Arts Review

Written By: Tiisetso Tlelima

Picture by: Suzie Bernstein

Choreographer and director of The Language and Watermelon, Sifiso Kweyama urges all dancers to look at the art of dance as poems, at this year’s JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience. “Dance is poetic. We tell our stories through our bodies and there is no better storyteller than a body,” he says. “All we need to do now is realise that we are no different from pastors – we preach about life, about the reality, whether sad or fun. I wish all dance practitioners can realise their potential as messengers and healers.”

Kweyama, who’s presenting two works during the festival, The Language and Watermelon, would like his audience to walk away with a heightened sense of the notion of masculinity and the complex issues that surround it. His first offering, The Language, is about the struggle men go through whenever they’re faced with a challenge, and the denial that becomes a normal behaviour until they cannot control themselves. “Whenever men are faced with a challenge they boil it inside them until one hears that a family was wiped out by the person who is supposed to be protecting them,” explains Kweyama. Kweyama attributes this kind of behaviour to the fact that men see things the same way. “So if a man seeks advice from another man, invariably the answer will favour the man because the other man understands the ‘challenged’, and he might also be going through the same thing.”

In his second piece, Watermelon, Kweyama continues to explore the way that men are burdened by societal expectations. Watermelon looks at the journey of an unemployed man. “A man is regarded as a provider and when he cannot, he’s not man enough according to culture,” Kweyama elaborates. “It gets worse if his partner is pregnant and he’s the breadwinner in the family.” Watermelon interrogates the pain, the suffering and the struggle the men who stand on the side of the road go through waiting for that luck or chance of employment. “I want people to realise the reality of these two works and the plight these people face,” explains Kweyama. “Even though this is presented in a form of dance, it does reflect the pain we as human beings tend to ignore, particularly if it hasn’t happened to us.”

Sifiso Kweyama celebrates his 20th year in the arts industry this year. Born in the rural areas of Umkhomazi in Kwazulu Natal – a province rich in the arts and talent – it was only fitting that he started an arts project for the unemployed while he was in high school, a project that was later named Phenduka Dance Company. By the time he completed his Matric he had performed in a number of productions including Gida Africa at the Playhouse Loft (1990) and in 1991 he joined the Body and Soul Dance Company directed by Annett Vertelli. The following year he took part in the renowned David Kramer and the late Taliep Petersen’s musical, Poison, in Cape Town, a place he called his home for the next eight years. While living in Cape Town he joined Jazzart Dance Theatre and honed his dance skills. After eight year he left the Mother City and went back to Durban to revive Phenduka. He then moved to Joburg where he started his own company called Okhela Dance Theatre.

Kweyama has been to JOMBA! a few times but this is the first time he presents work under Okhela Dance Theatre and he can’t contain his excitement. “I would really like to see what Durban has to offer, mainly because Kwazulu Natal province is rich in the arts,” he adds.

Catch The Language and Watermelon tonight at Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, Durban at 7.30pm.

Read our JOMBA! Contemporay Dance Experience write-up.