REVIEW BY DIANE DE BEER:

THE BLACK CIRCUS OF THE REPUBLIC OF BANTU

ARTIST: Albert Ibokwe Khoza

DIRECTOR: Princess Zinzi Mhlongo

DATES: June 26, 27, 28, 29

VENUE: Mannie Mannim Theatre at The Market

It’s explosive, it’s engaging, it plays with your mind (stretching it this way and that), it’s mesmerising, it sweeps your whole being along and most of all, it’s original and creative in a way that heightens all the senses. And then it shows you everything theatre can be.

Khoza is a presence not only with the theatricality of their costumes but especially with the way they move, speak, sing, chant and engage their audience from start to finish. There’s no time for your mind to wander or wonder, you’re simply in the moment as you participate in this experience that for most of us would be completely unique.

It’s ritual and rhythm, it’s engaging your whole being. This isn’t something you‘re watching, you’re participating on a level that is here and now. It’s theatre-in-the round with the performer, the one who is leading the way on this exploration of the past where human zoos and exhibitions in Western societies, our societies, turned people into curiosities to be paraded and exploited for the delight of white fetish. That is even difficult to write after seeing this play.

Especially for those of us on the oppressors’ side, while we gasp in horror at the stories, we know what our race has done to people because of the colour of their skin, have seen many plays and read many books about those times, yet, sadly it remains just that. It’s not as though your body can viscerally experience what that must have been like. It’s something that white people to this day never experience. They simply don’t have to navigate a world that plays by rules made for them … still.

How many times have you as a white body thought about how anything that you do on a specific day will be determined by the colour of your skin? Think of Trump’s world in today’s context for example. People are being rounded up and deported even with citizenship because of the way they look.

Khoza suggests that it is a history that is not spoken about and which they are determined to address so that those affected can reclaim, reflect and confront themselves as people. Because it is something that continues to this day, for them it is about the need for spiritual healing and reclaiming violated dignities.

The one thing all of us have felt in our lives is humiliation. For many it is an occasional thing that can be quickly discarded as you move on with your life. For others it is an institutionalized part of their life and there’s no escaping. The only requisite to fall prey to this is the colour of your skin. Everything in our lives to this day is determined by this. Think Black Lives Matter.

It is described as an installation-based performance and for me personally, it was as though my whole body had suddenly been awakened. I felt alerted to the way the world works. Was there anything said that I hadn’t heard before or didn’t know? How many times have I not experienced the Saartjie Baartman story, a woman torn from her family, stripped of her identity as a human being, taken from Africa to Europe and displayed for the Western world to view in a human zoo? We know and sympathise about the atrocities of the past. And again we wonder about those happening all around us, because they’re still there.

What The Black Circus does is change the perspective; it inhabits your body and soul in a way that takes you the the heart of the atrocities. For Khozait is a place of collective healing where the shackles are discarded, and a spiritual connection established.

It’s a difficult experience to write about because it is one to experience rather than to analyse. You want to enter the space knowing just the title.

At the beginning I felt as though I was sitting in a glorious painting. A story of some kind was going to unfold and as with most theatre, I was excited. What I got was so much more. It was unexpected, challenging in the way theatre should be, explosive in performance and presentation, and something that has changed my life. And that is what theatre should be.

I will be looking at and facing the world diffently.