A chant for the forgotten
Choreographer Nhlanhla Mahlangu talks about his latest work for the Dance Umbrella festival
Chanting fascinates dancer, choreographer, actor, poet and musician Nhlanhla Mahlangu. It’s no accident that at least six of the pieces he’s worked on have the word “chant” in the title — it represents the primal echo of the voiceless and the powerless, made tangible as art. Mahlangu’s latest creation in this vein is The Workers’ Chant, a site-specific dance work that will open Johannesburg’s 2017 Dance Umbrella festival on Thursday, February 23. “I tend to follow similar themes ... I love the chant motif,” chuckles this performing arts chameleon while discussing his latest “work of chant” at the site where it will be staged — the historic Workers’ Museum in Newtown. A century ago this nondescript building, just next to the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, was a municipal compound that housed migrant workers who were brought in to build the nascent City of Johannesburg. They lived in appalling, slave-like conditions, forced to sleep cheek-by-jowl on concrete bunks in cramped dormitories. ...
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