In conversation with Robyn Orlin

“I wanted to celebrate the rickshaw drivers whilst looking at the history of the struggle in a more subtle way that considers how we have grown and tried to heal.”

 - Robyn Orlin

Portrait Robyn ® Maïwenn Rebours.

Robyn Orlin is a South African dancer and choreographer born in Johannesburg. Nicknamed in South Africa "a permanent irritation", she is well known for reflecting the difficult and complex realities in her country. Robyn integrates different media into her work (text, video, plastic arts) to investigate a certain theatrical reality which has enabled her to find her unique choreographic vocabulary.

Her work includes Daddy, I've seen this piece six times before and I still don't know why they're hurting each other (1999), which won the Laurence Olivier Award for the Most Outstanding Achievement of the Year, and Beauty remained for just a moment then returned gently to her starting position... (2012), the opening performance of the South African season in France in 2013.

Orlin’s ‘We wear our wheels with pride’ is showing at the Southbank Centre as part of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels festival. The ‘rickshaw dance’ is a homage to the rikshaw drivers of South African’s past and a joyous tribute to the spirit of the Rainbow Nation.

What inspired you to explore the history of rickshaw drivers in We Wear Our Wheels with Pride, and what significance does this narrative hold for you today?

When I was very young one of my first dance encounters was the rickshaws. I was 5 or 6 years old on holiday with my family in Durban and I remember seeing these flying angels in the streets. They took my breath away, I just couldn’t believe the power of the image.

My mother always told me that there was a sad story behind the rickshaws. I was always aware of this, but it was only when I delved into research that I realised they were treated like slaves by the British at the end of the twentieth century.

To me, these men are the unsung heroes of our history. The image of them on their feet pulling people and belongings has always stayed with me. The more I researched, the more I felt that it was important to share their lives and story. These men often didn’t live very long and were given no recognition. I don’t think they were seen as slaves but they were, they were owned by the colonials.

I wanted to celebrate the rickshaw drivers whilst looking at the history of the struggle in a more subtle way that considers how we have grown and tried to heal. We haven’t come to terms with apartheid. I see it more and more not living in South Africa – we haven’t really reckoned with the complexities of what the struggle was about and lived with it.

I do get questions about appropriation and being white, but to me this has nothing to do with being white. I’m not trying to copy the rickshaws but to talk about their importance in the struggle and demonstrate that there’s a lot that we still need to recognise about apartheid.

There was one thing that really struck me when I started talking with the dancers. We’d have Zoom calls – I started making this piece during covid – and talk about the rickshaws. Even though there were four Zulus in the dance group, they didn’t know about the rickshaws. That really made me think ‘wow, I’m definitely making this piece’.

Your work often blends different art forms. How does We Wear Our Wheels with Pride experiment with or expand on the fusion of dance, theatre, and visual elements?

I’ve been working very closely with German designer Birgit Neppl for a couple of years now. We decided that we could never make the headdresses that the rickshaws wore, the dancers wouldn’t survive. I also didn’t want any carts on stage and I didn’t want to copy the rickshaws.

My main memory of the rickshaws is the colour of the carts and their clothing and the sound of their feet hitting the tar of the road. This is what I wanted to recreate.

We took bicycle helmets and crocheted onto them to make them very colourful. We also took cloths, not necessarily Zulu cloths, but cloths from South Africa for the costumes. It’s quite difficult to take Zulu traditional cloths because a lot of them are used in spiritual ceremonies. I was very careful with what I chose.

We incorporated all these elements without trying to deconstruct what a rickshaw was both politically and artistically. It was a very careful, considered journey that we all went on together. This was also taken into the camera work and the dance and music.

I asked the musicians to loop and build all the sounds real time, which the cameras were already doing.  The dancers also do this in the second half of the show, when they create our version of a Zulu cloth onstage. Everything is working real time, everything is part of the journey.

For me I have to incorporate all of these different forms, there’s no other way to do it. When I work with live music I feel that it’s really important to include it as part of the performance.

I do the same with the camera work. I’ve been working with French videographer Eric Perroys for a while now and he understands what I want. Everybody I work with has a kind of freedom to find out what they want to do and then we take it and we see if we can use it in the piece. It’s very collaborative.

Moving Into Dance Mophatong is an iconic company—what was it like working with them, and how did they shape the piece?

