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Black ! White ?
Recorded at the CND 15 January 2009
Created in 2009, “Black! … White?” was co-produced by several Centres de développement chorégraphique (CDC), at which the piece was also performed. In this creation, Nelisiwe Xaba continues her critical approach, with the touches of humour she had begun to use in her previous solos.
On a black and white stage that looks a little bit like a comic strip, the artists enter while interacting with animated characters that are shown in a live video projection. A hybrid of dance, video animation and stylisation, the piece “Black! …White?” plays on the various meanings of the terms “black” and “white”, and explores social codes, stereotypes and expressions of language.
In the programme which accompanies the piece, N. Xaba writes: “The starting point is a fine, grey line, heavy and solid, between the black and the white. A line which divides the world into two parts. It is not fixed. It changes every second. A woman alone and desperate in Brooklyn, Soweto or Kinshasa, damages her skin with a chemical lightening cream, in the hope of winning back her lover; what is going on in her head?In Africa, in America, in Europe, black has become the colour of despair, of defeat, of poverty, while white is the colour of winners, the rich and the famous. Crossing this line, transcending cultures and mentalities, frightens and traumatises. What happened to Steve Biko’s favourite slogan: Black is beautiful?” [1]
[1] N. Xaba, Roubaix Gymnase programme for “Black! … White?”, 18 – 19 February 2009.
Press quotes
http://www.artlink.co.za/news_article.htm?contentID=24045
Latest update : September 2013
