‘Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro’ back in Joburg
Novelist Zakes Mda and composer Maurice Ravel meet in a dance piece that examines loss, grief and issues of mourning.
Author:
3 February 2022
An intrigue of dance and music that spins on the weight of mourning, Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro, was conceived and choreographed by Gregory Maqoma who combined movement with his two inspired source materials: Zakes Mda’s novels Cion and Ways of Dying and Boléro, a piece of music by French composer Maurice Ravel.
Mda’s character Toloki, a professional mourner, weaves his way through the story and in tandem with the music magnificently arranged by Nhlanhla Mahlangu. He uses the a cappella music of Isicathamiya sung by the Soweto Gospel Choir. Simphiwe Bonongo, a beatboxer, highlights this sound as one of the ways to tell Toloki’s story. As the dancers and singers build tension and maintain the performance’s rising energy throughout, eliciting verbal responses from the enthralled audience, Bonongo accompanies them with his voice.
“It’s a universal story encompassing the past and the present that champions our ability to band together to share the burden of grief. [It is] set in a graveyard with the persistent cries of people in mourning,” says Maqoma. His company, Vuyani Dance Theatre, makes this work pulsate with life. “[It] was created [in 1999] as a space for us to come together to play, to find something more significant about ourselves, about our country and significantly to say who we are in the context of an urban setting.”
Since its first outing in 2017, and despite the restrictions brought on by the pandemic more recently, Cion is revisiting The Mandela Stage at The Joburg Theatre with an expanded cast. The production has toured Europe and the United States, hitting the boards at illustrious venues such as The Joyce Theatre in New York and The Barbican in London. For now, though, it is back home.
Cion is at The Mandela Stage of The Joburg Theatre until 6 February 2022.
