The Lion King

What an amazing, larger-than-life experience! I have been yearning to see this show ever since my first glimpse of it at the Tony Awards all those years ago. It has been well worth the wait.

Using a combination of masks, bunraku puppets, body paint and shadow puppetry, the splendour and diversity of an African savannah is created. It's brilliant and the visual animation on stage is truly the essence of the show.

Most of the lead actors have performed their roles before in productions all over the world and with the exception of Scar's Mark Rayment, all are South African.
The first few notes of Buyisile Zama's Rafiki literally sent shivers down my spine.

I enjoyed the local flavour. Shenzi has a Cape flats accent and Pumbaa uses more than a few Afrikaans words. Even little Nala got a huge laugh with a very well timed "Hey Wena!". This kind of thing is often used to gain a few more laughs in regional productions, but here it also helped to strengthen the diversity of the characters.

The wildebeest stampede was incredibly powerful, and with the exception of maybe the opening sequence and Simba's vision of Mufasa, my favourite in the whole show.

It's strange, the theatre itself feels small and intimate, but it seats over 1900 people! It is so well designed that there's basically not a bad seat in the house, since you are no further than 33m for the stage wherever you sit. I love the way the acoustic tiling inside the theatre is reminiscent of woven reeds - distinctly African, but not overbearing.

The best part? I'm going to see it again in July, this time from the front row, courtesy of my really, really cool boss.

Double Dance

I was lucky enough to see not one, but two really great dance productions in one week.

The first one, Danscape, is a showcase of young South African talent that also serves as a fundraiser to support young dancers. A lot of different programmes and academies were involved and the result was a vibrant mix of contemporary, jazz, flamenco and even traditional Indian dance styles.
There was also a beautiful piece by the Remix Dance Project, a group that uses both disabled and able-bodied dancers.

My favourite of the evening was the last piece by Ina Wicterich that was a collaboration between the Jazzart trainees and dancers from all the other schools. I would never have thought that Indian dance moves could work so well when performed to African vocals.

But the most enchanting part was when a little girl of about 2 or 3, sitting in the front row with her parents, became so enamoured with the performance that she jumped up and started dancing too. The whole audience let out an appreciative sigh at the sight of this little person twirling about in a world of her own.

The second piece was La Traviata by the South African Ballet Theatre. We were lucky enough to see one of the performances accompanied by a live orchestra and I think that it made all the difference. Andries Weidemann was in the lead and his dancing and acting went way beyond just the steps and the lifts. There was an ease and maturity to his performance that a lot of the younger dancers lacked. His partner was good not great, but I think she will mature into a stunnong dancer in a few year's time. Her death scene scene was brilliantly done though.

So that's it. Wonderful dancing to remember and Chicago to look forward to in 2 week's time. Life is great.