Robyn Orlin ...How in salt deserts it is possible to blossom...

Heading north from Cape Town, Africa's last colonial bastion, just before the border with Namibia, lies the town of Okiep and its township, where extreme poverty is set against a superb and bewitching semi-desert landscape.

It was here that I had the pleasure of working (and learning a great deal) with the Garage Dance Ensemble, created and directed by Alfred Hinkl and Jon Linden, both natives of the town who chose to return to live and work there. They have created a troupe of dancers who meet in an old garage that has been converted into a rehearsal space. I found some incredibly talented people there, with whom I developed a very strong relationship that led to the collective creation of a new piece. 

Exploited from the 1870s to the 1980s, the Okiep copper mines were considered to be the richest in the world. Afrikaans is the main language spoken here, and the locals prefer to be called Coloured, a term used in South Africa to designate populations of mixed ethnicity, who in the region are descendants of the Nama and Indian cultures.

"The Coloureds of South Africa are torn between ethno-nationalism and African nationalism...".
Ismail Lagardien

Although Coloured people have been present in South Africa from the outset, they have suffered a great deal of discrimination. Not white enough at the time of apartheid and not black enough today. At the start of my work with the dancers, I asked them what they would like to talk about. After an awkward silence, they replied:
"We no longer want to ask questions about our ancestors.
"We'd like to talk about something other than our origins".
"We just want to say who we are and how we celebrate life".

So I asked myself where I fit into this equation and how I could respond to the dancers' questions.

The answer came from looking at the landscape around us. After the winter rains, which fall from May to July in this region of Namaqualand, the semi-desert soils are completely covered, from August to September, with a magnificent carpet of more than 3,500 species of wild daisies, a flower symbolising peace and prosperity.

And so, with the dancers, we created ...How in salts desert is it possible to blossom....
To share with the audience the breathtaking spectacle of this magnificent flowering that is taking over the desert!

Robyn Orlin
 

Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, Robyn Orlin set out from childhood to develop her choreographic practice and culture in an environment hostile to all discrimination, including aesthetic discrimination: from Zulu dances to Merce Cunningham, from hip-hop to classical ballet... whatever they are and wherever they come from, all dances are favoured. And the aesthetic eclecticism she demonstrates, this "universalism" – choreographic and musical, cinematographic, plastic, literary...– has become one of the salient features of her writing.

Trained at the London School of Contemporary Dance (1975-1980), then at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1990-1995), Robyn Orlin began her career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher in South Africa, where she was quickly spotted, as much for the singularity of her writing, the chaos that reigns in her creations, as for her active commitment in the fight against apartheid.
At the turn of the millennium, her (multiple prize-winning) dance piece Daddy, I have seen this piece six times before and I still don’t know why they’re hurting each other, which mocks the difficulties and shortcomings of the young rainbow nation, but also classical ballet as a vector of discrimination, enabled her to tour in Europe and brought her international recognition. France has since become a creative territory for her: she made her first film, Hidden Beauties, Dirty Stories (Ina/Arte, 2004), her first opera, Handel’s L’Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (Opéra Garnier, Paris, 2007), numerous solos for performers from different backgrounds, and her first theatre production, Les Bonnes, by Jean Genet (Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris, 2019). At the same time, she continued to work in South Africa, where she created Still Life with homeless... for the Via Katlehong company (2007), Walking next to our shoes... with the singer-dancers of the Phuphuma Love Minus (2009), Beauty remained for just a moment... (2012) and we wear our wheels with pride... (2021) with the Moving into Dance company.
The universe of this prolific artist is trademarked, as we have said, by the mixture of forms, expressions and genres, by the joyful confusion that she creates on stage and in the audience of her shows, by her critical and political character, and by her strong plastic component. It is also recognisable by the presence of a few motifs that recur obsessively: tutus, for example, oranges, or, perhaps more mysteriously, ducks –alone or in groups and made of all kinds of materials, ducks of all kinds, sizes and colours.
Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, Robyn Orlin set out from childhood to develop her choreographic practice and culture in an environment hostile to all discrimination, including aesthetic discrimination: from Zulu dances to Merce Cunningham, from hip-hop to classical ballet... whatever they are and wherever they come from, all dances are favoured. And the aesthetic eclecticism she demonstrates, this "universalism" – choreographic and musical, cinematographic, plastic, literary...– has become one of the salient features of her writing.

Myriam Blœdé