Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 432

Top 10 Films of 2013

To be sure, 2013 has been quite a year for film, with plenty of great stuff to choose from. In terms of African cinema, this has been a particularly impressive time for short films, making it hard to choose just two to include on this list. I’m sure there are plenty of films that didn’t make the list that should have, so feel free to leave your own choices for best films of the year in the comments section.

1. 12 Years a Slave

Though it’s not strictly an African film, I would be remiss not to include Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave on this list. For me in 2013, there was 12 Years a Slave and then there was everything else. It has certainly been the topic of a disproportionate number of conversations here at Africa is a Country. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, the film tells the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in upstate New York, who is tricked into accompanying two men down to Washington DC, where they eventually kidnap and sell him into slavery. He spends 12 years in bondage on a number of plantations in Louisiana before he is finally released. The film features some truly outstanding performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor (Solomon Northup), Lupita Nyong’o (Patsey), and Michael Fassbender (Edwin Epps).

12 Years a Slave is as much of an experience as it is a film and it is unquestionably difficult to watch. But it is an incredible film that for the first time manages to shake off many of those injurious racial tropes and character archetypes that have unfortunately become an integral part of the Hollywood and Western canons. It also deserves to be on this list for the kinds of responses and conversations it has elicited. In many ways, the varied responses to 12 Years a Slave are quite telling and reveal a tremendous amount about sentiments around race, history, and the present contained within our society.

2. Mother of George

Andre Dosunmu’s Mother of George is a film that has featured prominently on this site over the past year (see here, here, and here) and for good reason. With some mind-blowing cinematography and stunning colors and costumes, it tells the story of a young Nigerian woman who comes to Brooklyn to get married to a Nigerian restaurant-owner and the lengths she is willing to go to conceive and appease her husband’s family. Though the film had some major shortcomings, it still belongs on this list.

3. Le Président

Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s mockumentary, Le Président, is banned in Cameroon. It follows the investigation by local journalist, Jo Woo’du, of the disappearance of a not-so-fictional president (clearly a stand-in for Cameroon’s president-for-life, Paul Biya). See Megan Eardley’s interview with Bekolo here.

4. Grisgris

Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s latest film (still from the film above) follows a young man with a bum leg named Grisgris who dreams of one day becoming a dancer. To pay for his critically ill stepfather’s hospital bill, Grisgris gets involved in an illegal gasoline-smuggling ring, but quickly gets himself into trouble when his bosses realize he has been pocketing much of the profits. Other films by Haroun include A Screaming Man, Daratt (Dry Season), and Bye Bye Africa.

5. Incarcerated Knowledge

The documentary was made by AIAC’s very own Dylan Valley. It follows Peter upon his release from one of South Africa’s most notorious prisons (Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town) as he attempts to rejoin the world and pursue his passion for hip-hop. Dylan Valley is also the filmmaker behind the great South African hip-hop documentary, Afrikaaps.

6. Kwaku Ananse

This short film from the lovely and amazing young Ghanaian filmmaker, Akosua Adoma Owusu, tells the story of a “young outsider named Nyan Kronhwea [who] attends her estranged father’s funeral. Overwhelmed at the procession, Nyan retreats to the spirit world in search for her father.” It features the legendary Palm Wine/Highlife musician and scholar, Koo Nimo. You might also remember Owusu from her recent and successful ‘Damn the Man, Save the Rex‘ Kickstarter campaign.

7. The Square (Al-Midan)

This documentary from Jehane Noujaim follows the incomplete Egyptian Revolution from its beginnings in Tahrir Square. It provides a surprisingly intimate look into the lives and work of some of the most prominent young figures on the ground in Tahrir Square and drivers of the revolution, more generally.

8. Jonah

This short film from Kibwe Tavares is a visually stunning exploration of the effects tourism, globalization, and commercialization. It tells of the discovery of a giant fish by two young men on Zanzibar and the resulting boon for the island’s tourism industry. Read more here and check out the full film below:

9. Under the Starry Sky

As if her subtle, low-key voice belonged to a seasoned veteran, Dyana Gaye uses her debut feature to explore the structures and injustices of global migration on the most human of levels. Three intertwined stories, ambitiously spread from Dakar to Turin to New York City, tell compellingly of hope and love as much as estrangement and exploitation, and the moral choices people are forced to make in the face of brutal worldwide inequalities. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a trailer on line, so below is a brief interview with director, Dyana Gaye. (Johan Palme)

10. Of Good Report

Scandalously banned by South African film censors on the eve of its star turn as the opening film of the Durban international film festival, and then freed again less than a week later, it appears the news stories and debates have overshadowed the film itself. Which is an enormous pity: Jahmil X.T. Qubeka’s arthouse serial killer flick Of Good Report is as stylish as it is disturbing, its surrealist symbolism and beautifully cross-cut, gutwrenchingly emotional montages veering just on the right side of genius over pretentiousness. We’ve discussed the film and the politics of its banning here and here. (Johan Palme)

Bonus: Bheki Mseleku – The Last Rehearsal

This short piece consists of footage from what would turn out to be South African Jazz musician and composer, Bheki Mseleku’s last rehearsal before his death in 2008.

Our Favorite Album of 2013

I’ve had Shane Cooper’s “Oscillations” in my possession for the past four months. From the onset, it was clear that it wasn’t music I’d be content with listening passively to. It was necessary for me to live with it; to let it disturb me and put me in a state of unrest. This I did because the magnitude of the compositions demanded it of me; they weren’t easy melodic passages but complex and layered meditations on jazz and its many forms. Who was I to not oblige?

As last year’s Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Jazz, an honor which has been bestowed to regular collaborator Kyle Shepherd for the forthcoming year, Shane Cooper had the financial backing to record and release compositions which, as he noted in our interview earlier this year, had been laying around for over three years. When we had a chat again recently prior the release of “Oscillations,” Cooper pointed out that there were only two ‘old’ songs on the album–material he’d been playing in the many band formations he’s active in.

So instead of sharing the countless stream-of-consciousness notes I wrote while spending time with “Oscillations,” I thought it best to share bits of what Cooper revealed about some of the songs on the album. It is, by any stretch of the imagination, an excellent project. Carlo Mombelli, that scientist and experimental frontier-leader who brought us “Prisoners of Strange,” oversaw production duties. This is the very same man responsible for Cooper’s instrument of choice. In fact, as Cooper himself revealed, Mombelli is the reason why he chose to pursue music.

Below are some ruminations, courtesy of Shane Cooper, about some songs on the album. The personnel, which includes two past recipients of the Standard Bank nod, speaks volumes of the calibre of musicians Cooper is associated with: Bokani Dyer (piano, rhodes, electric organ); Kesivan Naidoo (drums, cymbals, cowbells); Reza Khota (guitar); Justin Bellairs (alto saxophone); and Buddy Wells (Tenor saxophone).

Broken Blues: I co-wrote that song with Reza [Kota, guitarist]. I started with the bassline and then took it to him, and we developed the melody together.

Destination unknown: I wrote a lot of that on the piano.

Dead Letters: I wrote it on an old analog synthesizer. I just came up with this melody that evolves; it’s based on a very simple theme, but it evolves and moves through different chords.

