We Wear Our Wheels With Pride by Robyn Orlin

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London
March 21, 2025

We Wear Our Wheels With Pride is a wonderfully energetic, colourful, and creative piece of theatre. Based on Zulu rickshaw drivers, observed during South Africa’s apartheid years, choreographer Robyn Orlin has re-imagined their work as dance, and imbued it with Zulu traditions, rituals, and spirit of the Rainbow Nation.

The work is a collaboration with singer Anelisa Stuurman (aka Annalyzer) and composer Yogin Sullaphen. The dancers are from the Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM), South Africa’s flagship contemporary dance company.

The dancers succeed beautifully in being entirely individual in their interpretations of the drivers, while also coalescing as a company in ritualistic sequences and ensemble work. They don the headdresses and costumes of the rickshaw drivers, engaging the audience physically with them, joining-in with clapping, rocking, and arm movements. I had the distinct impression, that if the theatre space had allowed, the entire audience would have been on their feet dancing with them!

The music, composed by Sullaphen, Stuurman, and Ukhoikhoi, fits perfectly the riotous celebration on-stage.

An innovative addition to the piece is the continuous live videoing, screened across the back of the stage throughout. You could be forgiven for watching that at times, rather than the actual dancers. Erio Perryos did a stunning job of combining visual effects to create a mesmerizing video commentary on the performance.

We Wear Our Wheels With Pride is a fascinating and fun evening, which gives a glimpse of the resilience and resistance of a nation of people under extreme oppression.

We Wear Our Wheels With Pride by Robyn Orlin was presented as part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels season.