And so you see... our honourable blue sky and ever enduring sun... can only be consumed slice by slice...

“Robyn Orlin paints a picture and the colors positively explode from her palette, including one especially memorable blue on black skin.”
Manonchapeau à faire, 2016

On the momentous occasion of South Africa’s 20^th Freedom Anniversary in 2014, renowned choreographer Robyn Orlin ponders if the people of South Africa are truly free and whether the promised democratic values, especially gender equality, meet the hopes laid down in the constitution.

The exceptional solo fuses a live video work with a mesmerizing performance by South African performer-healer Albert Khoza. Khoza’s hybrid figure conjures questions of conflicting identities: is it possible to be traditional and gay? South African and a citizen of the world? Why are these conflicts seen as betrayal rather than an opportunity to discover something new?

To the sounds of Mozart’s Requiem, we are invited to delve into an enchanting pagan dance ritual that moves across boundaries of gender and race. “The African” imagined by the West becomes an elusive, ever changing sexually liberated form.

Orlin creates an anarchy that moves from a sensual war dance with Putin’s hologram to a vibrant political cabaret. The black man immerses himself in celestial blue, not afraid to welter in the grotesque and to reflect every beautiful, daunting, sad, and tormented facet of contemporary South African identity.

Robyn Orlin received the 2003 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.