Thursday, March 1, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
FACE OFF
My travels, like any other, developed out of a necessity - the need to develop myself as a maker and a performer. Along this journey I have often felt the need to be acknowledged by others, and to feel worthy as an artist and as a person. At DasArts, I questioned what makes me unique as an artist. What is it, exactly, that I do? What makes me different from the talented maid who washes the dirty laundry while humming a lullaby that sends shivers down the spine, the garbage man who makes figurines as a hobby, or the waiter who is also a jazz musician by night? Once I realised there is nothing special about what I do, I felt, for the most part, as though I was digging in mud and getting nowhere. Finding my own truth has been central component of my two-year quest.
As a theatre maker, I am interested in making work that contributes to the world I live in. To do that, I need to go deeper and find my signature as a maker, to investigate form and style and my specific approach to creating performance. Again, this process involved several questions. Why do I feel the need to abandon conventional methods in theatre? How do I approach the spectators in such a way that they listen and feel? Indeed, why should they? What do I expect from the spectator?
Ironically, putting myself out there as the subject, insecurities and all, has been the key to finding a truthful and deeply personal expression that touches on universal issues. As soon as I stopped trying to match other people’s expectations, I found myself.
Face Off represents a preoccupation with my own skin. I am a South African whose life experience has been formed and dominated by race. Coming to Europe has made me confront these issues outside of racially prescribed South African society. At times, it is uncomfortable and feels claustrophobic. As a stranger in a strange land, I wonder whether these feelings are caused by how others perceive me, or whether I project these feelings onto others.
In Face Off, I hope to ask questions about the roles we play, the roles we are put into and masks we choose to wear.
The process forced me into a place where I stopped taking myself so seriously. I can laugh at myself, and do not feel the need to present concrete answers but, instead, to keep on asking questions. Once I started to ask questions, the wool began to unravel. Through this performance-based response I contextualised where I come from, what informs my immediate thought processes and how I respond to the world in general. At the very heart of the matter is my desire to make a socially engaging performance, to find my own voice and my own way, and to give form to this.
I would say that one of the most important lessons learned during this period has been that I do not need to try and gain acceptance from others. Instead, I engage with my art in a way that it is not only a fulfilling experience for my audience but one that also feeds my soul. Just like me, my art is constantly evolving and it cannot be fixed in one place anymore. It is from here that I will proceed, and continue to work, create, love and live.
Concept and Performance: Ntando Cele
Music: Simon Ho
Script: Raphael Urweider
Advisors: Catherine Henegan, Petra Aardai
Thanks to Dasarts- www.dasarts.nl
Rotefabrik- www.rotefabrik.ch
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Once walked, twice talked...
Once walked, twice talked…
“When walking as opposed to running one of the feet is always in contact with the ground”.
As Ntando Cele I associate the ground with images of despair, desperation, grief and the potential for horizontal madness. I have the choice to walk over, along or in the ground. The performance;
Once walked, twice talked is an invitation to you the observer to take off your shoes and experience the ground, this is a story of two strangers; through sound and actions compete in the game of grief.
Thank you to Dasarts and Hetveem Theater September 2010
Mourner 1
Cat Smits
Mourner 2
Yinka Adesina
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
CYPHER SESSION VIDEO
“If my body were to be a drawn like a map, with borders, rivers and deserts; then through self composed sound, song, movement and spoken word; a knowledgeable person can navigate across the land recognizing the impressions of the future, past, present.”
Ntando Cele
Cypher Session is inspired by Songlines of the Indigenous Australians and the need to create a space filled with memories that collide / interact creating dialogue. Through songs, sounds and movement the audience will interpret
different stories.
This was a presentation of a work in progress to get feedback from collegues and practitioners. DASARTS 09/06/10.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, November 19, 2009
SONG IN MY HEART
Song in my Heart
(Inspired by More, more future. Choreography by Faustin Linyekula)
Playing in darkness,
Portraying dark spaces,
Places, hushed whispers.
The body imprints its footprints,
Speaking in murmur of hearsay.
Hands on heads, hands folded, hands on deck.
History portrays the instinct.
Survival of the fittest, run and don’t look back.
In search of new stories…no storytelling
In songs that heal your soul,
The dreamer is urged to cherish the moment.
Dance with drums, follow the moves and keep your eyes closed.
Full of contrast, contradictions
In variations, marinating beautiful words of sound,
The body tells your story, our story, their story, black story …
They will say this is the wrong poem.
This history tells of violence I have come to accept as my own.
Violence against my body.
Violence against the body,
The violence in my body.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Crossroads
Crossroads
I was at the crossroads, the centre of the beginning of the end.
Depending on which direction I take my destiny will alter and morph with each step I take, with each footprint I leave on the dusty road.
The uneven surface cause me to dwindle and wallop out of balance.
As the sharp stones poke my naked feet but I walk on.
Not knowing whether my feet bleed or no I trot imagination my feet to be made of hoof, hardened by steel of history and memory of a life lived in hardship.
