ZO! Mute

After standing ovations last year, Gregory Maqoma and the Vuyani Dance Theatre are back in Weimar!

Last year ‘Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero’ and ‘Bro- ken Chord’ opened Kunstfest to a rapturous audience reception. Reason enough to invite Gregory Maqoma back to Weimar for the third year in a row with his most recent production. This evening is a double bill of two autonomous productions that both focus on the body: as a symbol of life and its loss, its decay and its violent destruction. The body is seen as a living organism and as an object, as a resonant space but also as the place where our voice is located.

‘ZO!’, created in 2022 and premiered in February 2023, is the latest project from the award-winning Johannes- burg choreographer Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe, whose work combines the street dance of his youth with contemporary urban South African dance styles, while clearly still being influenced by the spirituality and traditions of his homeland. The project takes its title from the fictional, mythical “Queen ZO’ who is graceful, fearless, but also angry and destructive, embodying humanity’s unpredictable and animalistic qualities. Gregory Maqoma responded to Mantsoe with his choreography ‘Mute’, which received its world premiere in February 2023 alongside ‘ZO!’. This is a work that attempts to break the silence and confront what Maqoma describes as the everyday “universe of greed.” Vuyani Dance Theatre is one of Africa’s most highly acclaimed contemporary dance companies: it was founded by Maqoma 24 years ago and is still directed by him today.