Since early 2023, William Kentridge has been working on his latest theatre project, The Great YES, The Great NO.

Produced by Kentridge and THE OFFICE performing arts + film, and developed at The Centre for the Less Good Idea, The Great YES, The Great NO centres around a historical escape from Vichy France by, among others, the surrealist André Breton, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam, the communist novelist Victor Serge, and the author Anna Seghers.

The journey also becomes fictionalised through including on the passenger list Aimé Césaire, the Nardal sisters (co-founders with Césaire of the anti-colonial Négritude movement in Paris), the West Indian Marxist philosopher Franz Fanon, Josephine Bonaparte, Josephine Baker, Trotsky, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Stalin.

Using the potential of the boat as a metaphor for power, trade, migration and more, The Great YES, The Great NO draws on many of the processes and methodologies that have become central to both Kentridge and The Centre’s ways of working. For Season 10, an early iteration of The Great YES, The Great NO is presented in the form of an open rehearsal and demonstration of the process of making.

Led by Kentridge, together with some of the production’s key cast, musicians, and technical crew, the performance uses some of the key moments of The Great YES, The Great NO to demonstrate its process of coming together. A paper by the poet, dramatist, and sociologist Ari Sitas about the historic journey from Marseille to Martinique is what inspired the work, explains Kentridge, while the writings of a number of the “passengers” of the work, as well as the poems of Bertolt Brecht formed the surrealist basis of the libretto.

Similarly, a number of experiments on the workshop floor were used to develop The Great YES, The Great NO. Many of these experiments have been drawn from The Centre’s previous Seasons and performances. Among them is the women’s chorus, inspired by the Season 7 performance Umthandazo, and the language of the loudhailers as well as the choreography of the collapsing figure on the piano, both drawn from the Surplus Circus in Season 4.

Kentridge also deploys and enhances theatrical elements first developed in his film Oh To Believe in Another World, which was made to accompany Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, including the use of a system of cardboard cutout masks for the different characters, as well as other signature aspects of his unique stylistic approach to visual storytelling.

The musicality of language is another key component of the work. Shona, Xhosa, Tswana, Zulu and more African languages are used in the women’s chorus, which lends its voice to a number of key moments in the production, including the “box of birds” section which merges Kentridge’s drawing with animation, live projection, performance and musicality.

As The Great YES, The Great NO prepares for its international tours in 2024 and 2025, this early iteration of the work provides a glimpse of a performance in the process of being made, and allows for a window into some of Kentridge and The Centre’s ways of working.

CONCEPTUALISER & DIRECTOR | William Kentridge
ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS | Phala Ookeditse Phala & Nhlanhla Mahlangu DRAMATURG | Mwenya Kabwe
CHORAL DIRECTOR | Nhlanhla Mahlangu
MUSICAL DIRECTOR & PERCUSSIONIST | Tlale Makhene
PERFORMERS | Hamilton Dlamini, Xolisile Bongwana, Thulani Chauke, Teresa Phuti Mojela, Tony Miyambo & William Harding
CHORUS | Asanda Hanabe, Thuli Magubane, Khokho Madlala, Nomathamsanqa Ngoma, Mapule Moloi, Zandile Hlatshwayo & Anathi Conjwa
SET DESIGNER | Sabine Theunissen
COSTUME DESIGNER | Greta Goiris
MUSICIAN | Neo Muyanga
VIDEO EDITORS | Janus Fouché, Žana Marović & Joshua Trappler

— David Mann

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi