Gabi Motuba presents The Sabbath

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Event: Gabi Motuba presents The Sabbath

Venue: Untitled Basement

Date: 23 March 2023

Time: 7pm

Door: R250 pre sale

“The uncovering of The Sabbath came from a moment which called for reflection. A moment which called for me to take account of what was happening around me. To take a breath. To stop and observe. Up until two years ago, life had been nothing but a series of responses and reactions. We were never afforded time to stop, agency to analyze and choose for ourselves what to make of moments, and for my people, black people, this has always been our default state of being. Always in reaction mode!

The immense privilege one has to possess to wait. To stop and see. To reflect. To be in the state of The Sabbath. Not just in the form of a day to observe but as a practice of being. To slow down life's constant arrows. To take time out from ducking and dodging and to attempt to make sense of the world through our own eyes and not to have the world translated to us through the eyes of the oppressor. To seek to silence the noise of the preferred imagination, preferred thought and the preferred ideas. 

This is The Sabbath. A refusal to be told. A hunger to find out. To search for what else was left out, distorted, undervalued or corrupted. To account for the here and now and to refuse the empty shells which hold predetermined fears, feelings, thoughts, movements, histories and dreams. “

Gabi Motuba’s journey towards the completion of her latest offering The Sabbath is underway. She began composing the music back in 2020 and has performed pieces of it during the 2022 National Arts Festival. She will be presenting a development of The Sabbath at the Untitled Basement on the 23rd March. 

The Sabbath features an 8 piece band made up of a string quartet, bass, trumpet and percussion. The music is a weaving between what we understand to be African musical traditions and western classical music

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