Co-production: Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (South Africa) and Dialogue Dance Company (Russia)

Zebra - the first co-production of Russian and South African dance companies in the history of contemporary dance.

Choreography part: PJ Sabbagha and the dancers
Costume design: Justin Elliot
Set design: PJ Sabbagha, Tabo Pule
Music: Steven Reich, Meredith Monk, Kevin Volans, Phillip Glass.
Music compilation: Tabo Pule
Light design: Declan Rundel
Performers: Ivan Estegneev (Russia), Sergey Kremnev (Russia), Songezo Mcillizeli (SAR), Ivan Teme (SAR), Daniel Mashita (SAR).

Duration: 60 minutes

The premiere took place on March 11th 2009 within FNB Dance Umbrella Festival (Johannesburg/ SAR)

The project has been supported by FNB Dance Umbrella Festival (SAR), South African State Council of Culture and Ford Foundation (Moscow).

The project has been presented:
March 11-12: premiere of the piece at FNB Dance Umbrella Festival (SAR).
March 28: the piece performance in Aktovy Zal (TSEKH), Moscow.
March 30: the piece performance in Kostroma Drama Theatre, Kostroma.
April 2: the piece performance in TYA, Yaroslavl
July 9-11: the piece performance in Grahamstown at the National Art Festival (SAR)

Life like a zebra in a Russian-African project

Black stage covering drawn with white stripes, two Russian dancers, three Africans in the project."Zebra" is a pretty simple and obvious title for a co-production of " Dialogue Dance" Company from Kostroma and Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative from SAR. But not only colour of the stage and colour of the skin provoke the title: all the choreography part is based on contrasts.

The leaflet says that the authors of the project are PJ Sabbagha and the dancers. The South African choreographer, widely famous in his own country ( a couple of years ago he was put on the list of 100 best citizens of South Africa for his special contribution to art and culture), came to Russia a year ago to take part in "Diversia" contemporary dance festival held by Dialogue Dance company in Kostroma. PJ is not considered to be a supporter of strict dance direction. Those working with him do always have a right for their say- so these monologues make the piece, function of the choreographer is to combine them. That's where the contrast appears- people are simply different, they move in different ways and speak about different things while dancing.

Sixty minutes of the piece performed on the stage of Aktovy Zal which belongs to TSEKH Dance Agency are the sixty minutes of monologues and dialogues, quite aggressive at times. Actually you literally feel aggression in the air of the piece- two dancers even don't touch each other, they just exchange intent gazes, but once one of the two steps forward- the other one immediately steps backwards as if being pushed away by an air cushion. When there are two men on the stage (either theatrical or  historical- whatever), inevitably a fight " who is the boss here" emerges; however, what can happen is that one of the two won't enter into the argument, won't accept a challenge, and then his monologue will become a monologue of chosen weakness, deliberate  refusal to clash.

The character of Ivan Estegneev makes exactly this choice- he does not make his body involve in the fight, but lets it go, and it falls down over and over again. Weakness as freedom; weakness as a rest from a severe rhythm; as one's personal variant of path.

It's important to mention here that "Zebra" is a purely male project; there are only male dancers on the stage. Each of them has his best part, the brightest expression ( For example, a simple rise of hand by the African guy is divided into a thousand- not fewer- trembling movements, that is why this hand seems a flying up giant butterfly). Some hints at the plot naturally appear only in dialogues or in trio parts- when, for instance, one of the actors puts his head on the shoulder of the other person, and the third one does his utmost to break this touch, to squeeze into between the two people, to push them aside from each other. In this painstaking, simple and hopeless movement, despair is expressed more vividly than in the most passionate jealousy scene acted out in all details.

Now, in uneasy time the Russian-African co-production was supported by Ford Foundation that has been assisting contemporary dance in our country for almost ten years. There is some hope that the Foundation will continue its work as the projects it chooses are worth being supported.                           

Text: Anna Gordeeva “News Time”, April 2009
Translation: Olga Vesselova

Review: Zebra at the FNB Dance Umbrella

My View by Robyn Sassen: “Zebra” looks at men, in black and white; it’s coloured with SA and Russian experience.

PJ Sabbagha is a magician. He can make your eye follow a yellow ‘superball’ on stage, from the back of the auditorium, against a Victor Vasarely-like patterned floor, as it dances amongst men. He can, by sleight of hand, see his cast change costume, change identity before your very eyes but not within your conscious grasp. He doesn’t need to use tricks of technology to give the work its seamless magic, which is like a tonic on the brain, visually, conceptually and emotionally.
“Zebra” deals with issues that are neither black nor white; it debunks stereotypical perceptions of masculine identity in a manner which is charming yet as highly complex as the thoughts that flow through one’s mind in any context. These dancers are individuals, working with and against issues of male bravado, embarrassment, rejection and love with bracing honesty of emotions, yet a sexuality that is kept generally oblique and inexplicit.

There are elements to the piece which are excruciatingly tender, but without the bold outlines of narrative and conjoined with dance dialogue, what comes is an engaged but not soft understanding of emotional need, love and loneliness in the face of rejection. The five performers are extraordinary in the mercury-infused bodily movements they create. Working together and alone, they embrace a splendid sense of balance in the work which is emotional, before it is literal. Everyone demands your attention, but the work is constructed in such a way that no one dancer overshadows the attention of his peer; the rich cross-hatchings of dialogue and alternative dialogue is utterly exquisite.

Dressed in black and white, and white and black, the dancers are almost school boyish at times; clever use of lighting offers a hieratic understanding of importance of characters as the multiple narrative unfolds. The work engages with all the challenges and pain men suffer but are conditioned by society to endure, and through these deeply contained emotional values, one can read other realities - comradeship, war, humiliation, bravado, love, the need of support.
At one point, Sergey Kremnev, replete with spectacles and ear phones, conducts and rearranges his collaborators as though they were traffic on a zebra crossing. At another, Ivan Teme makes beautiful dance gestures out of the more socially acceptable one of waving goodbye. Dialogue infuses the work from the outset, with just a few words uttered by Teme. He greets Ivan Estegneev in Zulu and he asks him simple social questions like how he is and what his name is. He asks him to sit down. Estegneev’s frightened, frenetic physical response offers an evolved and unpretentious understanding of misunderstanding and the cross-multiplication of ideas this engenders.

“Zebra” is a universal piece, engaging with the kind of issues that have complicated the identity ‘male’ in our society. It doesn’t come with a prescriptive message, and perhaps says to us things that we already know, but, as is Sabbagha’s wont, it opens up our social landscape with a clean cut, exposing in light and shadow all the elements of dodgy value and misrepresentation and tears and playfulness that we often hide, in the face of society, under a harsh light. Moments of levity spot this generally emotionally very intense essay. Hopefully there will be many more collaborations between these two dance companies, that we will get to see in Johannesburg.

Text: Robyn Sassen, http://www.artslink.co.za, March 2009