Dancing Basis: A Diasporic Conversation in Motion
“Dancing Basis”
Blessing Ngobeni x Jared Aufrichtig
Mixed Media On Canvas
Framed in French Oak
Artwork size - 26.7 x 47.6 inch
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At Ethos Squared, we believe culture moves through people - across borders, generations, and disciplines. Dancing Basis is a powerful expression of that belief.
The work was born in April 2023, inside Mongezi Ncaphayi’s studio at the Cape Town Art Residency in Woodstock. What began as a casual gathering of creative minds - Herbie Tsoaeli, Blessing Ngobeni, Thembinkosi Goniwe, and Jared Aufrichtig—quickly evolved into something deeper: a shared moment of exchange where art, music, and diasporic memory flowed freely. Out of that energy emerged not just a painting, but a living conversation.
Rather than approaching the canvas with hierarchy or fixed roles, Blessing and Jared allowed the work to unfold collaboratively. Each artist added to the other’s marks in real time - responding, shifting, and building - much like a jazz session. The process reflected one of Ethos Squared’s core values: true collaboration happens when voices meet as equals. Even the subject revealed itself organically. Jared only recognized the figure as a musician near the end of the process—a reminder that some of the most meaningful stories emerge through trust, presence, and shared space.
The title Dancing Basis carries layered meaning. On the surface, it references the bassist being depicted—the quiet but essential anchor of the rhythm. More poetically, basis speaks to foundation: the underlying support that allows movement, creativity, and expression to exist at all. Dance is guided by music; freedom is held by structure; improvisation rests on something steady beneath it.
For the African diaspora, this idea is deeply familiar. Music has long been the connective thread - carrying history, identity, and emotion when language alone could not. Across continents and generations, rhythm has served as both anchor and bridge, allowing culture to travel, evolve, and remain intact. Dancing Basis reflects that inheritance: movement rooted in memory, expression grounded in shared experience.
Visually, the painting captures this balance. The figure feels alive and in motion, yet firmly held together by bold lines and layered color. Ngobeni’s raw, expressive energy meets Aufrichtig’s graphic structure, creating harmony rather than tension. The result is a work that mirrors the Ethos Squared ethos itself - where past and present, Africa and its global diaspora, individuality and collective identity converge.
Dancing Basis is not simply a depiction of dance or music. It is a meditation on what supports us, what connects us, and how culture is sustained through collaboration. It reminds us that access to these stories - and the artists who tell them - is essential to shaping a more complete, nuanced narrative of the African diaspora.
This is culture as conversation.
Art as access.
And rhythm as the foundation.
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