The Sacrifice

Following Swan Lake and Giselle, South African choreographer Dada Masilo now offers her vision of The Rite of Spring. In “pictures of pagan Russia” in 1913, its composer Stravinsky brought to the stage the rites, songs and dances of a people and an ancient rural world that would soon be wiped out by Marxist materialism. Dada Masilo takes the rhythmical symphony of Rite and substitutes it with monotonous chants sung and performed live on stage. But she borrows the ceremonial forms, songs and dances of the Tswanas, a southern African people, blending classical and contemporary languages with them. Hieratic and powerfully expressive but with a slowness and violent explosion, The Sacrifice depicts the forces that come together and the events that disperse a community of men and women dressed identically in white. What meaning does the word “sacrifice” have at a time when capitalist materialism is threatening to make traditional ways of life – such as those of the Tswanas – extinct?