Shadowplay: I wrote it on an electric bass. I changed the tuning of the bass. I downtuned some of the strings and tried to write a structure on the bass without thinking  about the theory of it. I didn’t know what the chord would be, so I moved my hands around and just found a whole bunch of chord sequences that made sense to me sonically. And then I wrote the melody for that. That was putting myself in a place where I didn’t think about theory or common chord sequences. Funnily enough, when you look at it the chord sequences are quite common, but I wouldn’t have probably come up with them if I didn’t tune the bass like that.

Drop Down Deconstruct: I wrote that on the guitar. I had different songs sketched out. I went back and looked at a whole bunch of things and chose a melody from one, another melody from the other, and tried to combine them. That didn’t work, so I replaced one with another, basically combining all these melodies. If you listen to Drop Down, there are a bunch of different sections. It’s like a drop-down menu. I cut and pasted a whole bunch of ideas that seemed to work together somehow without that being the original intention.

Cooper says that the process of composing varies. He’ll usually sit on an instrument and have a jam session until something sticks out, then record the interesting bits onto his computer or mobile phone–whichever is most convenient at that moment. He often composes on instruments he’s not very good at. “It breaks me out of my comfort zone and makes me think of different patterns,” he says in conclusion.

Shane Cooper’s album “Oscillations” is out on iTunes.

Ghana in 2013: Five Lessons Learned

It has been a year since Ghana held presidential and parliamentary elections — elections that saw John Dramani Mahama hold on to the presidency six months after he stepped into the position following the death of the then president John Atta Mills.

In 12 months, we’ve had an unnecessarily lengthy court case, corruption claims and the usual party backbiting. From the entertaining, mundane and sometimes depressing events and revelations, here are five of the most important lessons we learned from this year.

1. Ghanaians like catchphrases

There were many amusing moments during the eight-month-long election petition that saw the opposition, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), challenge the results of the 2012 election. It was during that time that inventive names like “Finger of God polling station” came to light, whilst the infamous “pink sheets” — the document on which votes were recorded at each polling station — were thrown into regular conversation to mean anything controversial. It is also the title of a recent song by Samini:

But the most mocked and most integrated catchphrase has to be: “You and I were not there” from NPP vice-presidential candidate Mahamudu Bawumia. When asked in court if biometric verification was properly carried out at the polling stations, Bawumia’s response was: “You and I were not there.” When questioned about whether over-voting took place, Bawumia met it with another: “You and I were not there.” His mantra continued for days (yes, days) and left viewers wondering: “Why are we even here?” His response was all well and good, but if you are ever in court and your evidence is shaky and fails you, you know what you’re rebuttal shouldn’t be.

A good catchphrase can also help you win an election. See: “E dey be k3k3.”

2. Party politics is real

Reading some of the local newspapers or listening to debates and call-ins on the radio will teach you nothing about how Ghana is really faring as a country. If you disagree with any given point, rhetoric quickly centres around the party you support or are linked to as a means to explain away your opposing view. You are sure to hear something along the lines of “he is an agent of the NDC [or NPP].” Policy think tank IMANI has been routinely accused of being a “surrogate of the NPP.” And when it comes to discussing corruption, there is much finger-pointing without any sign of resolution.

3. Having the gift of the gab is better than the gift of effective governance

If you want to show the country you are a capable leader, avoid plummy accents, ties and three-piece suits. Be a man of the people. This is the image President Mahama has aimed for. But as he has jetted across the world preaching about how proud he is of Ghana’s stable democracy (see point 5), the country’s finances are going to the pits, infrastructure projects have been consistently stalled, whilst power and water supply have been erratic all year. But what does it matter — e dey be k3k3.

4. Ghanaian ministers are not particularly ambitious when it comes to making extra curricular monies

When the deputy minister of communications, Victoria Hammah, was sacked for claiming that she will leave politics after making $1 Million, many were offended that she would aim so low. Look at what the Nigerians are achieving.

5. Ghana will forever be a “beacon of democracy” in the eyes of the West

The decision by the NPP to challenge the results of the 2012 elections was heralded as a step to further solidify Ghana’s “progressive” democracy. International media barely covered the election, let alone the court case that followed, so cracks in the election that was deemed to be free and fair were overlooked. After the petition was dismissed, no serious commitment was made to implement electoral reforms so as to avoid a repeat of the widespread irregularities. And at the same time the justices of the Supreme Court will continue to be appointed by the president as will the commissioner of the Electoral Commission. Conflict of interests much?

Khady Sylla made films out of the impossible and the untranslatable

Filmmaker, novelist, storyteller, visionary, Khady Sylla died this year, at the age of 50. Apart from African Women in Cinema, little note was made of her passing in the English language media. The Francophone press took some note, and since then there have been one or two festivals and memorials, commemorating Sylla’s work. The relative lack of notice is not particularly surprising. Khady Sylla was a women who recorded women’s silence into revolutionary Spring and listened to the light in the dark spaces where women work and where women go mad.

When she died, Sylla was at work, with her sister, Mariam Sylla, on a new documentary about their grandmother, Penda Diogo Sarr. The film is entitled Simple Parole, and according to those who have seen it, it is a symphony of silences.

Sylla was best known for two films, Une fenêtre ouverte (An open window) and Le monologue de la muette (The monologue of the mute), a story that…

…takes place in Dakar, which is to say more or less everywhere, and we’ll need more than pretty words to bury it definitively in the past:

Sylla described her work process on Une fenêtre ouverte:

In 1994, fascinated by the number of mad people wandering the streets of Dakar, I decided to make a movie about them. Unfortunately or perhaps inevitably, the film was over-exposed, much like my view of both the wandering mad ones and frankly of the world more generally … A little while after over-exposing the film, I fell sick and crossed over to the other side. I saw what others did not see: the dislocated eye, antiquity of the glass bubble, the sky that had fallen too low, the horizon that come too close, I experienced the real interior.

And somehow, out of the impossible and the untranslatable, Khady Sylla made film, made art, and made sense. In the film, at one point, Sylla says,

You look at yourself in a broken mirror. You see pieces of your face. Your face is crumbled. And the one who looks at you from the broken mirror, he sees pieces of images of your face. Which of you will actually solve the puzzle? Maybe you’re both actually on the same side of the mirror? It is the void. I hallucinated, I soliloquized at the top of my lungs, I was completely oblivious to the world around me. I felt myself dissolving into the light. The light seemed too bright, too alive. It penetrated me through all my pores. I was no longer whole. I was pieces, fragments of Khady. I rocked back and forth in utter madness.

Khady understood that this madness was particular to women, particular to Senegalese women, particular to migrant women, particular to all sorts of particularity, in exactly the same way that it was part of women’s story more or less everywhere.

That is the lesson of Le monologue de la muette. The “mute” here is Amy, a Serer village adolescent who works in Dakar as a domestic worker. Amy spends the movie in radical silence, but we hear the monologue of her silence. And inside Amy is a revolutionary who rails against her super-exploitation and rubbishes the false promises of ‘development’, and who in her heart and soul and deeds, is preparing for the Spring: “Our Spring will come. Our spring will circle the Earth. Spartacus is with us.”

