Nine singers from South African male choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo are onstage throughout the 70-minute Zulu ballet, Inala.
Not only do they sing beautiful, exuberant harmonies; they dance.
Twice during the performance a large semi circle is formed and each of the Ladysmith singers pair off with Royal Ballet and Rambert dancers to bust some moves in a light-hearted dance-off.
They give as good as they get, with some of the younger singers pulling off dramatic high kicks and even a back flip; while senior member Albert Mazibuko comically shrugs his shoulders in defeat, as he walks off.
Inala played to a packed Butterworth Hall at Warwick Arts Centre on their three-week national tour – and the audience responded ecstatically.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who Paul Simon famously worked with for his 1986 album Graceland, perform 18 Zulu songs co-written by composer and producer Ella Spira and Joseph Shabalala, to pulsating drum beats. But there are no subtitles.
Mark Baldwin’s choreography follows a loose day in the life narrative opening at dawn with the stirring of animals and humans.
It closes at nightfall, with sound effects from birdcalls to car horns, marking the transition. The half-Fijian artistic director of Rambert fuses western-contemporary with comic bird movements and traditional South African tribal dance.
Particularly impressive are former Cape Town Ballet’s Mbulelo Ndabeni – who moved to the UK in 2005 and has since worked with Matthew Bourne and Rambert – Sophie Apollonia and Camille Bracher. Six of the 11 classical and contemporary dancers are South African.
Costumes, traditional South African dress for the group, red, purple and black kilts and dark, fantastical bird masks are designed by Georg Meyer-Wiel.
This ambitious project is the brainchild of Ella Spira and half-Brazilian Pietra Mello-Pittman, First Artist in The Royal Ballet in Covent Garden (aka Sisters Grimm), and has been nurtured with great affection. The resulting collaboration is a thing of great energy, commitment and beauty.
* Inala will be performed at Birmingham Symphony Hall on Friday.
