Experience the true story of the first African choir to perform in Great Britain and the U.S.
Award-winning South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma will return to Fairfield University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts with a new performance, Broken Chord, on Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 8 p.m.
Maqoma is a curatorial visionary who merges movement, theater, dance, visuals, and music. In this performance, a quartet of musicians and an on-stage a cappella chorus share the story, based on actual events, of a South African-based chorus whose late 19th century tour through North America and England was marred by the realities of racism.
The collaboration, with composer Thuthuka Sibisi, is a unique work about past and present issues surrounding borders, migration, identity, and the roles of the colonizer and the colonized. Using atmospheric sounds and both traditional South African Xhosa and contemporary styles of dance, Maqoma gives a voice to this remarkable story.
Maqoma, now age 49, has stated that Broken Chord may be his last show as a performer. Broken Chord is a return for Maqoma to the Quick Center, whose Vuyani Dance Theatre presented Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero in January 2020.
The work will make a major U.S. tour with stops at BAM in Brooklyn and Stanford Live in California, before coming to the Quick Center. As part of each event, Broken Chord will feature a local chorus as part of the piece. The on-campus performance at Fairfield will feature the Connecticut Chamber Choir, led by artistic director Michael Ciavalgia, PhD, who is also a faculty member at Fairfield University.
Born in Soweto, South Africa, Gregory Vuyani Maqoma became interested in dance in the late 1980s as a means to escape the political tensions growing in his place of birth. He started his formal dance training in 1990 at Moving Into Dance where in 2002 he became the associate artistic director. Maqoma has established himself as an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, teacher, director, and scriptwriter. He founded Vuyani Dance Theatre in 1999, as a scholarship recipient at the Performing Arts Research and Training School (PARTS) in Belgium.
Maqoma continues to play an important role in transforming the artistic landscape in South Africa today, through Gregory Maqoma Industries and the Vuyani Dance Theatre. He is one of the featured social entrepreneurs in the book The Disruptors – Social Entrepreneurs Reinventing Business and Society.
This performance is sponsored by Silverman Group and WSHU Public Radio. Tickets are now on sale on quickcenter.com for $35, or $25 for Quick Members. For more information, contact the Quick Center Box Office at 203-254-4010, Monday through Friday, from 12 to 5 p.m.