Spartacus is with the maids. Rest in peace, Khady Sylla. The Spring will come, and it will circle the earth.

Facepalm…Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore go to “Africa”

Judging from the trailer, the upcoming Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore comedy Blended not only recycles their familiar on-screen partnership (this is the third romantic comedy they’ve done together) but also recycles dated Hollywood notions about “Africa.” The film is about a pair of single parents who after a dismal first date, magically end up on vacation at the same African resort.

The trailer features some tired tropes: smiling singing Africans, generic wildlife, and adventuring in the bush. While the characters exclaim “we’re going to Africa!”, the only place they end up going to is Sun City, famously boycotted in South Africa’s bad old days by United Artists Against Apartheid. Sun City was built during apartheid in what was then the “Bantustan” of Bophutatswana, one of the “homelands” created by the apartheid government as part of their “Separate Development” plan. It also made black South Africans involuntary citizens of phony sovereign states that they had no relationship to. However that’s a history lesson for another time.

One of the main reasons Hollywood films come to shoot in South Africa is that crew and location costs are much cheaper than in the States. Very rarely do they use South Africa for itself, for example using Cape Town as Seattle in Chronicle or as a monkey wrench of locations in The Lord of War. The new Sandler movie seems to do even worse: using South Africa to represent a homogenous composite of Africa that only exists in the minds of ignorant Westerners.

While I have no illusions about Sandler having a responsibility to create smart cinema, it would be great if they didn’t collapse a continent into a Holiday Inn.

African refugees walk to Jerusalem in mass protest against indefinite detention by Israeli state

Last week on December 16, in an act of civil disobedience, over 150 asylum seekers walked all the way from the ‘open’ prisons facility in Be’er Sheva in southern Israel to Jerusalem. Contesting the new policy which forces them to live in ‘open’ facilities, asylum seekers protested against their indefinite detention without trial as well as Israel’s refusal to recognize them as refugees.

In September of this year, the Supreme Court overturned the amendment bill to Israel’s Anti-Infiltration law, which treated all irregular border crossers as “infiltrators”, including asylum seekers. The Anti-Infiltration Law allowed the state to hold asylum seekers in custody, without trial, for up to three years. While the law was overturned and ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it disproportionately harms asylum seeker’s basic right to freedom, in order prevent their release upon the Supreme Court’s decision, the Knesset rapidly moved to forward a legislative amendment to transfer asylum seekers to “open detention centers”, where they could be held indefinitely.

In protest of their indefinite detention, a group of asylum seekers left the ‘open’ prison facility, “Holot”, in the south of the country, walking six hours toward Jerusalem to demand freedom and their refugee rights before the Knesset. Asylum seekers and human rights activists joined the freedom march from Tel Aviv.

Shortly upon their arrival to Jerusalem, violent arrests followed outside the Knesset building.

A second freedom march was launched on December 19, and this time asylum seekers were immediately arrested by immigration officers and returned to prison.

In response to the recent demonstration PM Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page that “the infiltrators who were transferred to a special facility can stay there, or return to their home countries,” and that “the law exists for everyone. A law is a law, and it most certainly applies to illegal work infiltrators.”

Israel has yet to properly internalize the concept that refugees deserve protection. Israel’s policies aimed toward asylum seekers are punitive in nature and are meant to both deter the arrival of individuals into the country as well as encourage the departure of those that are in the process of seeking asylum. Israel refuses to de-link its immigration policies from its asylum ones and therefore refuses to recognize that categorical distinctions exist among individuals entering its territory, and that while some might be work-migrants, some are nonetheless potential refugees and should therefore be given the opportunity to go through an asylum process, instead of being imprisoned for years without trial.

Commenting on the possibility of being arrested by immigration officers, one Sudanese refugee said that the possibility of going back to prison “doesn’t really matter because if they catch us they’ll take us back to the previous prison. It doesn’t matter which prison you’re in.” He also noted that the new facility is “just like a prison, only the doors are open,” and that the open door policy is meaningless since the facility is placed in the middle of the desert.

Am I supposed to be more Brazilian than black?

We’re always told (by our media, politicians, commentators, etcetera) that Brazil is the most multicultural and multiracial country in the world. That Brazilian miscegenation gave birth to a unique kind of beauty and that the Brazilian mixture of races and cultures provided us with a complex of interracial relations that has, in some way, harmonized racism, in the name of some greater interracial identity. Now, “there are no races, but the Brazilian beautiful race,” the Brazilian beauty of the “Brazilian race.”

The documentary film, “Raça,” explores whether nationality should be considered a race (the “Brazilian race”) and whether black Brazilians should abandon once and for all their racial identity for the sake of some Brazilian unity. The filmmakers also ask whether this question itself isn’t already a consequence of institutional racism. Am I supposed to be more Brazilian than black?

Directors of the film are Joel Zito, a Brazilian filmmaker and researcher known for his work on black issues, and Megan Mylan, an American documentary film director. It was released in May 2013. Here’s a trailer (in Portuguese only, unfortunately):

“Raça” notes that Brazil imported ten times more slaves than the United States and was the last country to abolish slavery in 1888. Despite all this history, only 7,6% of Brazilians declare themselves as black. In contrast, at least 47% identify as white, 2,1% are “yellow” and 0,3% Indian. The remaining 43,1% declare themselves as “pardos.”

Pardos are the descendants of black, white and/or Indian — basically the children of the “Brazilian mixture” — and form the so-called “Brazilian race,” although as a group they’re still not as large a group as the self-declared whites.

While blacks are less than a tenth of the population, they form the largest majority of those living in the poorest neighborhoods or locked up in prison. In other words, blacks are the poor and the criminal, and vice-versa, while pardos are the blacks that became good, who became less black, or whiter.

Pardos thus became the perfect product of the Brazilian whitening culture.

In Brazil, racism and racial identity do not take place through the blood line — you’re not necessarily black if you or your parents are the child of an interracial relation — they take place through racial features: the less or more black physical features you have, the more pardo or more black you are considered.

So, because there is such an emphasis on whiteness as desirable, and black culture and beauty, most pardos also aspire to whiteness. Black people started choosing not to be black.

When people identify as black, however, and are proud of it, they’re usually told there are no races, that Brazil is multiracial and multicultural, that nobody is one hundred per cent anything and that they should only be proud of being Brazilian. And so, like that, any black person is just an individual free of identity and the only place for black to be plural is either in the favelas or in prison.

“Raça,” the film, tells three different stories of the struggle for equality by black Brazilians: They are Elda Maria dos Santos (better known as “Miúda”), José de Paula Neto (“Netinho”) and Paulo Paim. The filmmakers followed them from 2005 until 2011.

Miúda is a descendant of slaves who lives in a “quilombola” community of Linharinho, in the state of Espírito Santo. “Quilombos” are traditional communities created by runaway slaves existing until today. There are still more than one thousand Quilombola communities in Brazil. The most urgent struggles of Quilombola people are to have their traditional lands legally demarcated by the State. Miúda is the personification of that fight for recognition. Her community risks losing its traditional lands to AraCruz, a huge multinational paper and cellulose company. AraCruz’s eucalyptus plantation is encroaching on Quilombola land.