I reach the tarmac unsure of which way to go. I spit on my left hand using two fingers from my right hand I hit hard the spit demanding a direction, guidance from the ones who have come before me, perhaps my sweat will attract their whispers. My attempt is futile as my spit just dissolves into the air, disappearing in the heat. I sigh wanting to scream in frustration. Wishing the path I am to take will show it self perhaps through a dream , a sigh, a bird will fall out the sky, a man will appear and with his fragile walking stick point me the right direction.
Nothing happens.
The tarmac seems to be melting under the scorching sun I am thirsty and dizzy from concentrating on the four roads, desperately waiting to pick up any movement or twitching of the earth that I will use as my excuse to head in that direction. In the midst of all that chaos my mind wants to slip back to my childhood remembering the days I played as a child following the roads to anywhere they led me. Magically I would always find the way home. Without doubt or fear of the voices on the road or the screams from the stones, groans from the tress I would sing my song kicking the smaller stones and blindly follow the road home. Since then the roads have changed,
With the change come new songs. The tarmac sings in strange language, a tone I do not recognize. It groans in serpent like whispers that sometimes send shivers down my spine. Spitting black mucus, that bubbles in the heat frying insects dead in seconds.
Instead of choosing the path today, I decide to lay down the centre of the crossing. My arms stretched out, my stomach burning from heat on the floor, my knees relax into the floor and my palms touch the ground.
At first the buzzing of the heat seems to stop taken back by what I have done. I can feel I have surprised even this all knowing intersection. I lay there and find peace in my indecision. Nothing happens the clouds stop on their lazy tracks, the wind holds it s breath, the heavens look at me puzzled.
Suddenly with great gusto the sky unleashes a great crack of lightening whipping the clouds and wind into a frenzy of chaos. The sky turns grey, thunder bellows, lighting whips the sky, sending the clouds to spill buckets, and buckets of rain drops the size of peas. The rain pelts my body, beating me to a pulp I lay still listening to the clashing then small drops of ice crash on the road like small treasures they run quickly, quickly before they melt into the earth. Still I lay with my eyes closed listening to the rebellion. In the midst of this my ear to the ground I hear a familiar song coming from deep within the earth it’s the song of the dirt, the song of the dust and mud that guides my soul keeping me grounded. “Follow me “ it cries, “I know the way home”. I start to humming the tune and I slowly fall into a deep, deep sleep in the middle of the road.
I was at the crossroads, the centre of the beginning of the end.
Depending on which direction I take my destiny will alter and morph with each step I take, with each footprint I leave on the dusty road.
The uneven surface cause me to dwindle and wallop out of balance.
As the sharp stones poke my naked feet but I walk on.
Not knowing whether my feet bleed or no I trot imagination my feet to be made of hoof, hardened by steel of history and memory of a life lived in hardship.
I reach the tarmac unsure of which way to go. I spit on my left hand using two fingers from my right hand I hit hard the spit demanding a direction, guidance from the ones who have come before me, perhaps my sweat will attract their whispers. My attempt is futile as my spit just dissolves into the air, disappearing in the heat. I sigh wanting to scream in frustration. Wishing the path I am to take will show it self perhaps through a dream , a sigh, a bird will fall out the sky, a man will appear and with his fragile walking stick point me the right direction.
Nothing happens.
The tarmac seems to be melting under the scorching sun I am thirsty and dizzy from concentrating on the four roads, desperately waiting to pick up any movement or twitching of the earth that I will use as my excuse to head in that direction. In the midst of all that chaos my mind wants to slip back to my childhood remembering the days I played as a child following the roads to anywhere they led me. Magically I would always find the way home. Without doubt or fear of the voices on the road or the screams from the stones, groans from the tress I would sing my song kicking the smaller stones and blindly follow the road home. Since then the roads have changed,
With the change come new songs. The tarmac sings in strange language, a tone I do not recognize. It groans in serpent like whispers that sometimes send shivers down my spine. Spitting black mucus, that bubbles in the heat frying insects dead in seconds.
Instead of choosing the path today, I decide to lay down the centre of the crossing. My arms stretched out, my stomach burning from heat on the floor, my knees relax into the floor and my palms touch the ground.
At first the buzzing of the heat seems to stop taken back by what I have done. I can feel I have surprised even this all knowing intersection. I lay there and find peace in my indecision. Nothing happens the clouds stop on their lazy tracks, the wind holds it s breath, the heavens look at me puzzled.
Suddenly with great gusto the sky unleashes a great crack of lightening whipping the clouds and wind into a frenzy of chaos. The sky turns grey, thunder bellows, lighting whips the sky, sending the clouds to spill buckets, and buckets of rain drops the size of peas. The rain pelts my body, beating me to a pulp I lay still listening to the clashing then small drops of ice crash on the road like small treasures they run quickly, quickly before they melt into the earth. Still I lay with my eyes closed listening to the rebellion. In the midst of this my ear to the ground I hear a familiar song coming from deep within the earth it’s the song of the dirt, the song of the dust and mud that guides my soul keeping me grounded. “Follow me “ it cries, “I know the way home”. I start to humming the tune and I slowly fall into a deep, deep sleep in the middle of the road.
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