How a falling star lit up the purple sky is the second joint production by Jeremy Nedd and nine pantsula dancers. Pantsula is a high-energy dance form which arose during the Apartheid era in South Africa’s Black townships, and which Nedd transposes into the contemporary stage context in this piece. Western movies were the speculative point of departure for new stories and myths for this project. As a genre, the western uses extremely clichéd narratives surrounding the hero, the «other» which is stylized into the stranger, and the wide, empty landscape they both inhabit and defend against each other. How a falling star lit up the purple sky tries to rethink the notion of these archetypes in an artistic and choreographic manner, as a visual poem and by combining different dance styles. The piece invites a paradigm shift and a reassessment of the mental and geographic spaces occupied by westerns, the (Wild) West and the South.
How a falling star lit up the purple sky is the second joint production by Jeremy Nedd and nine pantsula dancers. Pantsula is a high-energy dance form which arose during the Apartheid era in South Africa’s Black townships, and which Nedd transposes into the contemporary stage context in this piece. Western movies were the speculative point of departure for new stories and myths for this project. As a genre, the western uses extremely clichéd narratives surrounding the hero, the «other» which is stylized into the stranger, and the wide, empty landscape they both inhabit and defend against each other. How a falling star lit up the purple sky tries to rethink the notion of these archetypes in an artistic and choreographic manner, as a visual poem and by combining different dance styles. The piece invites a paradigm shift and a reassessment of the mental and geographic spaces occupied by westerns, the (Wild) West and the South.
| Concept & choreography | Jeremy Nedd |
| Choreography & performance | Sicelo Xaba, Vusi Mdoyi, Sello Modiga, Thomas Motsapi, Bonakele Masethi, Lungile Ngwenya, Vuyani Feni, Sibongile Mathebula, Elma Motloenya |
| Light design / technical direction creation | Thomas Giger |
| Light / technical direction touring | Sebastian Sommer |
| Stage design | Laura Knüsel |
| Audio design | Fabrizio Di Salvo & Rej Deproc |
| Musical consulting | Brandy Butler |
| Costume design | Rosa Birkedal |
| Dramaturgy | Anta Helena Recke |
| Production management creation | Regula Schelling (produktionsDOCK) |
| Production / Diffusion | Caroline Froelich (Moin Moin Productions) |
| … |
| Coproduction | Kaserne Basel, Arsenic – Centre d'art scénique contemporain Lausanne, International Summer Festival Kampnagel, Wiesbaden Biennale, The Centre for the Less Good Idea Johannesburg |
| Supported by | Fachausschuss Tanz & Theater BS/BL, Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council, SüdKulturFonds, Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung, Kulturfonds of the Société Suisse des Auteurs (SSA), GGG Basel, Jacqueline Spengler Stiftung, Scheidegger-Thommen-Stiftung, Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung |
