GREGORY MAQOMA ABOUT CION

"In this work, I am drawn to Zakes Mda’s character “Toloki” the professional mourner from his beloved Ways of Dying as he further uncovers in his book Cion the story of the runaway slaves. In my interpretation, Toloki rediscovers death in a modern context, inspired by the universal events that lead to death, not as a natural phenomenon but by decisions of others over the other. We mourn the death by creating death. The universe of greed, power; religion has led us to be professional mourners who transform the horror of death and the pain of mourning into a narrative that questions what seems to be normalised and far more brutal in how we experience death and immigration. I am creating this work as a lament, a requiem required to awaken apart of us, the connection to the departed souls.
The first offering under the title “Requiem Request” was first presented at William Kentridge’s The Centre for the Less Good Idea where the idea of interrogating the music of Ravel’s Boléro using South African voices as a musical device to create a score."