Review: Hominal /Xaba- beautifully cerebral and playful dance theatre experience – Cape Town, September 2022
Hominal /Xaba – is multi layered and stirring dance theatre: Mind and eye blowing. Created and performed by Marie-Caroline Hominal (French-Swiss) and Nelisiwe Xaba (South Africa), Hominal /Xaba was performed at JOMBA! in KZN. The ICA (Institute for Creative Arts) at UCT, presented it in Cape Town for two nights – September 4, 5, 2022, in partnership with Pro Helvetia-Zürich and Pro Helvetia-Johannesburg.
The piece starts off cerebral (bodies snared in a spider web; bound and tied) and then the figures free themselves and wrap themselves with the twine/yarn of that which trapped them. Then they release sheets of Shweshwe fabric and the space becomes a playground. From the cerebral, articulated spider web choreography, it segues into Zumba, Ball, with the artists Vogueing in front of a laptop. The artists have a lot of fun – clowning, competing, interacting with the audience.
Physically spent from the performance, the artists gaze at the audience and engage with chit-chat with each other, which elicits laughs from the audience as it is pulled into reflecting in what has taken place: Extracts:
Nelisiwe Xaba: “It was beautiful but I am tired… It was beautiful and gorgeous…I had a great time.”
Marie-Caroline Hominal muses that the journey was great “but in the experience of the journey maybe we didn’t get high enough … maybe we were Tripping”.
Xaba counters that she climaxed and quips: “Scuse me darling this land [South Africa] is chaos.” Or words to that effect. Xaba adds: “Cape Town is gorgeous”. There is chaos but within the chaos and ties and knots is beauty, gorgeous-ness, highs and sheer climaxes. Hominal /Xaba is #ThinkTheatre of extraordinary depth – cerebral, playful, transgressive, celebratory and brilliantly keyed into #screendance ( #TikTok #Vogueing); dance out of studios – people performing with their laptops streaming the moves. It pings in terms of the pandemic lockdowns when the screen was the source of highs (and lows) for many. How high can you go? How many splits can you do and who is watching – or blinking? We had a great time. It WAS beautiful to be wrapped up in this yummy, gorgeous dance theatre piece- figures knotted, snared in a web and then emerging – triumphant, tripping and climaxing with extraordinary dance.
© TheCapeRobyn/Robyn Cohen.
© TheCapeRobyn/Robyn Cohen.
✳ Hominal /Xaba – Marie-Caroline Hominal (French-Swiss) and Nelisiwe Xaba (South Africa). Presented in Cape Town for two nights – September 4, 5, 2022, by the ICA (Institute for Creative Arts) at Hiddingh Campus, UCT, in partnership with Pro Helvetia-Zürich and Pro Helvetia-Johannesburg. Image credits: © TheCapeRobyn/Robyn Cohen – Sep 5, 2022. Related coverage on TheCapeRobyn: https://thecaperobyn.co.za/preview-two-performances-of-hominal-xaba-in-cape-town-september-2022/
