Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera — it’s fierce, fabulous … and freaking fantastic

There are choral songs protesting against homophobia and powerful arias that’ll make your spine tingle. There are masterful melodies and fast-paced rapping rhythms that’ll make your head spin. A veritable whirlwind of lush music and uncontainable lyrics.

And then there are the large-scale videos projected across the stage, the photos and newspaper cuttings, the soundbites seemingly broadcast from another era, and costumes that will blow your mind no matter how many drag shows you’ve seen.

There are oodles of fine flesh, there are thrusting hips, there are the skimpiest skirts you’ve ever seen (paraded about by a trio of lads with covetable legs and endless energy), not to mention all the badass wigs, the crazy headgear, the masks and make-up, and the scene with a big rubber dildo wielded as a weapon.

And there are, of course, those lyrics that every so often make you cock your head in disbelief.

Nokuthula Magubane as activist Bev Ditsie leading a protest in a scene from 'Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera'. (Photo: Oscar O'Ryan)

There is the unwaveringly cool and sassy choreography of Llewellyn Mnguni, executed tirelessly by a bevy of ripped and toned dancers who seem not only to possess the energy of Olympic athletes but also the mind-boggling ability to dance up a storm wearing heels. These dancers transform regularly, too, easing their way through a rich repertoire of erotic fantasy characters. One moment they’re prison guards in leather chaps, the next they’re ripped male “nurses” in tight, white underpants adorned with a big red cross.

There are clandestine hook-ups at Emmarentia Dam and illicit M2M encounters in parked cars, and there are people hiding — literally — in a closet. And there is the bold, defiant Simon Nkoli who refuses to spend his life in any kind of closet, metaphorical or otherwise.

It’s Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera, and it’s naughty, sexy and fierce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW-Vqf4pMwI

Wondrous rhythms

It is, first, an opera, with a score by Philip Miller that at moments makes you want to jump on your chair and dance along, swing your hips, thrust your fist into the air and toyi-toyi with the cast. It is enormously vibey at times, heart-stirringly upbeat and energetic, then understated and so beautifully controlled and intimate. It’s all done with a compact orchestra that rocks out to the challenging and wondrous rhythms that Miller has concocted to create an opera score unlike anything you’ve experienced. And then there are the voices, all of them immaculate, at times so heartfelt and honest, rich and tinged by truth, that I was moist around the eyes.

Simbone Qonya as Simon Nkoli, with dancers, in 'Nkoli – The Vogue Opera'. (Photo by Oscar O'Ryan)

Ann Masina as Simon Nkoli's mother, Elizabeth, with dancers, in 'Nkoli – The Vogue Opera'. (Photo by Oscar O'Ryan)

There is the simple, straightforward mechanism of the narrative, which is to convey the life story of Simon Nkoli, an under-remembered human rights activist who was born in Sebokeng in 1957 and spent his life crusading against apartheid and defying a system that made homosexuality illegal.

His life is the backbone of the unfolding story; from his childhood, through his first flutterings of illicit romance, his imprisonment after the mid-1980s Delmas Treason Trial, organising South Africa’s first Pride march in Johannesburg, the part he played in getting gay rights enshrined in our Constitution, and his descent into hedonism and selfish self-destruction in the face of harrowing HIV.

Played by the petite and powerful Simbone Qonya, what comes across most strongly is Nkoli’s fierce humanity and his humanness, his desire to live an unrestricted life. He is not some huge, monolithic warrior, he is an out-and-out human being with a man’s needs and wants, desires and faults.

Nkoli is not portrayed as a saint and the storyline is as forthcoming about the chinks in his flesh-and-blood armour as it is about the almost random manner in which heroes are made, fashioned in response to the hurdles they’re faced with.

As a tantalising foil for Qonya’s Nkoli, there’s the show’s vogue ballroom emcee, played by Niza Jay, who struts and preens, flutters eyelids, dons luscious outfits, sings, narrates and holds the storyline together by battle-rapping purest poetry (lyrics are by the rapper S’bo Gyre and are sharp as nails). All the while, Jay throws shade, slyly tilts a head at a just-so angle, cautions and questions with the merest of vocal inflections, adds mystique, irony and heavy dollops of sarcasm, and uses sing-song interjections to encourage the audience to engage more critically with the story that’s unfolding.

Niza Jay as the emcee in yet another wig in 'Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera'. (Photo: Oscar O'Ryan)

Niza Jay as the Emcee in 'Nkoli – The Vogue Opera'. (Photo by Oscar O'Ryan)

Not only a narrator who helps the plot to move forward, this emcee is also a never-tongue-tied battle-crier who introduces each new scene like it’s a category in a ballroom battle or a new season at some wayward fashion show. We are gathered in the auditorium to witness 'bitches' slay, and there to help get the medicine down is a troupe of fearless dancers in delectably sexy, sassy outfits that deserve a show of their own. Even the corrupt apartheid-era cops and prison wardens are dolled up in the spiciest S&M-inspired leather-and-rubber gear, so you know that what you’re seeing is camp outrageousness, deployed as a way of revisiting history through a defiantly queer lens.

No sacred cows

There is no holding back, either. There are no sacred cows, no stones left unturned. Directors Rikki Beadle Blair and John Trengove have gone all-out to create an aura of anything goes — the effect being to make the very atoms in the theatre shimmer and shake so that it feels like you’re in an environment where absolutely anything can happen.

And often it does. No one is censoring, moralising or otherwise standing in the way of these moffies, sissies, fairies, homos, pansies, queens and allies… It is a veritable orgy of sashaying, of glorious ballroom swagger, big dick energy and radical queer alchemy in all its sexy, sequinned splendour.

Not only is it a wildly entertaining and boldly norm-defying show, but it is in many ways revolutionary, a work of theatrical extravagance that is both a tribute to one man and a celebration of gay life itself. It is a show that wants to dance and sing its way into your heart, and then have you scream its message from the rooftops, making you rise and go back into the world as an activist for the cause.

And it urges you to resist complacency.

Being staged during Pride Month, Nkoli also points fingers at the gay community’s own amnesia and refers to the transformation of Pride from what was once a protest action into what is today little more than a party and a parade. It is a reminder that the cause that Simon Nkoli and his comrades fought for remains relevant today, that we should never forget, and must never give up.

Whatever its ambitions to change the world, it is like an enormous jolt of electricity, a show that crosses over from the realm of performance into a kind of transgressive ritual space where, by virtue of its very existence, it alters the fabric of reality. You will feel its power as you dance out of the theatre with your heart soaring, the blood in your veins on fire. DM

Nkoli: The Vogue-Opera is at the Baxter’s Flipside Theatre until 19 October. Tickets are available on WebTickets.