In 2015 South Africa was celebrating freedom, sustained by a Constitution that guaranteed gender equality, where everything seemed possible for the entire nation and for every individual. But how could we escape the chains of tradition and custom, of cultural conservatism, the punishments for the diverse and the dissidents, women and gays?
Why can’t one be both gay and traditional? Why can’t one be a university graduate and practice African religion and medicine? Why can’t one be a citizen of the world and an authentic South African?
These are the themes on which Robin Orlyn works with her preferred performers, such as Albert Silindokuhle Ibokwe Khoza, a multifaceted talent ever since he was a child, who has won awards as best actor (2005), best character actor (2006), best theatre group, best cameo appearance (2008).
In AND YOU SEE... OUR HONOURABLE BLUE SKY AND EVER ENDURING SUN...CAN ONLY BE CONSUMED SLICE BY SLICE... Albert walks through the audience from the back, a sublime and grotesque figure, terrifying, beautiful, sad, tortured, sensual and proteiform, man, woman, animal, insect, and reaches the stage, the real place for him, while a video-camera films the viewers who are looking at him and watch themselves as they look at him. Like in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) – states the choreographer – the depth of the field across the auditorium makes it possible for the performers to carry the audience with them as they embody the enchantment of hope.
