The Great Yes, The Great No
The Great Yes, The Great No - Conceived and directed by artist William Kentridge. Image by Stella Olivier
A chamber opera
The Great Yes, The Great No, tells of the 1941 historic escape from Vichy France on a cargo ship from Marseille to Martinique by, among others, surrealist André Breton, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam, communist novelist Victor Serge, and author Anna Seghers.
In Kentridge’s hands, the ship becomes a fantastical menagerie of thinkers, makers, and revolutionaries in a production that merges surrealist imagery with real-life events, lush South African choral music, dance, poetry and anti-rational approaches to language and image.
WATCH THE IMAGE ABOVE TO WATCH THE TRAILER
Conceived in collaboration with multi-award winning theater maker Phala Ookeditse Phala, and choral conductor and dancer Nhlanhla Mahlangu, The Great Yes, The Great No is part play, part oratorio, part chamber opera. William Kentridge’s breathtaking visual inventiveness, particularly linked to the spirit of surrealism, will dialogue with Nhlanhla Mahlangu’s musical composition, in a dramaturgy combining ‘Greek choir’, actors and dancers, projections, masks and shadow play.
The Great Yes, The Great No
Will be performed at The Wallis (Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts)
Bram Goldsmith Theater, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills 90210
With five performances
Wednesday, February 5 through Saturday, February 8.
More information at thewallis.org
Press on the image above and watch interview
William Kentridge is a draughtsman, performer, filmmaker, and is the founder of The Centre for the Less Good Idea.
E a re ngaka kgolo go retelelwa, go alafe ngakana.
If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor.
— From a book titled Sechuana Proverbs with Literal Translations and Their European Equivalents by Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (October 9, 1876–June 19, 1932).
very laboratory