wenn die Ideen fehlen, sind Worte leicht zur Hand,” wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: when ideas fail, words come in handy. This is a neat aphorism. But when words fail, what then? What if language cannot adequately convey your feelings of resentment and despair, or bring about a change in the conditions that cause them?

Earlier this week, I found at least one answer at a packed Market Theatre (by packed, of course, I mean 50% of capacity

— because the ANC in government has no desire to see the performing arts live and thrive, even at state-funded theatres, and Covid-19 is a convenient excuse to try to kill them off entirely). It was the opening of Reflection and Reflex, a new dance work created by Fana Tshabalala and Thulani Chauke, directed by Gerard Bester.

Dance and physical theatre start somewhere before words, and then go somewhere beyond them. Sometimes only the eloquence of the body can fully express anger, pain or resistance to oppression. Sometimes it is also the best vehicle for expressions of love, joy and freedom.

In Reflection and Reflex, Chauke and Tshabalala give a performance that initially strikes the viewer with its athleticism, all muscle and poise. They enter the stage in matching outfits and approach what may be considered a third “character” in the show: an ingenious construction consisting of two large metal cubes, running on wheels and connected by a 180° hinge that allows them to pivot and separate before clanging against one another again.

These cubes, all bars and rigid geometry, give a sense of confinement. At points, the dancers move as if trapped inside them. Yet they are not fixed prisons: Tshabalala and Chauke push them around, climb their sides, lie or stand on top of them, and navigate them like gymnasts. In some moments the dancers are antagonists, threatening or challenging one another; over time, however, they come to provide mutual comfort and support, working together to traverse the bars of their temporary captivity.

Notably, both performers (or their personas) struggle to use language. A mouth opens as if to shout or scream, but no sound comes out. Words are jumbled, or mumbled at a volume that is drowned by the eerie soundtrack playing throughout the piece. There are incoherent shrieks. The dancers pant with fatigue. But words fail them. Instead, their eloquent bodies speak.

Dance, too, has its own language, its own syntax and vocabulary. This is not necessarily more ambiguous than the written or spoken word, but it is less specific. Perhaps, as a result, there is a greater likelihood of audiences projecting onto a work meanings and messages that are absent from the artists’ intentions.

My sense is that Reflection and Reflex is more interested in experimentation with forms — with the push and pull of forces at work on two bodies navigating a fixed space — and in personal emotional journeys.

Moreover, it is always dangerous to contrive analogies. The figures depicted by Tshabalala and Chauke nonetheless struck me as emblematic of all SA artists this week: channelling frustration and anguish into creative expression.

● ‘Reflection and Reflex’ is on at the Market until May 22.