Dance: Dancing with the dead

Maqoma is channelling his warrior ancestor, writes Leigh-Anne Hunter

On stage Gregory Maqoma moves with a kind of madness. But when we talk, the contemporary dancer sits utterly still, like a carved ebony Buddha.

He's an internationally hailed dancer-choreographer. But his first stage was the backyard of his Orlando East childhood home.

"It was the '80s and it was dangerous to be on the street," he says. So he and a friend formed a group to entertain themselves at home: The Joy Dancers.

"It wasn't easy for me to say I wanted to be a dancer. As the first-born male, I felt responsible to provide for my family." When he got to the audition and saw people in tights, he thought: "Am I in the right place? I'd never been to a dance studio before."

We're sitting on the floor of a Newtown dance hall, watching young protégés fog up the windows. Since Maqoma opened Vuyani Dance Theatre in 1999, the company has produced 200-plus dancers.

"Some arrive with just a suitcase. Then in three months they're on a flight to France to perform. We can do six productions in a month. They have to keep up the pace. We don't choose dancers. Dancers choose themselves."

He may have graced some of the world's finest stages, creating dance spectaculars alongside South African darlings like David Tlale and Simphiwe Dana, but he never forgot the days he did the Moonwalk in his back yard. It's what drove him.

"I had a point to prove. Being a dancer comes with responsibility. For me, it's important to say something through dance, which is why I never believed in dance being abstract."

To see Maqoma dance solo is like watching the sun rise. "I don't feel alone on stage. I'm communicating with God, my ancestors. Dance is a medium that captures all the senses simultaneously. I want people to leave the theatre with images that will forever play in their minds."

In his haunting Exit/Exist, he re-enacts the life of his legendary ancestor, Chief Maqoma, who "gave the British hell" in the Anglo-Xhosa frontier wars. He spends the opening minutes dancing with his back to the audience.

"It's the first time I've done that and it's what people often remember. It was a way to tap into the story, time-travel back 200 years. I owe it not only to myself but to the Xhosa nation to remember Maqoma's name and what he fought for. Because it's what we are still fighting for - land."

Before he could perform the work, he had to seek permission. That's how he came to stand at Chief Maqoma's grave on a windswept knoll in the Eastern Cape, rain pelting his skin. "It rained the same day his remains were fetched from Robben Island."

He's been spared an early grave himself a few times. In Greece, a stage light fell and shattered, just missing him. "The audience went quiet. The musicians went quiet. And then I started to dance." As a teen, he nearly drowned in the ocean. "I thought: 'Huh! I'm dying. And I'm not ready.'"

His ideas often come to him in dreams. "I dreamt I went to the moon," he says of the inspiration behind Fullmoon , his biggest production, complete with a 30-piece orchestra.

"I still get stage fright. I worry if I don't. I never underestimate the power of being on stage." He admits to having another terror - of mice. "When I danced at Angola's run-down national theatre, I could see them through the holes in the floorboards."

But his greatest fear, he says, is "to be insignificant". He's 41. "Some of my peers have lost their edge. After 24-odd years of being on stage, the body just says no, no, no."

He's had operations on both knees. "In my 20s, the doctor said I would not dance for long. But I loved it so much. I said I will give up when my body does."

He had to decide whether to cancel a show in Italy due to injury. "I couldn't bear it." So he danced. "I don't remember a time when I didn't feel pain. A dancer's body does things it isn't designed to."

He's so soft-spoken that you find yourself whispering. It's with the same Gandhian air that he defends his art. "There's something unique about South Africa's contemporary dance: it comes from an honest place. But we lag behind the world in appreciating our own talent."

As he has aged, his role has shifted to one of mentor. "I love seeing people blossom on stage." But he still feels the urge to be on that hallowed ground himself. "There's nothing I appreciate more than taking a bow." LS