New Music Review: Deepgroove & DJ Clock
In the last of our feature reviewing Soul Candi’s latest releases, Dawn Penny gets strict and demands the most from our beats. Sharpile for the words as always! Truth presents In the Club mixed by Deepgroove 6 Beats out of 10 The first time I listened to “Truth presents In the Club” I was at home on a Saturday night, making supper with a friend. Needless to say, we didn’t finish cooking and ended up going out instead. The two producers Lee Pattison and Grayson Shipley have always made it their mission to get you on the dance floor. And do they do it this time with “Truth presents In the Club” you ask? Well, in a word, yes. Their latest club mix has this nice mix of different subgenres of house; hip house, vocal house, acid house, deep house, funky house and a touch of hard house as well. It most certainly is a moving club mix and can get you revved up for a night out on the town. Get it or not? I’d say yeah, get it. The First Tick – DJ Clock 3 Beats out of 10 As I sat and listened to DJ Clock’s “The First Tick”, I gazed at my watch and it was 5 past his career. You laugh but I’m being serious. Firstly the name DJ Clock just isn’t ‘big time’ material, but that’s beside the point. His music has a monotony that would put you to sleep if it wasn’t so disruptive to listen to. He lacks individuality, originality and downright listenability – which I have on good authority as being the main ingredients to having musicality. And really I think if you’re gonna sample a track, you need to either make it as good as the original track or better, there’s no room for ‘ok’. He did a rendition of Mika’s “Relax, Take it easy” and he killed it! No, not in that head bopping kinda way, he actually put it six feet under ground. DJ Clock needs to go back in time and rethink releasing something this below...
Ballet & more in G-town this year
Ah, we just got all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the spirit of the Grahamstown festival when Editorista was a student and made the pilgrimage every year with her chomees to top up her creative side… Not so long ago! We encourage everyone that loves art, music, theatre, dance, markets, walking around, great food, partying, a vibrant community spirit and meeting people from all over the world to get to this year’s Grahamstown National Arts festival. First up on the announcements is the phenomenal SA Ballet Theatre company with their performance of Don Quixote taking place in the first week of July. The country’s foremost ballet company visits The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown with an extended version of Don Quixote produced by SA Ballet Theatre Principal dancer and Coach Christian Tátchev. The feisty, funny story ballet Don Quixote is set in sunny Spain and features stars of The SA Ballet Theatre including Principals Angela Malan, Burnise Silvius, Andries Weidemann and Michael Revie. This production of Don Quixote premiered in July 2007 at The South African State Theatre to critical review. All the performances will be accompanied by The Cape Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Michael Hankinson. There will be three performances between 2 to 5 July at the 1820 Settler’s Monument. SABT has been invited to perform on the festival’s Main programme. Performances: 2 July 19h00 3 July 19h00 5 July 10h30 Bookings may be made at Computicket from May 5th on 083 915 8000 or visit www.computicket.com. For further information, please contact the Festival office on 046 603 1103 or email...
Catch the 2nd half of the Dance Umbrella
If you haven’t been yet, hurry, just over a week left to go. Read all about the FNB Dance Umbrella here – see the program below: On Thursday and Friday, March 6 & 7 from 20:30 at the UJ Centre for the Arts, Jazzart Dance Theatre will present their renowned work Cargo. Cargo is the 7th in a series of inspired collaborations between two of South Africa’s most exciting movement theatre companies, Jazzart Dance Theatre and Magnet Theatre. It uses performance to re-imagine the archive of slavery at the Cape and to bring it to the attention of a wider audience, while linking the past to our present reality. For so many centuries cargo has come to this place, our city, the Cape of Good Hope. Porcelain and silks and spices and slaves. Slaves from Mozambique from Madagascar, from India and the Indonesian archipelago. For 186 years between 1652 and 1838 slaves were a major part – sometimes the major part – of the unique and diverse society in formation at the Cape. Today, slavery haunts the city, an incrustation of the past at the heart of the present. It is “a past that will not pass” and yet it is so little remembered. Nelisiwe Xaba (RSA) and Kettly Noel (Mali), get together with a work called Correspondances in the Dance Factory on March 7 & 8 at 19:00. Two people – two women – meet after many correspondences. Meeting place: under a lamppost in a modern city, in front of a disco, at the beach, in a room or a closet. Here they are. Their bodies are here. These girls are here. They have come to tell their stories, to exchange opinions, to laugh, to fight. In 2008 Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM) will be celebrating of 30 years of existence, innovation and collaboration, all brought together in an institution devoted to learning, sharing and pursuing the passion of dance. To mark this incredible milestone, MIDM will start the festivities at the 20th Anniversary of the FNB Dance Umbrella International Dance Festival with the remounting of the award-winning work Hanano – Blessing of the Earth which will feature most of the original cast of the work including the choreographer Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe. The second work in the programme is Ek se Hola! a work that looks at perceived ideas of our youth in South Africa. Gregory Maqoma has choreographed “Ek se … Hola!” on Moving into Dance Mophatong Company, which blends Kwaito with contemporary dance. This work is energetic and inventive and builds bridges between popular urban dance forms and theatrical contemporary dance. These programmes are on March...
