The Great Yes, The Great No

The piece is inspired by the anti-rational and inventive dynamics of surrealism and reveals the strange beauty of the unexpected, the unconventional and the often overlooked. 


In 1941, the vessel “Capitaine Paul Lemerle” casts off from Marseille, setting course for Martinique. Its passengers are fleeing war and persecution; among them are writer Anna Seghers, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and André Breton, pioneer of surrealism.


In “The Great Yes, The Great No”, William Kentridge fictionalizes this historic voyage: Captain Charon, ferryman of the dead in Greek mythology, invites numerous other characters from past and future to board this very special ship, including the psychiatrist and political thinker Frantz Fanon, painter Frida Kahlo as well as Aimé Césaire and the sisters Paulette and Jeanne Nardal, leaders of the French Négritude-movement. All travelers are united by the symbolic power and complexity of a sea crossing – together, they are entering a new world. 


As is his wont, William Kentridge approaches the material through a variety of artistic devices: Film, drawing, drama, original music and singing, dance and literature combine to create this story of a sea voyage with powerful imagery and a wealth of subtle facets. The numerous characters are marked by original portrait masks made of cardboard; projected film images of a miniature model ship form the background of the staged events.


Historical and literary epochs overlap, Josephine Baker dances with Joséphine Bonaparte and an impressive choir of seven women stands for all women who are burdened with picking up the pieces after storms and war. In eight different languages, the performers, singers, dancers and musicians carry the audience along on their journey in this entire novel stage work. 


Both William Kentridge’s pieces of visual art, which have been presented in countless museums and galleries around the world, and his large-scale opera productions are created in participatory processes and often have a historical or political background. Kentridge’s most recent works to be presented by Berliner Festspiele were the exhibition “NO IT IS!” and the installation “More Sweetly Play the Dance” in 2016. In the same year, he founded the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, a place for experimental, collaborative and cross-discipline art practice.


This is also where “The Great Yes, The Great No” was created in an extensive process of workshops and rehearsal, in cooperation with choral composer and associate director Nhlanhla Mahlangu and associate director Phala Ookeditse Phala.