It's not over until the fit phat fat lady sings

Recorded at the CND 24 June 2005

In this third production – with its title inspired by the English saying “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings” [1], reminding us that nobody can predict the outcome of an event still in progress – the choreographer and director Hlengiwe Lushaba narrates the fate of three women from a small remote village. On stage, the narrator introduces this “modern fairy-tale” with the following sentences [2]. “In a small village, far, far away, lived three enormous women, Gcina, Nuh and Badigé. These three large women shared a house. All they did was talk on the telephone, go shopping and eat. They were so found of eating that they did not have time for anything else. People from the village were anxious because these women did not have friends other than themselves. Some thought that they were ashamed of their weight. But in fact, they were very proud of who they were and of their appearance.” By turns griot, pastor, slam poet, staff sergeant and auctioneer, the same narrator creates a parody auction to sell – “piecemeal” to the highest bidder – a dark, caricatured portrait of Africa, from the traditional African dancer to the colonists travelling through the desert on camels and the African Mafia.

Throughout this show with its cabaret influences, H. Lushaba depicts the post-apartheid identity crisis. The programme which accompanies the show sheds some more light on the choreographer’s aim: “And now, what will happen? Now that we are here, where will we go tomorrow? Two recurring questions in a work which deals in turn with religion, politics and territorial identities. (…) How do we confront a present deprived of its history, stolen from the black majority? How do we deny a colonial heritage, that of apartheid, whose mental, social, economic and cultural implications affect us every day? As if South Africa had been able, in the name of a hypothetical reconciliation, to make a clean break with a past of several centuries in just a decade… So should we forget? No, definitely not, Hlengiwe could forget neither the execution of her political activist brother, nor the white women’s vaguely anxious glances at their handbag in the lifts of the shopping centres…” [3]

In 2005, the piece toured Europe and was performed at the Festival de Liège (Belgium), the Festival Afrique noire in Bern (Switzerland) and at the Centre national de la danse in Pantin (France). 

[1] Literally: “It’s not over till the fat lady sings”
[2] M.L.G, La Libre Belgique, 25 January 2005
[3] Virginie Dupray, Centre national de la danse programme, June 2005 

Programme extract

Since the abolition of apartheid in 1991 and the gradual introduction of democracy, it’s easy to think that everything in South Africa has been resolved, that black people have found a place equal to those of the white, and that all the citizens of the nation which calls itself the rainbow nation live in equality and fraternity. However, wealth remains white, poverty, black. And many have not yet been made truly accountable for the crimes of the past, something which robs black people of part of their history. In short, it’s still not easy to be black in this country. And then, in addition, if you are a large black woman, at least twice the size of a white woman, you have to ask yourself what kind of a place you have in this kind of society. And what if you like to wear cycling shorts and just a bra? Are you beautiful, ugly or something else? The choreographer Hlengiwe Lushaba’s piece, which will be shown for the first time in Europe, is built freely on these questions of identity, politics and many other things. Freely because someone who dares to suggest – with all the audacity of her youth (she is just over twenty) – that she understands nothing about dance, has created a performance which involves much more than just dance. The work features three strange women, generously built, who walk around with a mobile phone, two dancers who never cease advancing and withdrawing, a slam poet (urban poetry similar to America rap) dressed as a pastor, all caught up in the songs of the fat ladies and their magical voices (they are as likely to sing gospel as Zulu chants) and the frenzied percussion. 

Festival de Liège, 2005 

Updating: June 2013