Broken Chord, Sadler’s Wells review — sublime music for the tale of a South African choir

Broken Chord

Sadler’s Wells, London

When The African Choir left the Western Cape in what is now South Africa and began its international tour in 1891 to raise funds for industrial schools in the province, The Musical Herald smugly decreed that the quality of the performance was “proof that the large amount of money spent for missionary purposes has not been wasted”. South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma, whose Broken Chord was inspired by the choir’s story, sees things very differently.

The 60-minute dance-performance piece, which had its UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells last weekend, began life in 2016 as a multimedia installation after a set of exquisite portraits of the choir’s 16 singers was discovered in the Hulton photographic archive. South African composers Thuthuka Sibisi and Philip Miller, both of whom have worked extensively with South African artist William Kentridge, researched the troupe’s repertoire and composed a soundscape to accompany the images. Broken Chord deploys much of this material, which is sung by Sarah Latto and the 16-strong Echo Vocal Ensemble, plus four featured singers (Tshegofatso Khunwane, Nokuthula Magubane, Simphiwe Sikhakhane, Lubabalo Velebhayi). Maqoma himself dances and narrates.

The African Choir’s 1891 playlist was a canny mix of traditional song, hymns and what musicologists now call “western art music”, including Rossini, Donizetti and Handel as well as the British national anthem. Sibisi and Miller have fun fragmenting and subverting these, and the Echo choir, clad in smart-casual orchestral black, sing the result in a sublime a cappella duel with the four South African vocalists. This musical battle wittily encapsulates the colonisation and/or suppression of indigenous culture. The spoken text (when audible) is less nuanced (“We cannot talk of a clash of cultures given the total dominance of one side”) and Maqoma’s dancemaking adds relatively little to the argument.

At 49, the Soweto-born dancemaker remains a fluid and expressive soloist with a rippling moonwalk and hummingbird petits battements, but his deployment of the white choir — dad-dancing feebly in the background or encircling the black cast members and shouting “Go home!” — felt heavy-handed. Ultimately it is the sheer beauty of the voices, African and otherwise, that lingers in the mind.

★★★★☆

brokenchord.co.za

Tom Dale Dance Company: Surge and Sub:Version

The Place, London

Tom Dale’s double bill at The Place on Tuesday was dominated by his star: Jemima Brown. Brown trained in Irish dancing, ballet and show dance followed by a first-class degree from the London School of Contemporary Dance, but the CV doesn’t prepare you for her ability to spin Dale’s writing into gold.

In 2021’s Surge, Brown is at first a CGI lay figure jerking robotically to life, swooping into lead-boot backbends, changing direction with mercurial ease while vocalising to a generic-sounding drone of ambient electronica. Barret Hodgson’s dazzling projections dance with the performer. Arena-style blades of light slice and dice the space, tessellating into patterns then shattering into rubble, creating a digital universe for this magical creature to inhabit. Brown, her body recoiling and rewinding with alien grace, is never less than mesmerising.

Sub:version, described by Dale as “10 dance sketches”, is set to producer Wen’s Ephem:Era and miserably dressed in a lost-property washbag of ill-fitting fatigues. It has its moments — three dancers manifesting in canon in the darkness, all continuing the same phrase — but it is Brown whose every movement draws the eye. You would watch her fold laundry, mix a cocktail, creosote a fence. Brava and — soon please — encore.

★★★★☆

Touring to May 2, tomdale.org.uk