Netinho, the former lead singer of the very popular pagode group Negritude Júnior, is trying to start and maintain the first Brazilian TV network directed and presented by and for black people, the TV da Gente (TV of the People). Mainstream media in Brazil is still one of the greatest consolidators of white supremacy and whitening culture in Brazil. For example, while “colorblindness” erases black people from the screen, practices like blackface are still taken as an acceptable and common fact in Brazilian media. Netinho and the people behind TV da Gente arise to claim and stand the ground of black people in the media.

Paulo Paim, the only black senator in Brazil at the time when the film was made, advocates the sanction of the Estatuto da Igualdade Racial (Racial Equality Act), which had been passed around in the senate for ten years without the due attention. The Estatuto da Igualdade Racial is a set of laws that aims to correct the social inequalities between races. These include racial quotas for universities, ensuring a minimum number of black and Indian students in the universities. For example, blacks make up just 2% of the students in the Universidade de São Paulo (considered one the best public universities in South America). The Estatuto da Igualdade Racial also pushes for the legitimization of the Quilombos, guaranteeing the rights to quilombola lands to quilombola descendants.

The film shows Paim responding to some white opponents’ absurd accusations of reverse racism and racialization, as if there were no races in Brazil. Paim also gives some touching and brave speeches. In a “remarkable” discourse, one of his opponents, a well-known senator, Demóstenes Torres, alleges that miscegenation in Brazil didn’t happen as a result of the rape of black women during slavery times, and that the sexual relations were consensual. Paulo Paim is an extraordinary and admirable — as well as very patient — black man who perfectly and movingly answers those allegations.

“Raça” is a black must-see and is essential to a further and deeper comprehension of the complex structure of racism in Brazil. It is touching, tearful, enraging and absolutely clear in revealing the Brazil’s racial paradox. It takes the mask off racism and names its promoters in the media, in politics, in the economy. From the beginning of slavery and colonization until today, the economic, social, political and cultural lives of black Brazilians have little in common with white Brazilians. They also share very few public spaces. So, am I supposed to be more Brazilian than black? “Raça” answers that question. It refutes the idea that “Brazilian” is a race. Life in Brazil is still black and white.

Vintage Cru: Challenging the Status Quo in South Africa with Dance

In the South African entertainment hierarchy, dancers are not usually considered to be at the top of the pile. DJs, singers and soapie stars often command greater audiences. Yet there’s a dance group out there that’s changing the game. Over the last year, they’ve become increasingly visible, appearing on television shows, at festivals and in the country’s biggest music videos (remember the guys in the gold pants killing it in Mafikizolo’s “Khona”?). The group is called Vintage Cru and through their unique blend of next level contemporary dance, relentlessly avante garde style and outspoken challenge of parochial social norms, they’ve risen to become one of the most exciting acts in South Africa.

The journey hasn’t been without its challenges however. With openly gay members in the group, the Vintage Cru has endured countless insults and threats. In late September 2013 they were even assaulted as they boarded a taxi in Johannesburg (fortunately no one was physically harmed). Despite the intimidation, they have stayed focused on pushing the boundaries of dance in South Africa and they remain resolute in unapologetically living the lives of their choosing, inspiring others to do the same.

We spoke to a few members of the Vintage Cru, Ashwin, Lee-chè, Tarryn, Rogue and Tokyo about elevating the standard of dance, defying heteronormativity, the realities of race in the “rainbow nation” and their eventual takeover. This interview was conducted jointly with Ts’eliso Monaheng.

What is the philosophy/ethos of Vintage Cru?

Ashwin: Vintage started with myself and Lee-chè. We wanted to have an all male waacking/vogueing group because to South Africa this was something new. To us it was original, we had to bring something new to the dance industry in South Africa. At that time we never knew anything about fashion, we never knew anything about being legendary, we never knew about building something for yourself. We loved dancing so we thought we might as well do it all the time. And it was four boys with Kyle and Sigulela as the other two.

But we thought we needed more. And then we bumped into Manthe Ribane who used to work at this small shop in town called Fruitcake. She had this aura about her. Some people just give off this aura where you love to be around them. And when we met her we thought this girl might just be what we were missing. Manthe brought image, she brought style to the group. And that’s when we decided our image as a group needed to evolve.

Then one of the members came up with “Vintage” because he googled it and he saw that it related with “legendary” and “timeless”. That’s what we took on as a group… because anything that we created from that point on we wanted to be legendary. So when people look back into the archive of everything that we’ve created they’ll think it’s still amazing, it’s still brilliant, like vintage itself.

Lee-chè: Another thing is, because we are such outcasts we took it upon ourselves to create a place where we get to be free and experience ourselves the way we want to. We tackle social norms that people don’t want to speak about in our performances, we attack those issues, we challenge, and we don’t care if you don’t want to speak about it we’re still going to show it to you in our performances. When we go on stage we bring a gallery on stage. And that means the House of Vintage is creating an art piece in a museum, but it’s on stage. So we add the fashion, we add the theater, we add the music, we add the choreography. We add all of these aspects into our performance because no one else is doing it in the world. It’s the gift that we’ve been given.

Vintage Cru

Manthe recently left the group, but you added 4 new members in February 2013. How have the new members contributed to the group’s evolution?

Ashwin: When we had our auditions we said in the beginning we weren’t only looking for dancers. Dancing is 1% of everything that you need. You need personality, you need to have a skill to bring to House of Vintage. Tokyo, he studies fashion. So it added an element to the group, now we can design our own things because we have a brain who knows how fabric should be working. We have Rogue who does marketing. As a group, marketing for us is big. We want to reach the rest of the world out there so we put his skills to the test. With that, every other member had to find their skills. Tarryn does videography and radio as well.

For the new guys, when you saw the call for auditions, what made you want to join?

Rogue: The fact that they were themselves when I first met them. I felt like I needed to come out of who I was at the time and become who I really I am. So joining the Cru was the first step of accepting myself.

Tokyo: Being in Vintage is about accepting yourself for who you are. Because for me, before I joined the crew, it was not so easy in terms of my sexuality. Whilst in the Cru I’ve eased into it and relaxed into my sexuality. So yeah, it has helped me as a person, not just as a dancer or a designer.

Ashwin

How do you address social issues in your performances?

Ashwin: If we just walk in town, already it’s a problem for people. We have this thing we say when taxi drivers try to have their way with us: we’ll never remember them, but they’ll always remember us. Because at the end of the day there’s 10,000 taxi drivers, but there’s only one Vintage Cru. For our social impact in terms of dancing, we sit and think of what is relevant with the world right now. In terms of South African politics, social issues that people never want to talk about. Like gender-based violence, one that we’re always faced with in the Cru. As well as poverty, which is still a big thing in South Africa. Because we are a fashion group, style plays a big role as well. To South Africans our style themes are weird, but I promise you in 5 years, everyone will be dressing like us and joining the trend.

