11 – 19 Okt 2025
11 – 19 Okt 2025
Production: SboNdaba Dance: In Search of Our Humanity
By: Gillian Mitchell
Photos: Anderson Carvalho
Presented as a dance journey through South Africa’s collective memory, this work ultimately unfolds as a distilled chronicle of human history – one that confronts a sobering reality: humanity’s boundless capacity for cruelty toward its own.
From the first still image – evocative of peering at cellular structures under a microscope – dancers trace the arc of evolution across time and terrain. They embody the creatures of land, air, and sea; the hunter-gatherers of plains and deserts; and the brutal legacy of human ownership and subjugation. The journey continues to a stark reflection on the ongoing struggle of those left cold, hungry, and unseen in a world that continues to withhold care.
Choreographically, In Search of Our Humanity is visceral and fearless. Bodies fly through the air seemingly unimpeded by the laws of gravity. Ensemble sequences pulsate with energy – an unstoppable pulse of life that refuses to be extinguished, no matter how bleak the human condition.
It is in dance that the work best succeeds. The imagery is vivid: dancers become a slave ship slicing through dark waters, wild animals roaming jungles and plains, bureaucrats drafting laws with cold precision, and desperate souls racing against the inevitability of fate. Each moment is conjured with striking imagination and emotional depth, compelling the watcher to do more than merely observe and feel.
The choreography is relentless and electrifying, demanding total presence from the dancers – not just for impact, but for safety. It’s dangerous, daring, and utterly exhilarating. And then there are the silences, the charged moments of stillness in which the absence of movement becomes a different kind of power.
The dancers are on stage for the entire performance, and their unwavering energy, precision, and soul are nothing short of extraordinary. They never falter – each movement is fully inhabited, each moment expanded with fierce commitment. The work pulses with excitement, and in the performance I attended, audible gasps of disbelief rippled through the audience several times.
Does this sweeping timeline of human history offer a glimmer of hope at its end? I urge you to buy a ticket, take your seat, and find out for yourself. This is theatre at its most unforgettable. Don’t miss it.
*
14 OCT 16:00
HMS Bloemhof-skoolsaal