Salsa Classes in Greenside
If you’ve ever walked passed the Local Grill in Melville on a Saturday you may have been tempted to join in the Salsa party that often flowed onto the pavement… Sadly, due to new ownership of the restaurant, the Salsa parties are no more. BUT you can still learn how to Salsa at dance lessons on Saturdays – details from Afromamba below: AfroMambo Saturday Salsa classes are now held at Café Sophia, 133135 Greenway Road, Greenside (Next to Nedbank) Tel – 011 6464003 Beginners @ 4pm Intermediate @ 5 pm Cost R220 per month p/p or R400 per month per couple or R75 p/p for a once-ff class Vincent – 0728728582 / Sonia –...
Represent Recommends: Attachments 1-7
We first caught Attachments in July 2005 and seeing the name in our inbox brings back warm memories of the early days of Represent. Moving on from nostalgia, the point is that it’s back again after more than two years, which in our minds is affirmation of it’s appeal and success. Read our review from ’05 here and see the PR below – we’d love to know if you agree! Catch the show at the Dance factory, Newtown in November. Back to The Dance Factory by public demand is ATTACHMENTS, that delightful series of duets created by Gerard Bester with performers Athena Mazarakis and Craig Morris. ATTACHMENTS (1-3) was first staged at the FNB Dance Umbrella 2004, followed by ATTACHMENTS (1-6) a year later on the same platform. This was followed by a record-breaking season at The Dance Factory, with Mazarakis receiving the Gauteng MEC Award for Most Outstanding Female Dancer and Morris, the equivalent award as Most Outstanding Male. ATTACHMENTS is theatre for the discerning – distilled pieces of physical lyricism that slip from comedy to heartbreak. The work explores the coming together of bodies, desires, fantasies and territories. It uncovers the negotiations in the various stages of a relationship: When we first: The electricity of the first encounter transports us from the familiar into the space of another. Blue Bathroom: The spark of the first meeting transforms into the playfulness and madness of discovering new love and shared spaces. Sleep Talk: In our most intimate space we are challenged by the fulfilment of and surrender to another. Take Out: What are we distracted from? What if (For my mother): The fantasy of a brief escape reveals the paradox of being together and alone. Lost in Away: How do we return, having lost where we were? From the outside in: Negotiating the pathway to what we had. Zingi Mkefa in the Sunday Times wrote: Delicate, emotionally charged and even humorous at times…Ultimately, Bester’s choreography reveals the power and potency of simplicity… In the Jewish Report, Robyn Sassen said: Draws on physical theatre idioms, clear in their narrative value, but beautiful in their physical interpretation of emotions and abstract values…contemplates the evolution of love, devoid of fairytale fantasies or commercialised dreams…blends comedy and heartbreak. The duo of Mazarakis and Morris onstage offers a dynamism, lyricism and sense of timing that is delightful to watch. The work is powerful, yet subtle, entertaining and inspiring. Adrienne Sichel for The Star wrote: Athena Mazarakis and Craig Morris use their extraordinary articulate bodies and sharply honed senses to resonate recognisable nuances in intimate relationships…What is so significant about this refreshing work is the originality brought to the choreography by the virtuosity and...