Composed by Kentridge’s longtime collaborator, Philip Miller, it recounts a tale that begins with the myth of Perseus and ends with Einstein’s visionary findings. Speaking backwards and forwards in the midst of a Dadaistic landscape, surrounded by spinning dancers, megaphoned singers, live musicians, and projected animation, Kentridge himself is the narrator, delving into the nature of time as he delivers a fragmented lecture about procrastination, myth, entropy, empire, and black holes.
A chamber opera companion to Kentridge’s five-channel video installation, The Refusal of Time
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With choreography by South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo, video design by Catherine Meyburgh, and dramaturgy by science historian and physicist Peter Galison, Refuse the Hour takes us on an elliptical journey to the outer edges of science, theater, and art that is both playful and profound, and that could only have sprung from the imagination of this singular artist.
The Refusal of Time was originally commissioned for dOCUMENTA 2012. Created with the physicist Peter Galison, the installation is a meditation on different historical conceptions of time and the complex legacies of colonialism and industry. Refuse the Hour, first performed in June 2012 at the Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam as part of the Holland Festival, is a spectacular multimedia work that takes The Refusal of Time to another level.
2017 A.C.T. San Francisco (USA) | Center for the Art of Performance, UCLA, Los Angeles (USA)
2015 Brooklyn Academy of Music, NYC (USA) | Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, CT (USA)
2013 ImPulsTanz, Vienna (AU)
2012 Onassis Stegi, Athens (GR) | Holland Festival, Amsterdam (NL) | Festival d'Avignon, Avignon (FR)
TEAM
Direction: William Kentridge
Music: Philip Miller
Choreography: Dada Masilo
Video Editing: Catherine Meyburgh
Dramaturgy: Peter Galison
Set: Sabine Theunissen
Movement Direction: Luc de Wit
Costume Design: Greta Goiris
Machine Design: Christoph Wolmarans, Jonas Lundquist, Louis Olivier
Lighting Design: Urs Schoenebaum
Dance: Dada Masilo
Soprano: Donatienne Michel-Dansac
Harmonium: Donatienne Michel-Dansac
Vocalists: Ann Masina, Joanna Dudley, Bham Ntabeni
Actors: Thato Motlhaolwa, William Kentridge, Bham Ntabeni
Conductor: Alan Howard
Trumpet: Alan Howard
Percussion: Tlale Makhene
Violin: Waldo Alexander
Trombone: Dan Selsick
Sound direction: Gavan Eckhart
Assistant Lighting Design: John Torres
Video Manipulator: Kim Gunning
Assistant Video Manipulation: Boris Theunissen
Light Operator: Boris Theunissen
Coproduction: Festival d’Avignon, Holland Festival, Romaeuropa Festival, Onassis Cultural Centre Athens
with the support of: Goodman Gallery (Johannesburg), Lia Rumma Gallery (Naples and Milan), Marian Goodman Gallery (New York and Paris), Goethe Institut South Africa
Press
The New York Times: Review: In ‘Refuse the Hour,’ Exploring Temporal Extremes
Los Angeles Times: Review: When refusing the hour saves the day
The Brooklyn Rail: William Kentridge Takes New York