Lee-chè: I think the way we approach it is, when we create, we see what’s happening and we want to take our knuckles and we want to knock at peoples’ foreheads. Wake up! When we were on the show Step Up or Step Out, there was a piece we did which was a lesbian wedding. And we knew what we were doing because we knew we were going to be on TV. For the performance we had Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and we had Tarryn marry Robyn. The guys were the bridesmaids in heels. And at the point we knew, this is going to be something that South Africa is going to talk about. Because they never show these things in South African media, when they show it, it has to be after 9pm or censored and not on a Sunday during primetime when everyone’s at home.

Tarryn: When we did that performance it was the same week there was a documentary on TV about the gender-based violence especially targeting lesbian women and gay men. It was about how they were being shot and killed for being gay. So we did our performance that Sunday evening and then an hour later it was Debora Patta showing how people are being killed. For us, we know this is real, this is happening and if we don’t say anything or dance about it, no other dance crew is going to do it.

Lee-chè: We utilize what we can because when we know we’re on a platform like that we can push it. We did one performance where we dealt with a homeless person. We brought this image of what it is like to struggle. We’ve done peer pressure, drugs. I think a lot of people don’t get it though. Because when we portray these things it’s still a shock to them. It’s like a slap in the face. People think, “why are they talking about something that we don’t want to talk about?” We want to keep these things undercover since we’ve been a democracy, since 1994. They know we’re gay, but they still want us to keep it undercover, even though they know we deal with it in daily life. I was a victim of gender-based violence because I got stabbed in Johannesburg, but that didn’t stop me from doing what I needed to do. That was what inspired a routine we did on the show Turn It Out, where it was like, “Fuck South Africa for all it stands for. I’m still going to keep what I’m doing whether you like it or not, if I die because of it, fine! At least I was dying for a good purpose, because I was trying to change society.”

Tarryn: There’s so many people that are inspired by what we do. We get so many supportive messages on facebook and twitter. Before the final Step Up or Step Out show we got this message from a woman who said, “You guys inspire me. I watch you every Sunday and I’m voting for you. I was in a car accident and I’m paralyzed and I’m in a wheelchair now, but I still want to dance, I still dance in my heart and it’s only because you guys have given me that hope.” For us, that motivates us to carry on doing what were doing. We can touch people on a broad scale.

Why didn’t you win the Step Up or Step Out competition?

Lee-chè: Let’s go there. This is something I’ve realized from being on TV since back in the day. You don’t win in South Africa unless you’re part of the majority. And unfortunately we only had one black person in our group at the time and that was Lebo. We were on a TV programme and unfortunately a black crew has to win. Because if a black person doesn’t win it means we’re not living in a democracy. It means we are not living in the new South Africa. It means it’s not BEE. It means those things if we have a group with coloured people like us winning a competition like that.

Tarryn: Yet we’re also black and we also fall in that gap. But it’s like, “You’re a little lighter, so sorry. Your people didn’t vote for you, so sorry.”

Lichee: We’ve also realized it’s based on the people who create these shows. They already know whom they want to win. Whether you are changing social perspective, whether you are upping the ratings, they already have a winner in their mind. They will keep you there until the end because we are the ratings, but at the end they’ll drop you because they don’t care anymore. They already got what they needed from you so now they can move on with life. But we’ve taken that and smacked them in their faces because we’ve become better than the winners. But we couldn’t win because we’re not black enough.

Tarryn

Have your performances contributed to opening peoples’ minds?

Lee-chè: People always tell me, “You’ve made me become a more free person. A person who I want to be.” When it comes to Vintage as a crew, we’ve created this standard of life where even if you live in Soweto and life is hard and you can’t be yourself, you’re still going to push to be the person you want to be because you have people like us who inspire you, when everyone is not there. We will hold your hand through that moment if we have to.

Ashwin: Also, dancers are always on the bottom on the entertainment food chain. People believe that dancers alone can’t make a show happen and we’ve proven them wrong. We had a 25 minute performance with outfit changes. And as dancers we’re always at 100%. So after 2 minutes we were already coughing blood, but we kept our composure as a group and made it to the end.

Tokyo: We’ve now even gotten to a place where we are being booked as the main artists for a show and not as simply backup dancers anymore.

Tarryn: The funny thing is we’ll go to a casting and look at the reference photos of how people are styled and it’s us in the photo. When they think of what they want they think of us. Full force. Live jive!

Tokyo

Can anyone become a dancer?

Lee-chè: This is something I think South Africa is missing. If you say you’re a dancer and you go on stage and show me you know how to make your arm straight and pop properly, but you don’t have entertainment value, then I’m sorry, but you are not a dancer. What we believe in is that you need to engage your crowd and make them feel something.

Tarryn: Because at the end of the day when people see a dancer they are watching music in motion. We all listen to music and we all interpret it differently, at the end of the day it takes a brilliant dancer to actually show what the music is doing. You can’t go on stage and be pap! Then you are not a dancer, I’m sorry. Us here we take it seriously, it’s our 9-5. Yoh, it’s deep!

Lee-chè: It’s something we’re very passionate about and I think it’s the reason why some of the other dance crews don’t like us. For them it’s like, “OK, I’m going to go to rehearsals tomorrow for 2 hours and be late 30 minutes and then start dancing, what I create it’s just to make money.” For us we are here everyday of our lives, Monday to Sunday 356 days of a year, the only time we get to see life, is when we go to perform. It’s about the drive for perfection, the drive to create legendary and timeless performances. When we leave this planet Earth we want to be known. We want to leave behind a legacy.

Ashwin: And people are just afraid of the truth. If we are going to watch you perform on stage and you are not breaking your body for me then I’m going to tell you it’s kak. I’m going to tell you what you just did now is pure kak! Where’s your passion, where’s your drive? It took three competitions for us to understand that we’re bigger than who we are. We lost three dance competitions in a row, in front of South Africa, millions of people. It took all of that for us to realize our true potential. That’s the thing that other dancers are missing. Maybe another group won the competition, but when we see them today, we’re like, “Hi, are things still good? Oh you’re working at Ackerman’s (a budget clothing store), that’s nice. Good for you. I’ll see you at the Summer Awards, I’m choreographing.” Simple as that.

Where do your dances come from? Are your influences traditional, contemporary or something else?

Lee-chè: As a choreographer I want to create something that no one else is doing. Whether it starts out bad or good, it always ends up being something everyone thrives in. At the end of the day all of it turns out beautifully, like an art piece. Inspiration comes from everyday life. Circumstance. Sometimes I watch videos and I decide I need to do something around that tip. There never needs to be a time where you can say we’re just waacking or just voguing. I never want to be identified by just one style. That’s the same way we approach fashion and that’s the same way we approach life. It needs to be timeless and it needs to be legendary.

Ashwin: We have respect for different dance forms and we pull our inspiration from them. We pick up on small things like the different facial expressions in ballet and tango. We pay attention to detail.

Lee-chè: Music is a feeling that you have to evoke through dancing. For us if the song is saying this than do this. If “Khona” is saying you need to stomp into the ground so that hell can feel you. Then you will stomp into the ground. We can do pantsula, but if the music is not saying pantsula, we’re not going to do pantsula. The music influences the direction of a lot of what we do.

