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Black Sun
David Plater
Michael 'Mikey J' Asante
Natalie Pryce
Gregory Maqoma
Dancers
Gallery
Full credits
Black Sun is a work that draws energy from the sun and the moon, giving rise to descendants of ancestors. We live to tell stories not forgetting we live to be ancestors. The sun and moon only meet to blacken, allowing us to draw from their powers as we prepare for life after life.
We are all linked to the life forces of those that walked before us, those that paved the way to where we find ourselves walking from today. In this work we explore the spiritual influence of our ancestors that push, pull, and often guide our own journeys. From an ever-changing palette of intergenerational experience, we navigate our lives surrounded by the influence of the past, the present and in turn the effect of those influences on others. Black Sun acknowledges that the whispers of the past and beating of the present merge to inform the story that is our own.
The men’s trio explores the additional influence of the merging of cultures and the challenges of navigating the intersection of ancestral passage. The sense of ritual, of rites of passage and what those effects those have on our lives. Empowering and tormenting they influence our spirit in different ways and at different times as we are pulled between the then and the now.
At times life forces impede our flow, we become challenged to resist the beating drums that try to impede the nascent interactions with those around us. Ultimately, we must recognise the whispers and find our own grounding on this earthen path we travel.
The word ‘Abangoma’ or ‘The Healers ‘, sung during the group drumming conveys that we can embrace the differences, heal the torment, and pick one another up allowing us to ebb and flow as individuals but move forward together sharing a sense of community.
This work has asked that the cast dig deep, to be willing and submissive to supernatural powers. The dancers’ willingness to go further, to be open to the possibilities of going home, back to the source, has enriched this work and hopefully the audience and those we encounter on this journey can be transported with us as we discover. The music by Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante allows the ear to hear beyond the notes, to feel the pulse of the heartbeat.
Being with Ballet Black in the creation of this took me home, and I know now that home is where I am most free.
Gregory Maqoma
Additional content featuring David Plater
It is a non-narrative piece, illustrating that with a snap of the fingers everything can change; with this device we were able to cover a range of different styles, from the, “snap your fingers and I’ll come running,” cartoon-like duet, to the dancers’ bodies reacting to the accelerating snaps and clicks of the ending, to the tenderness of the couple who simply “click” together. During the creative process the dancers embraced the quirkiness of my vocabulary whole-heartedly, with the moves in the studio shifting from sharp and groovy to angular and disjointed, to fluid and intertwined.
When costume designer, Yann Seabra, saw the piece he immediately came up with brightly coloured jackets reflecting the snazzy, sharpness these dancers convey so well. The score for CLICK! is a combination of pre-existing music, original composition, and sound design. This is an approach I tend to use in my work in order to create different dynamics throughout the piece. From the likes of Snapping Fingers by Ken Beebe to Two Of A Kind by composer Kenny Inglis, I find using a variety of music allows me to play with the pace and intensity of the work. My finger-snapping time spent creating this piece with Ballet Black dancers was an absolute pleasure. We clicked. Sophie Laplane
According to reports in Elizabeth Wilson’s book, Shostakovich: A life remembered, the young composer was "fragile and nervously agile,” and indeed, Yuri Lubimov considered that “the fact that he was more vulnerable and receptive than other people was no doubt an important feature of his genius”. The seven movements in Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 11 are all quite short, almost fragmented. Each one, for me, has its own emotion, structure and story, except for the last one, which is a combination of the previous movements. There are real moments of restriction and tension within the choreography and music, which tug the four dancers through the space. The detail and the intricacy capture them in a battle for their own territory. It was really exciting to revisit Captured again, five years after its creation in 2012. There are new dancers in the company, which has allowed me to look at the ballet with fresh eyes. I wanted to push the piece further and really define what was important: that sense of unease and the crackle of tension. I am particularly grateful to Cira Robinson, on whom the piece was originally made, for her beautiful yet sharp, dynamic and ferocious dancing. Also to the other dancers of Ballet Black for bringing new life to Captured, at the same time as building on what was created in 2012.
