Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe's latest dance piece, Opera for Fools, opened yesterday and will play until Saturday in the Alec Mullins Theatre.
Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe's latest dance piece, Opera for Fools, opened yesterday and will play until Saturday in the Alec Mullins Theatre.
The background of Opera for Fools is the Soweto shebeen lifestyle of the 70s and 80s, when it framed the centre stage for some of the dramatic events taking place during those decades. In the then informal settlements of Sophiatown, Meadowlands and Alexandra, migrants from distant and neighbouring countries made new friends, all sharing the common goal of finding gold and diamonds in the belly of the Earth.
In the townships, for some the situation was a recipe for crime, to others a political weapon. The nights would be shattered by gunfire, or silenced by tsotsis raiding the dark streets like black cats seeking their prey. Black cars with tinted windows would be either spying on individual houses, or taking young ones who had been left on the streets unsupervised.
For many citizens in the informal settlements, the shebeen was a vital part of daily life. A place where friends met and drank traditional or western beer, gambled and danced to local and African American soul. A place where cultural integration was celebrated without shame and individuals spoke their minds in debates that were otherwise silenced.
A place where tsotsis would enforce laws of their own and a place that was ruthlessly raided by a police force hoping to destroy people's minds, hopes and spirits and to force blacks to break into a million pieces. As an arena or stage for those with nowhere else to go, the illicit pubs provided a means to survive and were always re-opened, no matter how many times they were raided and shut down by the police.