Rogue

How has your upbringing and your interactions with different people influenced your outlook on life?

Lee-chè: This is a very personal thing to me. I grew up in Cape Town in a very rough neighborhood. My father was a gangster and he basically just sold our toys, sold everything for drugs. So I grew up and went to school and I didn’t see black people in my class. When I moved to Johannesburg that’s when I first got acquainted with black people. That was nice and I always used to be the friend in class. Because I’m a free person and I loved interacting with people and learning new things. Back in Cape Town the separation is there. Coloured people do not relate to black people. It’s racist to the core. Something hasn’t clicked in some coloured peoples’ minds that it’s about humanity. But for me being in Vintage, it had to click immediately because I deal with different people all the time and the entertainment industry is filled with people of different colours. I didn’t hold the things that were done to me by different kinds of people against me, the robberies and the stabbing, I instead reversed them and related as a human to the situations. I don’t know if I can change coloured peoples’ perceptions of black people, but as long as I can show that I am a friend to black people, maybe you observing can also do that in your daily life.

Ashwin: We always say Cape Town is a Country on its own. I was fortunate to have a mom who was open-minded. From the time I was four my mom moved me to an area where I could be with different kinds of people, not just coloured people. Although she was a single mom doing her thing she made sure I was in the new South Africa. When I go to Cape Town I take my black friends with me and I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to behave the way I want and they are going to accept it.

Tarryn: In Johannesburg, the roles are reversed because there are more black people here. People have this perception that coloured people are violent and I deal with it every day of my life. But we don’t let that phase us, we just keep on moving.

Lee-chè: Because we are so close knit as a family we will defend each other to the core. We can be entertainers on TV, but there’s this level of respect we have as people and we’re going to defend each other until the end. If you can’t relate to a person of another colour because of your stigma, that’s your problem, but I have grown up and gotten to know people on a human level and that’s what I’m taking with me until I die.

Lee-chè

South Africa is marketed in terms of being a “rainbow nation”, how do you see it?

Tarryn: You’re right it is depicted that way. At every casting there must be a black person and a white person and they must be interacting even if they don’t like each other. It’s not happy go lucky every day. They are selling dreams. Even on this block in Maboneng you can see the dream vs. the poverty.

Ashwin: Outside we get attacked daily, whether it’s verbally or what. Some days you have the strength to go through it, other days you just want to hit someone.

Tell us about The Takeover, your plan to rise to the top of the entertainment industry in  South Africa and beyond?

Ashwin: The Takeover started in February when we decided we wanted new members in the group. With the new members it tallied the team to 9. We were able to split the team and kill two birds with one stone. In July we began the Takeover 2.0 by pushing the ratchet element because now people in South Africa are beginning to pick up on the word ratchet. If you look at our pictures from 2011, we’ve been doing ratchet. Because we’re in the last phase now you’re going to be seeing more behind the scenes material about what it’s like to be a Vintage member before you see us on stage. It’s also called the “Bow Down Phase” because we’ve been working too hard and it’s high time that you actually respect us for what we’ve doing.

Lee-chè: Takeover of all sectors of the entertainment industry – empire. All the sectors you think we can’t. That’s what we’ll be doing. Point out an art form and we’ll be there. The characters we’ve created like Ratchet Rochelle are just the tip of the iceberg. The one’s coming are even more controversial. One thing we don’t like doing is we don’t like speaking about something until it happens. So we’re really on the hush until, boom!

The interview, Johannesburg

Vintage Cru consists of 9 members: Ashwin, Lee-chè, Tarryn, Lebo, Robyn, Rogue, Tokyo, Kyle and Junior. They regularly tear it up in Johannesburg. Follow them on Twitter, facebook, YouTube and tumblr.

Black and white images (c) Tseliso Monaheng | Color images (c) Zachary Rosen

Vintage Crew: Setting a New Standard for Contemporary Dance in South Africa

In the South African entertainment hierarchy, dancers are not usually considered to be at the top of the pile. DJs, singers and soapie stars often command greater audiences. Yet there’s a dance group out there that’s changing the game. Over the last year, they’ve become increasingly visible, appearing on television shows, at festivals and in the country’s biggest music videos (remember the guys in the gold pants killing it in Mafikizolo’s “Khona”?). The group is called Vintage Cru and through their unique blend of next level contemporary dance, relentlessly avante garde style and outspoken challenge of parochial social norms, they’ve risen to become one of the most exciting acts in South Africa.

The journey hasn’t been without its challenges however. With openly gay members in the group, the Vintage Cru has endured countless insults and threats. In late September 2013 they were even assaulted as they boarded a taxi in Johannesburg (fortunately no one was physically harmed). Despite the intimidation, they have stayed focused on pushing the boundaries of dance in South Africa and they remain resolute in unapologetically living the lives of their choosing, inspiring others to do the same.

We spoke to a few members of the Vintage Cru, Ashwin, Lee-chè, Tarryn, Rogue and Tokyo about elevating the standard of dance, defying heteronormativity, the realities of race in the “rainbow nation” and their eventual takeover. This interview was conducted jointly with Ts’eliso Monaheng.

What is the philosophy/ethos of Vintage Crew?

Ashwin: Vintage started with myself and Lee-chè. We wanted to have an all male waacking/ vogueing group because to South Africa this was something new. To us it was original, we had to bring something new to the dance industry in South Africa. At that time we never knew anything about fashion, we never knew anything about being legendary, we never knew about building something for yourself. We loved dancing so we thought we might as well do it all the time. And it was four boys with Kyle and Sigulela as the other two.

But we thought we needed more. And then we bumped into Manthe Ribane who used to work at this small shop in town called Fruitcake. She had this aura about her. Some people just give off this aura where you love to be around them. And when we met her we thought this girl might just be what we were missing. Manthe brought image, she brought style to the group. And that’s when we decided our image as a group needed to evolve.

Then one of the members came up with “Vintage” because he googled it and he saw that it related with “legendary” and “timeless”. That’s what we took on as a group… because anything that we created from that point on we wanted to be legendary. So when people look back into the archive of everything that we’ve created they’ll think it’s still amazing, it’s still brilliant, like vintage itself.

Lee-chè: Another thing is, because we are such outcasts we took it upon ourselves to create a place where we get to be free and experience ourselves the way we want to. We tackle social norms that people don’t want to speak about in our performances, we attack those issues, we challenge, and we don’t care if you don’t want to speak about it we’re still going to show it to you in our performances. When we go on stage we bring a gallery on stage. And that means the House of Vintage is creating an art piece in a museum, but it’s on stage. So we add the fashion, we add the theater, we add the music, we add the choreography. We add all of these aspects into our performance because no one else is doing it in the world. It’s the gift that we’ve been given.

Vintage Cru

Manthe recently left the group, but you added 4 new members in February 2013. How have the new members contributed to the group’s evolution?

Ashwin: When we had our auditions we said in the beginning we weren’t only looking for dancers. Dancing is 1% of everything that you need. You need personality, you need to have a skill to bring to House of Vintage. Tokyo, he studies fashion. So it added an element to the group, now we can design our own things because we have a brain who knows how fabric should be working. We have Rogue who does marketing. As a group, marketing for us is big. We want to reach the rest of the world out there so we put his skills to the test. With that, every other member had to find their skills. Tarryn does videography and radio as well.

