The Sacrifice review

Masilo returns, now fully clothed and joined by 10 other barefooted dancers in similarly loose, flowing costumes. Small and shaven-headed, she is the dynamic centrepiece of furious, multi-level ensemble dances that exude a joyous, controlled wildness. Again, much of the scrabbling, breakneck group energy we witness is in direct response to the music. Changes in tempo and tone keep both us and the dancers on high alert.  

Having established the sense of a strong onstage community, Masilo then introduces murkier, more troubling shades of drama. Thandiwe Mqokeli has a sudden solo, shaking and rolling on the ground in bewildered distress. As her condition passes like an infection to some of the other dancers, the work takes on an increasingly dark, dream-like mood. Dancers undulate, jump and sweep. Masina’s voice hollers and cries. The tangle of bare branches projected on the backdrop blackens and becomes more dense. Masilo performs a duet with Lwando Dutyulwa that seems both tender and oppressive. He and three other men, all in flowing white trousers, lift and shift her surrendered body. A Pietà-like finale has Masina singing beautifully in lamentation, while supportively embracing the now broken, depleted Masilo.  

Masilo’s reimagining of ballet warhorses such as Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake and Giselle (a knockout production seen in the UK in 2019), reinvigorated from a contemporary African perspective, is laudable. For this work she expressed a desire “to create a story that is deeper than a chosen maiden dancing herself to death”, a reference to the narrative nub of the first Rite and many subsequent incarnations. But, despite its many appealing aspects, the alternative route she takes here left me more confused and emotionally detached than moved and stirred. The audience, however, was on its feet. Judge for yourself.