Zimbabwe Absurdity

I took it easy. I must have been HIFAed out like a lot of people are by the end of the festival. So it was just The World’s Wife, a collection of poetry by Carol Ann Duffy performed by Linda Marlowe and Threads, a contemporary dance piece performed by Moving Into Dance Mophatong from South Africa.

I was not familiar with Carol Ann Duffy’s work but it was a witty (sometimes rapier wit) collection of poems where she imagined being famous wives, or rather, wives of famous men. Faust, Quasimodo, the Devil, and Orpheus all featured amongst a few others. It helped to be familiar with who the characters were and it was very entertainingly put together by Linda Marlow to a capacity audience.

The World's Wife

Somehow Threads just didn’t appeal to me. I don’t think it was a bad production or the dancing was sub-standard; far from it. I just got tired of the poetry approach to dance. I prefer music thanks. There was some music to the piece and I did enjoy it more.

Threads

2/3 Trio Broz

Given enough musical talent you can do just about anything, including mixing classical with rap. Trio Broz are better known for their considerable classical ability so I was interested to see how well they would fuse with a Zimbabwean rap artist (Outspoken) and a conventional band. Surprisingly well! In a show entitled Musicolour it all came together well – I wonder how often they have played Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the water” with a rock band?

Just Papers was a small Zimbabwean play sponsored with the help of British Council who seem to be heavily involved in the arts scene in Zimbabwe at the moment. It was a simple story well acted and I even got a half decent photo out of it!

Just Papers

I am not usually a fan of reggae but, what the hell, at HIFA one has to take off the blinkers occasionally so I took mine off for Transit Crew with Yasus Afari. The latter is a genuine rasta man from Jamaica and he had some interesting advice for the capacity crowd which I found very funny though I think he was being serious. Yes, he even had a button with a picture of Haille Sellasie (sp?) on his jacket. Yes, I did enjoy the show and Transit Crew are competent musicians though I don’t think I’ll be out to buy any reggae just yet.

Transit Crew

OK, so I bought the CD at the end of the show in a fit of live show excitement. The CD is good but of course there is more to a live show than music. Living Room is Austrian musicians Christoph Auer and Manu Delago who play some unusual instruments. Like just about everyone in the audience I’d seen neither a bass clarinet or a hang (pronounced “hung”) – the latter looking rather like 2 woks joined together but much more musical! They played a whole mix of music and even hammed it up with paper being rustled, pulled and torn and also another plastic device that looked like something out of a comic book. But once Christoph Auer had added his clarinet mouthpiece and a few more bits it really sounded good. Bravo!

Living Room with bass clarinet and hang

Yes, it actually was musical!

iKapa Dance Theatre are a young and dynamic dance group from South Africa. They performed Stadium, in yes, a makeshift stadium. I don’t pretend that I know much about contemporary dance but I did enjoy the performance and oh boy, do those girls have hot bodies!

iKapa Dance Theatre in Stadium

Cute!

I have been to the Poetry Cafe when there was a distinct air of revolution about and found the quite inflammatory poetry invigorating. This afternoon it was milder though no less enjoyable stuff from both local and foreign poets. Even Zimbabwean music legend Oliver Mutukudzi was there and lent a hand to one of his prodigies.

Hivos Poetry Cafe - a UK poet entertains