From names to musical notation, and textual refrains to free-flowing movement and gesture, Sizindlebe | We Are Ears is an ensemble performance of second translations that, through a series of performative vignettes, deals with the complexity and simultaneity of translation.

Directed by Season 9 co-curator Athena Mazarakis, Sizindlebe | We Are Ears can also be seen as the second of two ensemble works responding to the Season’s central provocation of translation, the first of which was Ezembewu | Of the Seeds.

In early 2022, during the first set of ideation workshops for Season 9 of The Centre for the Less Good Idea, the 15-year-old pitch-perfect pianist Maya Muratoglu began to collaborate with a fellow workshop participant, translating a name into a set of musical notes on the piano. What then emerged as an organic moment of collaboration and play now finds striking resonance on stage as a considered yet free-flowing ensemble work.

A similar musical composition serves as the opening moment of translation – the simple act of one’s fingers on the keys of the piano – and we are content to listen. The act soon becomes troubled. Voices surface from in and around the audience, softly spoken words in various languages, until a single voice emerges and enters into a conversation with the piano, drawing out the inherent musicality and meaning of a name.

Though the piano remains a constant, translations develop and multiply throughout. There is the translation of the body in motion, the conversation that spills over into a series of mistranslations, disagreements and arguments. Text is held in gesture and music simultaneously, and language emerges, disappears, and folds in on itself.

Here, the simultaneity of translation is given room to be explored and exploded. It is translation as well-choreographed cacophony, veering at times towards entropy, but returning always to rich pockets of complexity and meaning.

– David Mann

CREDITS:

PERFORMERS | Maya Muratoglu, Kamogelo Molobye, Indalo Stofile, Zimbini Makwetu, Muzi Shili, Sibahle Mangena, Khutjo Green, Xolisile Bongwana, Thulisile Binda, Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu, Nava Derakhshani, Anathi Conjwa, Pule Welch & Thabo Rapoo
DIRECTOR | Athena Mazarakis