For the new guys, when you saw the call for auditions, what made you want to join?

Rogue: The fact that they were themselves when I first met them. I felt like I needed to come out of who I was at the time and become who I really I am. So joining the Cru was the first step of accepting myself.

Tokyo: Being in Vintage is about accepting yourself for who you are. Because for me, before I joined the crew, it was not so easy in terms of my sexuality. Whilst in the Cru I’ve eased into it and relaxed into my sexuality. So yeah, it has helped me as a person, not just as a dancer or a designer.

Ashwin

How do you address social issues in your performances?

Ashwin: If we just walk in town, already it’s a problem for people. We have this thing we say when taxi drivers try to have their way with us: we’ll never remember them, but they’ll always remember us. Because at the end of the day there’s 10,000 taxi drivers, but there’s only one Vintage Cru. For our social impact in terms of dancing, we sit and think of what is relevant with the world right now. In terms of South African politics, social issues that people never want to talk about. Like gender-based violence, one that we’re always faced with in the Cru. As well as poverty, which is still a big thing in South Africa. Because we are a fashion group, style plays a big role as well. To South Africans our style themes are weird, but I promise you in 5 years, everyone will be dressing like us and joining the trend.

Lee-chè: I think the way we approach it is, when we create, we see what’s happening and we want to take our knuckles and we want to knock at peoples’ foreheads. Wake up! When we were on the show Step Up or Step Out, there was a piece we did which was a lesbian wedding. And we knew what we were doing because we knew we were going to be on TV. For the performance we had Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and we had Tarryn marry Robyn. The guys were the bridesmaids in heels. And at the point we knew, this is going to be something that South Africa is going to talk about. Because they never show these things in South African media, when they show it, it has to be after 9pm or censored and not on a Sunday during primetime when everyone’s at home.

Tarryn: When we did that performance it was the same week there was a documentary on TV about the gender-based violence especially targeting lesbian women and gay men. It was about how they were being shot and killed for being gay. So we did our performance that Sunday evening and then an hour later it was Debora Patta showing how people are being killed. For us, we know this is real, this is happening and if we don’t say anything or dance about it, no other dance crew is going to do it.

Lee-chè: We utilize what we can because when we know we’re on a platform like that we can push it. We did one performance where we dealt with a homeless person. We brought this image of what it is like to struggle. We’ve done peer pressure, drugs. I think a lot of people don’t get it though. Because when we portray these things it’s still a shock to them. It’s like a slap in the face. People think, “why are they talking about something that we don’t want to talk about?” We want to keep these things undercover since we’ve been a democracy, since 1994. They know we’re gay, but they still want us to keep it undercover, even though they know we deal with it in daily life. I was a victim of gender-based violence because I got stabbed in Johannesburg, but that didn’t stop me from doing what I needed to do. That was what inspired a routine we did on the show Turn It Out, where it was like, “Fuck South Africa for all it stands for. I’m still going to keep what I’m doing whether you like it or not, if I die because of it, fine! At least I was dying for a good purpose, because I was trying to change society.”

Tarryn: There’s so many people that are inspired by what we do. We get so many supportive messages on facebook and twitter. Before the final Step Up or Step Out show we got this message from a woman who said, “You guys inspire me. I watch you every Sunday and I’m voting for you. I was in a car accident and I’m paralyzed and I’m in a wheelchair now, but I still want to dance, I still dance in my heart and it’s only because you guys have given me that hope.” For us, that motivates us to carry on doing what were doing. We can touch people on a broad scale.

Why didn’t you win the Step Up or Step Out competition?

Lee-chè: Let’s go there. This is something I’ve realized from being on TV since back in the day. You don’t win in South Africa unless you’re part of the majority. And unfortunately we only had one black person in our group at the time and that was Lebo. We were on a TV programme and unfortunately a black crew has to win. Because if a black person doesn’t win it means we’re not living in a democracy. It means we are not living in the new South Africa. It means it’s not BEE. It means those things if we have a group with coloured people like us winning a competition like that.

Tarryn: Yet we’re also black and we also fall in that gap. But it’s like, “You’re a little lighter, so sorry. Your people didn’t vote for you, so sorry.”

Lichee: We’ve also realized it’s based on the people who create these shows. They already know whom they want to win. Whether you are changing social perspective, whether you are upping the ratings, they already have a winner in their mind. They will keep you there until the end because we are the ratings, but at the end they’ll drop you because they don’t care anymore. They already got what they needed from you so now they can move on with life. But we’ve taken that and smacked them in their faces because we’ve become better than the winners. But we couldn’t win because we’re not black enough.

Tarryn

Have your performances contributed to opening peoples’ minds?

Lee-chè: People always tell me, “You’ve made me become a more free person. A person who I want to be.” When it comes to Vintage as a crew, we’ve created this standard of life where even if you live in Soweto and life is hard and you can’t be yourself, you’re still going to push to be the person you want to be because you have people like us who inspire you, when everyone is not there. We will hold your hand through that moment if we have to.

Ashwin: Also, dancers are always on the bottom on the entertainment food chain. People believe that dancers alone can’t make a show happen and we’ve proven them wrong. We had a 25 minute performance with outfit changes. And as dancers we’re always at 100%. So after 2 minutes we were already coughing blood, but we kept our composure as a group and made it to the end.

Tokyo: We’ve now even gotten to a place where we are being booked as the main artists for a show and not as simply backup dancers anymore.

Tarryn: The funny thing is we’ll go to a casting and look at the reference photos of how people are styled and it’s us in the photo. When they think of what they want they think of us. Full force. Live jive!

Tokyo

Can anyone become a dancer?

Lee-chè: This is something I think South Africa is missing. If you say you’re a dancer and you go on stage and show me you know how to make your arm straight and pop properly, but you don’t have entertainment value, then I’m sorry, but you are not a dancer. What we believe in is that you need to engage your crowd and make them feel something.

Tarryn: Because at the end of the day when people see a dancer they are watching music in motion. We all listen to music and we all interpret it differently, at the end of the day it takes a brilliant dancer to actually show what the music is doing. You can’t go on stage and be pap! Then you are not a dancer, I’m sorry. Us here we take it seriously, it’s our 9-5. Yoh, it’s deep!

Lee-chè: It’s something we’re very passionate about and I think it’s the reason why some of the other dance crews don’t like us. For them it’s like, “ok I’m going to go to rehearsals tomorrow for 2 hours and be late 30 minutes and then start dancing, what I create it’s just to make money. For us we are here everyday of our lives, Monday to Sunday 356 days of a year, the only time we get to see life, is when we go to perform. It’s about the drive for perfection, the drive to create legendary and timeless performances. When we leave this planet Earth we want to be known. We want to leave behind a legacy.

