The war inside

PARTLY GOD is an emotional rollercoaster that follows a young man’s (Douglas Griffiths') search for his father (John Linden) and his journey toward redemption. On the way, he encounters a boy soldier whose wisdom helps him find healing within himself.
Award-winning actor and performance artist Chuma Sopotela gives an unforgettable performance as the boy soldier. She concedes that the role was a challenge. “A boy soldier? Where do I begin?
“For me, I’m not trying to play a soldier … I’m playing what I understand about what it would feel like to be a child forced to carry a gun," she says.
“I think about the soldiers in my own community … in Khayelitsha … There was a young boy, about 16 years old, who had an argument with his mother. He took a friend of mine’s car and was supposed to go and park it but he took it on a joyride instead. When we told him that was wrong, he responded in a violent way. We tried to reason with him but he wouldn’t listen.
“He’s a soldier in a way … fighting a war inside himself.
“We all have problems in our lives but it’s inhuman for him to react like that.” – by DEBBIE HATHWAY

When God Made Me lyrics by Neil Young

Was he thinkin' about my country
Or the colour of my skin?
Was he thinkin' 'bout my religion
And the way I worshipped him?
Did he create just me in his image
Or every living thing?

When God made me
When God made me

Was he planning only for believers
Or for those who just have faith?
Did he envision all the wars
That were fought in his name?
Did he say there was only one way
To be close to him?

When God made me
When God made me

Did he give me the gift of love
To say who I could choose?

When God made me
When God made me

When God made me
When God made me

Did he give me the gift of voice
So some could silence me?
Did he give me the gift of vision
Not knowing what I might see?
Did he give me the gift of compassion
To help my fellow man?

When God made me
When God made me

When God made me
When God made me

In the name of God

Questioned by Adrienne Sichel about this production’s title, which suggests the mantra "there but for the grace of God go I", director Lara Foot Newton nods. "It is all of those things. How many wars have there been fought in the name of God or in the belief that God's will be done?"

Extract from article published on ABC News Technology & Science, March 27, 2007:
Does believing that "God is on our side" make it easier for us to inflict pain and suffering on those perceived to be our enemies? If we think God sanctions violence, are we more likely to engage in violent acts?
The answer to both those questions, according to new research, is a resounding "yes," even among those who do not consider themselves believers.
Social psychologist Brad Bushman of the University of Michigan led an international research effort to find answers to these questions, and said he is very "disturbed" by the results, though he found what he had expected. Bushman has spent 20 years studying aggression and violence ... He wanted to take it a step further and see if simply exposing someone to a text that implies God sanctions violence would increase their level of aggression.
"I think many people use God as their justification for violent and aggressive actions," Bushman said. "Take the current conflict in Iraq as an example. Bush claims that God is on his side. Osama bin Laden claims that God, or Allah, is on his side."
... To find his answers, Bushman assembled teams of researchers at two very different universities, Vrije University in Amsterdam, Holland, where he also holds a professorship, and Brigham Young University in Utah.
Only half of the students who participated in the study at Vrije reported that they believe in God, and only 27 percent believe in the Bible. At Brigham Young, 99 percent said they believe in God and the Bible …
… the students read a description of the beating and raping and murder of a woman in ancient Israel. Half of the students read a version of the story that included an assertion that God commanded the friends of the woman to take revenge. The other half read a version that did not mention God sanctioning violence. Half of the students were told the account came from the Bible, and half were told it came from an ancient scroll.
"What we found is that people who believed the passage was from the Bible were more aggressive [than those who did not know it came from the Bible], and when God said it is OK to retaliate they were even more aggressive," Bushman said.
... "Even among nonbelievers, if God says it's OK to retaliate, they are more aggressive. And that's the worry here. When God sanctions aggression, when God says it's OK to retaliate, people use that as justification for their own violent and aggressive behaviour."
... his own research shows that whether people consider themselves believers or not, they are more likely to be aggressive, perhaps even willing to start a war, if they think God is on their side.

Creating under the influence

By DEBBIE HATHWAY
Psychological workshops formed part of director Lara Foot Newton’s preparation for PARTLY GOD. Tony Hamburger, a Johannesburg clinical psychologist, ran a workshop with the cast in which they had to sculpt a family. The outcome? Most of them share an uncomfortable relationship with their fathers … so absent fathers became one of the main themes of this production.
Jazzart’s Dance Joint director and teacher, John Linden, is a prime example. John’s father died in 2006, having never seen him dance because “dancing was not for men; only for sissies.”
At 53, John makes his performance comeback in PARTLY GOD as father to company member Douglas Griffiths in the role of his son. They perform three extremely powerful duets developed to text that was entirely inspired by alcohol! “Lara was talking to John and I one night … we were both pissed … she wrote down everything we said!” says artistic director Alfred Hinkel.
John is the kind of man that in the words of author Marian Keyes bristles “… with an invisible force field that warned me not to try and touch him under any circumstances.” It’s perfect for his role as he stoically rejects every advance Douglas makes to regain his attention and affection.
John grew up in a family of nine children in Okiep, Namaqualand, and boasts a reputation as the best rugby player in Namaqualand and the Hantam area in the Karoo. “I was a rooker … in my gelapte jeans … I failed Afrikaans three times and eventually dropped out of school,” he says.
But a chance meeting with Alfred, who used to teach dance to John’s younger sister, was the start of an unexpected career as a dancer, teacher and choreographer. “Dance changed my lifestyle,” says John. “If I’d stayed at home I would have been a school teacher.”
Alfred’s need for a last minute replacement "to catch and lift" the female dancer in a performance pas de deux set the ball rolling. John worked as a freelancer in Namibia, Johannesburg, Sun City and the Wild Coast before joining Jazzart Dance Theatre in 1981. “I’d heard about this company of only coloured people and a few whites, so I came to Cape Town. Sun City was all ‘tits and ass’; I hated the shows but the money was there. All that mincing on stage … it wasn’t male enough for me.”

