Sydney Festival’s ‘Dark Noon’ Tackles Migration Through The Trope of An American Western

Dark Noon will be one of the most challenging and confronting shows in the 2025 Sydney Festival calendar, as it throws the trope of the American western on its head while at its core wrestling with the subject of migration.

You will get the familiar, such as western saloons, cowboy hats and tumbleweeds but expect more of the unexpected in this co-production between Danish and South African theatres.

A collaboration between Danish director Tue Bierring and South African co-director and choreographer Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Dark Noon came about when Bierring was searching for a way to explore the many questions that were arising in Europe to the mass migration of peoples from Africa.

“I wanted to address the stereotypical narrative in Europe about Africa and migration, and I wanted to ask this incredible cast of South African performers to reverse it, not to tell their story, but my story,” Tue Bierring, director, writer said.

“I am also very interested to see how others see your own history.”

From when Bierring first got the idea for his script he needed to find someone to collaborate with and so began a search.

“I needed an artistic conversation with someone in Africa, and I do not speak French, so it had to be someone in South Africa,” Bierring said.

“I ended up in South Africa because i got in contact with this choreographer who was by coincidence on tour in Europe.”

That choreographer was Nhlanhla Mahlangu who has built an international reputation for his groundbreaking approach to dance his contemporary approach to traditional forms.

“I was working in Johannesburg and someone was observing me and she was a friend of Tue Bierring’s, and he was looking for a collaborator, and I was recommended,” Nhlanhla Mahlangu said.

“I was going to Germany doing a William Kentridge production and we had a whole day meeting and we started to put dates down.”

Artistic sparks flew that day in Germany.

“We were sitting on the floor of the lobby of the hotel and after a few minutes we were putting dates in the calendar,” Bierring said. “It was artistic love at first sight.”

The story quickly began to take shape in Bierrings’s mind as Mahlangu was charged with finding the performers.

“In Europe we have these conversations about border control and I just wanted to reverse it and put a mirror to it and say that not too far into our history we had many millions of people migrating from Europe because of starvation and poverty, and that is why I wanted South African actors to tell their story,” Bierring said.

“It is a very challenging story using western migration,” Mahlangu said.

“These immigrants were running away from Europe for a better life and the only way they could do that was to find a new land.

“For me this is a a juxtaposition of history and you have Europeans coming to the Americas, and the extermination of the native civilisations is also something that happened in Australia and in many parts of Africa, and what is interesting about Dark Noon is that we are flipping the scenes.”

Sourcing the performers took a step away from the usual form of auditions as Mahlangu put his artistic stamp on the process.

“We didn’t look at movement in general, I am interested in what moves someone, rather than how they move, what is it in your body that makes you react in a certain way and I take those reactions as the movement for the piece,” Mahlangu said.

“You can expect a lot of the usual South African voices, but also in a way that is challenging and not in the usual crowd pleasing performances that you know of, as there is so much more to South Africa than stomping and chanting and sweating.”

Dark Noon has just finished performances in South Carolina and New York City to rave reviews and now promises to be a highlight in the Sydney Festival calendar.

“What I am hoping for is for the audience to get a mirror to look at ourselves and look at our ignorances and to start a conversation,” Mahlangu said.

Dark Noon is on from 9 – 23 January, 2025 as a part of the Sydney Festival.