Four Seasons. Gregory Maqoma
Four Seasons.
Choreography Gregory Maqoma
The award-winning Vuyani Dance Theatre’s Four Seasons is a prolific choreography that has impacted South African dance to such an extent that it is currently one of the prescribed works for the national dance studies curriculum for Grades 10 to 12.
Renowned South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma uses Four Seasons to portray the growth and deterioration, the warm highs and cold lows of the human mind, using the cyclical pattern of the changing of seasons. Maqoma also conveys a global message of how the world is at the mercy of human hands.
The performance starts with winter, with the dancers dressed in black cloaks creating an eerie and dark atmosphere. They then moult into spring, removing the cloaks and revealing beautiful pastel colour feather-like dresses before finally ending in hot red costumes depicting our African summer. The transitions between each season are swift, and the vocabulary and style progress almost immediately.
Although Vuyani Dance Theatre is renowned for its distinctively African contemporary style, other styles of movement are used throughout Four Seasons. The winter season displays staccato, hip-hop locking movement, as the dancers attack the choreography. Punching and stomping movements are employed, with the dancers hitting the movements almost aggressively. The floor work is powerful, grounded and organic. In a visual highlight, the dancers form one group entity and pulse together, beating like a heart as they shed their cloaks from winter into the new season.
The spring season develops into isolated yet lucid movement with a much lighter feel. The dancers imitate birds with quirky birdlike head movements and certain movement embellishments such as rapid leg shakes. Group and ensemble sections are slick and precise.
As they move into summer, the dancers show off African and Latin American samba-based movement, extenuating the hips with a cheeky yet flirtatious attitude. The performers sustain a strong interaction which progresses into a communal style of dance as they clap and cheer for one other.
The music by Isaac Molelekoa – which evolves from robust rock music to a more sensuous and lustful melody – enriches the overall performance not least because it is performed by a live band behind a transparent curtain on stage. The highlight of the whole performance is perhaps the enticing violin solo performed alongside an intensive duet during the autumn season. The duet personifies the breakdown of the human mind leaving the audience captivated yet gloomy.
The overall performance is a complete success with one exception: the use of projections detracts from the show. The choreography is so strong that the audience does not need to be visually spoon-fed, and they certainly don’t want to see the play button on the screen, or pop-up boxes appearing halfway through the show.
Four Seasons is an inspiring choreography and a wonderful showcase for the elaborate, rhythmical and natural movements of African dance. This is a captivating and enriching performance by Vuyani Dance Theatre.
