"We Need to Look at It So That We Don’t Let It Happen Again": Robyn Orlin on Choreography About the Apartheid

By all accounts, Robyn Orlin appears to be yet another dancer from a long lineage of dancers. “My mother was a dancer, my aunt was a dancer… I come from a background of dance,” she tells me. Plus, she studied at the London School of Contemporary Dance. Orlin, however, is anything but yet another dancer – after all, her nickname in South Africa is a “permanent irritation” for her provocative works. After dancing professionally for a few years, she let her passion for creating work rather than interpreting it take over, crafting her first piece, I’m Skilled at the Art of Falling Apart, in her 30s. She has now choreographed around 35 pieces to critical acclaim worldwide.

The company of We Wear Our Wheels with Pride. Photo Credit: Jerome Seron

Art, and dance in particular, gives Orlin the freedom to explore historical and political issues – often taking them further than academic research can. Take the example of We Wear Our Wheels with Pride. Created in 2021 and now making its UK debut at the Southbank Centre, it follows the daily lives of South African rickshaw drivers who, during the Apartheid regime, would hand-pull carts transporting white colonialists as well as goods and merchandise. “The word for rickshaws in Zulu,” Orlin explains, “is ‘ihhashi’, which also means horse.”

“They were slaves, essentially,” she adds. 

Orlin first saw these rickshaw drivers on a holiday with her parents in Durban when she was little. She describes a colourful, magical moment where the drivers, dressed in all sorts of colours and traditional patterns – some barefoot and others wearing sandals made from car tires – danced in the street, competing for the attention of the bystanders. “It was probably the first piece of dance I ever saw,” she says. “I thought they were angels dancing through the air!” It was a complete thrill for her, and she remembers the distinctive sound of the men’s feet slapping the ground, a sound so different from cars on the road. 

When I ask her why she wanted to create a piece about these rickshaws, Orlin explains to me that the rickshaw drivers were unsung heroes of the Apartheid era. “Rickshaws were family traditions, and they all lost their jobs during the industrialisation of South Africa. Now these traditions have been forgotten about, [the drivers] don’t own their carts, and they don’t show pride,” she says.

The company of We Wear Our Wheels with Pride. Photo Credit: Jerome Seron

She describes We Wear Our Wheels with Pride as a piece of healing, a piece to “lay the old spirits to rest”. Of the four young Zulu dancers in her piece, none knew about the rickshaws. She and her team did substantial research into these traditions, specifically looking at the different banners the rickshaws had with cloth dedicated to their clan. “There wasn’t a lot to find,” she informs me. However disappointing this outcome was, it merely served to reinforce the importance of bringing this story to present-day audiences. 

We speak about the fact that the memory of Apartheid is being lost amongst the dancers she worked with and the audience members today. To Orlin, that’s a problem: “It’s important for the dancers to know what the piece is.” So, she worked with the dancers to imagine themselves in the lives of the rickshaw drivers, which made the piece more personal to them and gave the piece further life. The creation process with her dancers was extremely emotional and led to much reflection for everyone. 

Is it challenging to present works that are so intimately tied to one’s own culture, yet could be totally foreign to others’ eyes? Orlin has learned to provide context for her audiences, whom she says can be more or less receptive to the topics presented. She shares with me how the stories that she presents are tied to South African culture, but are human stories primarily, and that resonates with audiences everywhere. “Everybody unfortunately knows about Apartheid, unfortunately, because it broke humanity on so many levels. One doesn’t want to give it more time and attention, but we need to look at it so that we don’t let it happen again,” she insists.

We Wear Our Wheels with Pride plays at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, on 21 and 22 March. This UK premiere is presented by the Southbank Centre and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.