The piece is shaped by everyone who was involved. I’m the outside eye and I do the final shaping but everybody brings something of themselves into the work. I’ve worked with Moving Into Dance before so they’re used to working with me like this.

They are incredible. They’ve had amazing training, and the company has kept the essential training going even though Sylvia Glasser, who was the Artistic Director and founder, has now retired.

Working with them is really invigorating. They are hungry, they’re curious, they love dancing. I think they like working with me too! I’m planning to make a new piece with them in the next couple of years.

Robyn Orlin: We wear our wheels with pride. Image credit Jérôme Séron.

Your work often plays with humour, even when tackling serious topics. How does that come into play in this show?

I don’t want to spoil it! It happens right at the end. There’s also a bit of humour that is woven throughout the piece. In South Africa we’ve always worked with humour to critique – it’s a dry sense of humour that the British do as well.

It’s a combination of humour and some very hard moments too. People will have to come and find out for themselves!

How has growing up in Johannesburg influenced your artistic vision and the themes you explore?

I’m not living in South Africa at the moment, and so much comes flooding through as I’m getting older. I’m amazed at the younger generations in South Africa now that haven’t lived through apartheid. I’m so curious to know how they digest the whole concept.

Apartheid was a monster. It was a form of fascism. I was quite lucky to be involved in the struggle and to understand more clearly what needed to be undone. Johannesburg as a city was in so much pain.

I had a nanny growing up as my parents both worked. When I was young I used to play with her daughter, who was living with us at the time. Then the laws of apartheid got stronger and she had to send her family back to the countryside. I couldn’t understand why she was going. I thought she was going to come to school with me. My parents did explain it to me but it was very difficult to really try to understand it at that age.

As I got older, it got harder and harder for me to stay. By the time I was 18 I was ready to leave South Africa. I did keep coming back, and lived in Crown Mines for a while, which was a very political community in an old mining village.

I was always very informed, but I don’t know if that’s also because I was Jewish. My father came from Lithuania when he was 12 years old and went back to fight for the British in the second world war in North Africa. There was this constant reminder of where I came from that travelled with me through my formative years.

I notice it even more now living in Germany, where I am having to deal with being Jewish and I suppose also a white south African. I guess I’m just the kind of person that reflects. Maybe that’s why I’m an artist.

What conversation do you hope We Wear Our Wheels with Pride will start, and what do you want audiences to reflect on after seeing it?

I want them to reflect on apartheid and its history, and question what it’s become.

I want them to understand the beauty of survival for the majority of South Africans. As a nation, they have this capacity to make the most out of whatever happens, to try and make it meaningful. We must celebrate the strength of the rickshaws but also acknowledge their role in history.

Dance is often described as a ‘universal language.’ Do you think movement can communicate history in a way words can’t?

I’ve always felt that the body has limitations, unlike the majority of dance and movement people.

That’s why I use talking and text in my pieces. There’s often a moment where you have to say something, and introduce the punctuation of a text. It doesn’t have to be a serious text, but it does what the body can’t.  

Of course, the body does most of it. The vocabulary that the Moving into Dance dancers have is afro-fusion, a fusion of contemporary dance and traditional African dance. I think it speaks to international audiences. I just don’t know if the concept of a rickshaw would talk to them without the additional elements we’ve introduced.

The message around how we take transport and workers for granted is in the movement, text, visuals and sound. I don’t want to burst the bubble of the dance discourse, but I think there are limitations. For me, it’s how it works with other elements that’s the most interesting.

Robyn Orlin: We wear our wheels with pride. Image credit Jérôme Séron.

The [Quick] #FLODown:

Best life advice?

I always think of a Crosby, Stills & Nash song  - if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.

Last book you read?

Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance. When I’m working I have so little time to read, you should see the piles beside by bed! I like to read from books rather than on my phone.

Can't live without…?

Love, sunshine and my plants.

What should the art world be more of and less of?

More of a sense of humour and less of the inability to laugh at themselves.

More humanity – it’s not just about money.

Southbank Centre and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels present the UK Premiere of Robyn Orlin’s We Wear Our Wheels with Pride performed by Moving Into Dance Mophatong (Queen Elizabeth Hall, 21 - 22 March) as part of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival.

Interview by Ellen Hodgetts