What: 🎵 Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro (PG5+)
When:
Where: 🕳 John Kani, Market Theatre
How much:
🎟️ R250.00Webtickets
Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro, draws inspiration from the character Toloki
in South African author Zakes Mda’s novels Cion and Ways of Dying. In this
piece the message of death and its dire consequences are infused through a
lament to be able to confront a universe in which the age-old tropes of greed,
power and religion have given rise to loss of life not as a natural
phenomenon. Toloki, the professional mourner weaves through this virtual
landscape of dissolution giving rise to a catharsis of universal grief that
will conquer the sadness, the hard reality continuing to permeate the living
confronted by death that is not their own, often so unexpected, brutal and
merciless.
Set in a graveyard with the persistent cries of people in mourning and the a
cappella music of Isicathamiya in our languages lead by a quartet to the
creative arrangement and composition by Nhlanhla Mahlangu that vividly elicits
emotions associated with the loss of life performed dancers who are themselves
possessed by the spirit and being one with the departed souls and finally
laying them to rest for peace and humanity to prevail. Gregory Maqoma’s
message through this work is that we need to pause for a moment and urgently
think about the pain inflicted on others by the actions of others.