Ashwin: And people are just afraid of the truth. If we are going to watch you perform on stage and you are not breaking your body for me then I’m going to tell you it’s kak. I’m going to tell you what you just did now is pure kak! Where’s your passion, where’s your drive? It took three competitions for us to understand that we’re bigger than who we are. We lost three dance competitions in a row, in front of South Africa, millions of people. It took all of that for us to realize our true potential. That’s the thing that other dancers are missing. Maybe another group won the competition, but when we see them today, we’re like, “Hi, are things still good? Oh you’re working at Ackerman’s (a budget clothing store), that’s nice. Good for you. I’ll see you at the Summer Awards, I’m choreographing.” Simple as that.

Where do your dances come from? Are your influences traditional, contemporary or something else?

Lee-chè: As a choreographer I want to create something that no one else is doing. Whether it starts out bad or good, it always ends up being something everyone thrives in. At the end of the day all of it turns out beautifully, like an art piece. Inspiration comes from everyday life. Circumstance. Sometimes I watch videos and I decide I need to do something around that tip. There never needs to be a time where you can say we’re just waacking or just voguing. I never want to be identified by just one style. That’s the same way we approach fashion and that’s the same way we approach life. It needs to be timeless and it needs to be legendary.

Ashwin: We have respect for different dance forms and we pull our inspiration from them. We pick up on small things like the different facial expressions in ballet and tango. We pay attention to detail.

Lee-chè: Music is a feeling that you have to evoke through dancing. For us if the song is saying this than do this. If “Khona” is saying you need to stomp into the ground so that hell can feel you. Then you will stomp into the ground. We can do pantsula, but if the music is not saying pantsula, we’re not going to do pantsula. The music influences the direction of a lot of what we do.

Rogue

How has your upbringing and your interactions with different people influenced your outlook on life?

Lee-chè: This is a very personal thing to me. I grew up in Cape Town in a very rough neighborhood. My father was a gangster and he basically just sold our toys, sold everything for drugs. So I grew up and went to school and I didn’t see black people in my class. When I moved to Johannesburg that’s when I first got acquainted with black people. That was nice and I always used to be the friend in class. Because I’m a free person and I loved interacting with people and learning new things. Back in Cape Town the separation is there. Coloured people do not relate to black people. It’s racist to the core. Something hasn’t clicked in some coloured peoples’ minds that it’s about humanity. But for me being in Vintage, it had to click immediately because I deal with different people all the time and the entertainment industry is filled with people of different colours. I didn’t hold the things that were done to me by different kinds of people against me, the robberies and the stabbing, I instead reversed them and related as a human to the situations. I don’t know if I can change coloured peoples’ perceptions of black people, but as long as I can show that I am a friend to black people, maybe you observing can also do that in your daily life.

Ashwin: We always say Cape Town is a Country on its own. I was fortunate to have a mom who was open-minded. From the time I was four my mom moved me to an area where I could be with different kinds of people, not just coloured people. Although she was a single mom doing her thing she made sure I was in the new South Africa. When I go to Cape Town I take my black friends with me and I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to behave the way I want and they are going to accept it.

Tarryn: In Johannesburg, the roles are reversed because there are more black people here. People have this perception that coloured people are violent and I deal with it every day of my life. But we don’t let that phase us, we just keep on moving.

Lee-chè: Because we are so close knit as a family we will defend each other to the core. We can be entertainers on TV, but there’s this level of respect we have as people and we’re going to defend each other until the end. If you can’t relate to a person of another colour because of your stigma, that’s your problem, but I have grown up and gotten to know people on a human level and that’s what I’m taking with me until I die.

Lee-chè

South Africa is marketed in terms of being a “rainbow nation”, how do you see it?

Tarryn: You’re right it is depicted that way. At every casting there must be a black person and a white person and they must be interacting even if they don’t like each other. It’s not happy go lucky every day. They are selling dreams. Even on this block in Maboneng you can see the dream vs. the poverty.

Ashwin: Outside we get attacked daily, whether it’s verbally or what. Some days you have the strength to go through it, other days you just want to hit someone.

Tell us about The Takeover, your plan to rise to the top of the entertainment industry in  South Africa and beyond?

Ashwin: The Takeover started in February when we decided we wanted new members in the group. With the new members it tallied the team to 9. We were able to split the team and kill two birds with one stone. In July we began the Takeover 2.0 by pushing the ratchet element because now people in South Africa are beginning to pick up on the word ratchet. If you look at our pictures from 2011, we’ve been doing ratchet. Because we’re in the last phase now you’re going to be seeing more behind the scenes material about what it’s like to be a Vintage member before you see us on stage. It’s also called the “Bow Down Phase” because we’ve been working too hard and it’s high time that you actually respect us for what we’ve doing.

Lee-chè: Takeover of all sectors of the entertainment industry – empire. All the sectors you think we can’t. That’s what we’ll be doing. Point out an art form and we’ll be there. The characters we’ve created like Ratchet Rochelle are just the tip of the iceberg. The one’s coming are even more controversial. One thing we don’t like doing is we don’t like speaking about something until it happens. So we’re really on the hush until, boom!

The interview, Johannesburg

Vintage Cru consists of 9 members: Ashwin, Lee-chè, Tarryn, Lebo, Robyn, Rogue, Tokyo, Kyle and Junior. They regularly tear it up in Johannesburg. Follow them on Twitter, facebook, YouTube and tumblr.

Black and white images (c) Tseliso Monaheng | Color images (c) Zachary Rosen

An Interactive Study Map of African States

“Africa is a country,” some say with irony. Or derision. Or perhaps in sheer frustration, as those of us resident in some other part of the world try to share our interest in the vast, variegated topographies, cultures, and political constellations all called “Africa.” A critique of continents, the etymology of Ifriqiya, and a European fascination with Bilad al-Sudan are well-rehearsed elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we all operate politically and intellectually in a world-view shaped by the U.S. State Department and an area studies model of regions that presents Sub-Saharan Africa as separate from the Maghreb and Mediterranean Africa.

As Africanists, our stock-in-trade includes pushing back. As teachers, scholars, and commentators we poke and prod at constructed geographies, charting unities across previously demarcated sub-regions and identifying particularities in eco-zones or communities that are conventionally grouped with larger nations. In a post-modern landscape, geography is admittedly malleable. But that does not make it optional. I may be hopelessly old-school to say so: but to make sense of a place, you still have to find it on a map.

Before we can enable readers to follow our logic, students to engage with new ideas, and fellow commentators to write about Africa with more nuance and fewer stereotypes, they first have to know where we are. If you’d like a way to reinforce that “Nambia” and Zambia are different places; that there are, in fact, two Congos; or that geographically, Lesotho is more like Switzerland than is Swaziland, this simple interactive political map of Africa can help.

The map toggles between two modes. In study mode, the user can hover the mouse over a current map with national borders. This action highlights and labels individual countries.

In test mode, the users can drag a country name from the adjacent list and drop the label in the right place. If they’re correct, the label sticks. If not, they can try again.

I developed the map with undergraduate students in mind, but I’m aware that it’s not just college sophomores in the U.S. who struggle with the complexities of African geography. Although political boundaries are just one piece of that puzzle, this exercise may at least help dispel the notion that Africa is a country.

You’ll find the interactive study map here. Go on test yourself.