Taken at face value, Sleepwalking Land is a work containing spoken narrative and physical performance, the former providing context to the latter. What emerges, though, is a more complex relationship between the text, the body, and the endless possibility of the dreamscape.

The story is this: A young boy, Muidinga and his elderly traveling companion, Tuahir, stumble upon an abandoned bus filled with corpses and bits of luggage. As the boy reads to his elderly companion, this central story develops in tandem with their own.

Performed by Calvin Ratladi and Muzi Shili, with narration by Iman Isaacs and live music by Micca Manganye, Sleepwalking Land asks its audience when exactly words lift off the page and present themselves as images in our consciousness. Are they already there, dormant, waiting? Also, are the characters dependent on the text, the reader, or neither?

As Isaac’s disembodied voice guides us through the narrative, Shili and Ratladi engage in their own work of rendering tangible these words and imaginings. They move slowly, wordlessly, out of time with the spoken narrative. A tension emerges and a choice must be made. Does one follow body or text? Is it possible to dip in and out of both, holding these narratives in one’s mind simultaneously?

All the while, Manganye sits just off to the side of the stage, providing a gentle and mesmeric soundtrack, willing these stories to continue. Sleepwalking Land is not a work that provides neat resolution, nor does it embrace the single story. Rather, it is like myth, or dream – inviting speculation and close reading, and always pursuing those divergent routes that might take us out of our ready interpretations.

– David Mann

CREDITS:

CONCEPTUALISERS & PERFORMERS | Calvin Ratladi, Muzi Shili & Iman Isaacs
MUSICIAN | Micca Mangaye
DRAMATURGE | Phala O. Phala