Review of Ombetja Yehinga Organisation dance

This a review I just wrote, which I thought I used to much time to do.
Alright, I did not spend so much time, but I felt the choreography was not that great and really, I feel that with my limited time, I could have spent it writing something else.

Here it is anyway, it is really short.

So how effective is sensitization about social problems through dance? The dancers of the Ombetja Yehinga Organisation (OYO) did communicate a message, but I wish that this message was more present in the dancing. To illustrate my reservation, I will give a critical appraisal of Dumped, a piece by British choreographer Zoie Golding, who was one of the guest artists that worked with OYO in 2009 and Philippe Talavera, the director-founder of OYO. The piece was performed alongside five other pieces in a show called “Together”, which was commissioned in commemoration of World AIDS day.

My first impression of Dumped was that of men competing for a woman. At the onset they push each other aside as they all want to get down with this woman. She wraps her leg around them, in a manner reminiscent of the tango, and sensuously slid her waist down their legs. This seemed to be an indication of sex and foreshadows what came later – an ostensible pregnancy underneath her dress. Once pregnant she stands at the deep, far away corner of the stage while a group of people move across the stage. The group moves in synchrony with a meditative slowness, ducking down, coming up as they slowly wade through the space .They sit down and turn their backs to look behind and stare at the pregnant woman. With her profile to us, she stands too look at them, resting her hands on her enormous abdomen. I only comprehend the meaning of Dumped when she walks towards a triangular wall made of people standing on top of each other. She removes her baby and lets it go at top of the wall. And that was it, the dumping of a baby. Towards the end of the piece, we witness how a man attempts to get at this woman, but he is blocked, pushed back and eventually grounded – two other men make him sit down. His attempts at breaking through were rather insipid, my heart did not flutter out fear that he would break through.
At end of the piece the baby dumper is comforted by another woman as they embrace. Her friend then asks “why did you dump your baby?” and the woman replies “I don’t know, I was confused, I was desperate,” she replies with a miserable expression on her face.
But I did not see her dance this feeling of hopelessness! We hear it on the news that yet another mother dumped her living baby in a rubbish bin or river bed. However, the closest Dumped came to reflecting or refracting this social problem in art was the acting of the woman at the end of the piece. The act of dumping a baby is most certainly done in isolation, but the whole piece was full of many people, busy jumping into each other, which perhaps detracted from the dance of the protagonist. Granted, this movement is interesting, but if I wanted to see that, I would watch professional companies such as Pilobolus that are superb at making bodies interact. OYO is not a professional dance company, but they have the potential to impress upon me a physical message of how a woman becomes a baby dumper.

As an AIDS welfare organization, OYO aims to employ the arts to reach young people about HIV/AIDS. Currently, their dance works are interesting to watch and therefore catch one’s attention. They get the point across. However, I wonder whether they simply aim to use art to raise awareness or do they want to dig deep and present an insightful perspective on the issues surrounding HIV, AIDS and teenage pregnancy.

Dumped was performed at the FRANCO Namibian Cultural Center, 2nd December 2009.