Vuyani Dance Theatre (South Africa)

One of South Africa’s most celebrated artists, Gregory Maqoma is thrilling critics around the world with his powerful new music and dance work Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro. The award-winning theatrical experience is carried by the transformative singing of an African gospel quartet and features a rousing live score based on the stirring harmonies of Isicathamiya — an a capella style originating from the Zulu people.

Inspired by the writings of South African novelist Zakes Mda and Maurice Ravel’s legendary composition, the work weaves a narrative of greed, power, and communal mourning. The hauntingly complex and percussive performance is set in a graveyard, following a designated mourner as he navigates the tension of a post-Apartheid South Africa. Maqoma has described the production as “celebratory of our human experience,” and a ritual to free the souls of “those who have departed, those who were taken from the continent through slavery” so that they may “find peace.”