The terror of emotion

By DEBBIE HATHWAY
… sexual assault … Burmese leader … George Bush … chain to power … will of the people … coup d’etat … uprising … war against Islam … civil unrest … corruption … Somali …
The opening of PARTLY GOD is so intense; I have tears in my eyes within five minutes. That’s a good sign. "The dancers are brave, committed and disciplined ... There's no baggage. No filters," says director Lara Foot Newton.
Transnational trauma is one of the themes of PARTLY GOD. I googled it and found an April 2006 summary of the fourth conference in the Persian Gulf Initiative about transnational violence. It shows that emotion, spread through social networks, is the root cause of this type of uprising. It quoted a study of “weak-against-strong resistance in Eastern Europe throughout the Second World War. One of the best predictors of high-risk and high-sacrifice violence against occupation or political puppets was resentment, an emotion that depended upon inversions of group status. Even if the group that was placed in a higher status wasn’t a threat, it would be attacked...
“… alienation, anger, and shame have been used as descriptions of Europe’s diaspora Muslims, many of which comprise the Sunni extremist network. Emotion exists in the seemingly benign social bonds that gradually radicalise decentralised terror networks, and even today’s self-starters. Emotion galvanises populations in response to a clear change in group status. And emotion fosters the type of risk acceptance and sacrifice necessary for weak groups to take on strong militaries. Importantly, emotion in these cases is not invoked in an irrational/pathological sense, but as a normal response to the political events and social structure of daily life.
“... emotions appear integral to all the processes surrounding terror: networks, motivation, and ideology. They are central to the radicalisation story because changes in structure (e.g. wars in Afghanistan or Palestine, political repression throughout the Arab world, occupation in Iraq, etc.) affect emotion, and emotion affects the formation of one’s beliefs and the salience of one’s preferences.”
(Extracts of summary report by Nichole Argo, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was research assistant to the Persian Gulf Initiative in 2005-2006.)

Language of violence

35 performers "speaking the language of violence". Bodies become missiles.
partly god's mission to explore the narrative of conflict and violence. To: "engage with that which is unspoken. A silent language which begins to occupy the space between words and conveys lived memory, the language of speechless terror". - Adrienne Sichel

The Terrorism Ahead

"Terrorism is a constant feature of human civilisation - it is neither new nor is it likely to ever end... Just as humans must contend with infectious diseases, they may also have to contend with terrorism as part of the human condition..." The Terrorism Ahead: Confronting Transnational Violence in the Twenty-First Century by Paul J. Smith (New York and London: M.E. Sharpe)

Riveting moves in rehearsal

By DEBBIE HATHWAY
It’s just over a month before Jazzart Dance Theatre’s partly god premieres in Cape Town. The boys are workshopping contact work in one studio while the girls piece together choreography in another.
Neo Muyanga of blk sonshine has composed the music and pops in to see what’s changed since he last saw a rehearsal. The girls are using his deeply impressive, melodic soundtrack − it will sound different when he plays it live on stage with a band.
Prominent classical ballet choreographer Veronica Paeper is also there watching the boys’ rehearsal. After a while, I ask her what she thinks. “It’s stunning… absolutely stunning,” she says, only averting her eyes long enough to phone her husband and tell him she’s staying for another half an hour.
We’re watching the wheelbarrow scene. “It’s got to look vicious and ugly,” says artistic director Alfred Hinkel. “At the moment they look like puftas.”
Company member Douglas Griffiths is lying on his back with his lower legs strapped to the arms of the wheelbarrow. One by one, the dancers take a flying leap into the barrow with a force that makes Douglas’ lower body arch into the air before contracting as he thrusts the barrow down again to eject them. It’s hurting his ankles and heels and they struggle to find a way of strapping that will get him through 10 performances without severe injury.
Somebody has a brainwave and Douglas declares “Dis fine.”
"Want jy’s a ghetto kind!" Alfred beams, as Douglas prepares for the next onslaught.
"We’ve got to get the image right; then she (director Lara Foot-Newton) wants me to turn this into a bigger dance number,” says Alfred.
They tackle the garbage can scene next, leaving the xenophobia and gang scenes for later. Company member Grant van Ster demonstrates, deftly taking Douglas out at the knees in a ferocious move that challenges the other dancers, particularly if they heights are incompatible.
There’s action on every beat and it’s hectic. The dancers have to be super-fit to cope. One gets knocked in the face by a stray kick; another rolls on the floor grimacing in pain as they work through another combination.
Alfred is unsympathetic. “Dis nie lekker nie. I told you when you came to the audition, go get a decent job. You wanted to be a dancer!” He says that to everyone...
Co-choreographer Sbonakalsio Ndaba advises quietly from the side: “Your body needs to relax so it goes out of control…” It’s a fight scene and it’s got to be realistic.
In the other room, co-choreographers Ina Wichterich-Mogane and Ananda Fuchs are combing steps to break the tension and give the piece a different atmosphere. It’s lighter; more rhythmical. “Why can’t the women do contact work?” asks Ina of nobody in particular. “Why is it always the men?” Ananda works in a gentle push action that satisfies them for the moment. Maybe Ina will think again when she sees how the men are punishing their bodies…