The stage has become the quiet and cavernous reaches of the mines, a place of spiritual and material excavation. From above, a single light shines down from a cluster of Basotho hats suspended on a wire frame and illuminating two characters.

A Hole in Waiting, directed by Calvin Ratladi with musical composition by Xolisile Bongwana, examines the position of the body in relation to the postcolonial condition of the mining industry in South Africa. The work acknowledges the graves of thousands of people as a result of an aggressive drilling system.

Drawing on his own family history of mining, Ratladi presents a performance that centres an embodied approach to research and the theatre-making process itself. Through visual, musical and physical modes of performance, he excavates the stories embedded in the body, the bodies of those who came before him, those who have been lost to the mines, as well as the referent of the literal excavation, the land itself.

Two red blankets, a pole, a bucket, and the interactive installation of hats – over the course of the performance the hats are lowered and scattered across the stage – serve as the props that activate these modes of performance. Ratladi and Bongwana oscillate between burden and lightness – a choreography of heavy histories and potential healing – sometimes embodying both, like the striking, singular moment of Ratladi suspended on Bongwana’s back, face bathed in the deep red glow of the hats.

Light, through its presence, absence and relationship with shadows, plays a vital role in the performance. There is the soft evocation of gold, darkness, and blood, and there is the proliferation of shadows against the wall, a crush of bodies from one angle, a crowd of striking miners or the gathering of ancestors when viewed from another.

A Hole in Waiting is a performance that deals with an enduring legacy of violence, extraction, labour, suffocation and loss. Alongside the cruelty and exploitation that is at the heart of the history being grappled with, though, there are tender and contemplative moments.

“How far back do you need to travel to the beginning of history?” asks Ratladi. All of this – the relentless breathlessness, the perpetual falling and flailing – is in service of “an endless procession of fathers and grandfathers, uncles, brothers and nephews who now join their ancestors.” It is towards the excavation of grief, memory and pain. It is theatre towards healing.

– David Mann

CREDITS:

CONCEPTUALISER, DIRECTOR & PERFORMER | Calvin Ratladi
COMPOSER & PERFORMER | Xolisile Bongwana
SET & COSTUME DESIGNER | Nthabiseng Malaka
LIGHTING DESIGNER | Guy Nelson

Produced in collaboration with The Centre for the Less Good Idea. This project has been given a “Ajuts a la Creació Carlota Soldevila” Grant by Teatre Lliure, Barcelona.