WOZA DURBAN ufun’uk’ JIVA – WOZA DEBEN
You must have heard this Autumns hit song – WOZA DEBEN – Come to Durban??? It’s clearly D-day at last – Our Durban DeeVa fills us in on what’s going down at Deben’s Red Eye…
Durban has more to offer than sun, surf, spices and sex shops, believe it or not.
In spite of the mind-numbing humidity that smothers this dilapidated coastal city for the greater part of the year, Durban …
has nurtured a considerable amount of creative talent, especially in terms of fashion, music and photography.
In the late nineties, Suzy Bell (then editor of the Independent on Saturday and creator of the hot-off-the-press White Rat photo comic book series) started the spectacular Red Eye Art fundraising event in order to bring together homegrown creative talent on a regular basis.
The aim of the event is to provide an experimental space for emerging and established artists and performers to showcase their work to the public, and to bring disparate Durban audiences into the Durban Art Gallery venue. High brow and low brow are brought into contact; young and old mingle together; and funds are raised for the gallery.
Red Eye has been criticised for being only a flimsy excuse for a party, an event to ‘see and be seen’ at. Okay, so some of the more ‘experimental’ pieces are occasional flops, and on some nights you might spend the whole evening socialising without watching a single performance, but so what! A public event in the name of art which provides Durbanites the opportunity to emerge out of their red-eyed stupor (or the comfort of the Berea) to enjoy their own city at night is worth supporting, regardless whether it is the art or the jol that does it for you.
The theme of this month’s Red Eye was ‘rouge’, as in Moulin Rouge. To be honest, Red Eye always has that Baz Luhrmann feel to me: the city lights, the Indian influences, the bizarre visuals, and above all, the opulence of the gallery staircase (when else does a Durban Diva get to swan in on a red carpet on a Friday night??). Still, the organisers could have provided more of the drag queens and showgirls promised in the publicity material to go really OTT.
The line-up provided diverse experiences from opera (performed by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Opera School); traditional Indian dance (by the Nateshwar Dance Company); fashion shows with background Hip Hop tunes (DJs Paperkut and Chidosylenz); and contemporary dance performances.
I enjoyed the nimble-footed Bright Sparks Pantsulas, with their ‘smart-smart zoot suits and easy charm. Jay Pather’s Siwela Sonke Dance Company performed a deliriously upbeat number, with male dancers in drag, wearing skirts cut out of kitsch floral plastic tablecloths.
The final dance performance occurred around a video and sound installation by Rike Sitas and Dean Henning. Sitas and Henning are fast developing a name for themselves for their multi-media interactive art installations. Their piece ‘the city’, which was shown at the NSA last year as part of the Young Artists Project, will soon be available in a limited edition CD-Rom format.
I’d watch this space&
