This March, Sadler’s Wells is set to host the new South African dance/choir performance, Broken Chord. Choreographed by Gregory Maqoma with musical direction from Thuthuka Sibisi, this show aims to tell the story of The African Choir, a group that toured the UK in 1891, travelling by boat from South Africa in order to do so. The aim of this tour was to collect money to build a school at home. Of course, on the journey the choir were subject to much racism and subjugation. Nevertheless, the tour was successful, with The African Choir even performing for Queen Victoria. The show uses historical personal accounts and photographic archives to put together this previously untold journey, confronting the colonial and white gaze in the process. 

It is also deliberately relevant to the contemporary political landscape. Award-winning musical director Sibisi tells Songlines, “initially we wanted the focus to be solely on the journey of the original Choir members – as a way of resuming their legacy… But soon, at the height of political turmoil pertaining to Black bodies and borders, we realised this work had an opportunity to speak to the experience of being othered.” 

©Thomas Muller

Sibisi is careful to point out that this is not a “finger-pointing” exercise, however, but an attempt to start a conversation. He explains, “the question… became, ‘how do you politicise historic fact without playing at a sort of didacticism?’” Discussion, rather than moralising, is perhaps the message of this project. When asked about its revelations, Maqoma, the internationally renowned founder of Johannesburg’s Vuyani Dance Theatre, who also performs in the piece, tells us, “the grand moment is revealed on stage when the cast is able to break the fourth wall while confronting each other as the coloniser and the colonised… Watching them [the audience and performers] bear witness to both history and the now is phenomenal.” Sibisi considers this “conversation starter” part of “the responsibility art has toward fostering… breakthroughs.” 

The theme of conversation is played out in Maqoma and Sibisi’s use of movement and sound from different times and spaces throughout Broken Chord. A fusion of African and Western contemporary and traditional dance inform the piece. Moreover, songs that the African choir actually sang on their journey are put in dialogue with more contemporary music. There is a fusion of African and Western sound here, too; Sibisi recalls the process of “finding through-threads between Western classical and evangelical song [and] African hymnal and secular music.” The cast and chorus are equally representative: the UK’s local choir, the Echo Vocal Ensemble, performs alongside the South African cast in the London iteration. Sibisi considers that “through the interplay between the… [British] chorus members and the African quartet I believe we’ve been able to strike a balance between historic fact and contemporary discourse.” 

This is a show that brings an untold story to light beautifully, while simultaneously encouraging us to reflect on issues of persecution that persist today. 

Broken Chord will be performed in Canada, the United States and France as well as Sadler’s Wells, London, on March 17-18. For more details and ticket info visit sadlerswells.com

This article originally appeared in the April 2023 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue – subscribe today