FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY’S NEW SEASON BODIES OF WATER 10-13 April

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY is set to dazzle audiences with its 2025 showcase premiere of BODIES OF WATER at Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from 10 – 13 April 2025.

BODIES OF WATER 2025. Dancer Sbonga Ndlovu PHOTO Val Adamson

Award-winning choreographer, Lliane Loots joins forces with celebrated Durban musicians Refiloe Olifant on violin, and Mandla Matsha on percussion, to offer a beautiful, soulful and thought-provoking new season of contemporary dance.

BODIES OF WATER 2025. Dancers Siseko Duba and Sbonga Ndlovu PHOTO Val Adamson

Loots says, “BODIES OF WATER embraces a double meaning as the dance work negotiates the ecology of water alongside an awareness that the human body is made up of 70% water. Setting the dancing moving body as a breathing metaphor for climate justice, the six FLATFOOT dancers face what happens to bodies in times of personal and political crisis”. She goes on to say, “Set against our own African geopolitics, and a larger ‘body’ of social dis-ease, BODIES OF WATER comes back to the ideas of how we relate to ‘bodies of water’ as both artistic and political metaphors for survival. Even though the human body is made up of mostly water, this fluidity is not our daily reality as we see a world becoming more intractable. The remarkable thing about water is that it is always travelling back to source, back home”.

BODIES OF WATER 2025. Dancers Siseko Duba, Zinhle Nzama, and Sbonga Ndlovu. PHOTO Val Adamson

Loots always acknowledges the six FLATFOOT dances (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Siseko Duba, Sbonga Ndlovu and Ndumiso Dube) as her co-creators. “In this work the dancers courageously face off with their own flow and sometimes immovability as BODIES OF WATER open space for all of us to examine the very beating of our own hearts and the (wished for) lightness of our footsteps on this Earth. BODIES OF WATER is a daring and deeply beautiful navigation of both the human condition and the ecology of our planet.”

Refiloe Olifant

BODIES OF WATER is performed to an original and live score jointly created in rehearsals with Refiloe Olifant (violin) and Mandla Matsha (percussion). Refiloe (aka Fifi) is a violinist who hails from Bloemfontein and is currently employed by The KZN Philharmonic Orchestra as a principal violinist where she also features as an assistant concertmaster with a baroque ensemble based in Durban called Baroque 2000. Loots says, “Her ability to improvise and create a score with the dancers is a unique talent and I am so grateful to have her beauty in the room when we are working. I consider her and her music to be the 7th dancer in BODIES OF WATER”.

Mandla Matsha

Fifi is joined by long time FLATFOOT collaborator Mandla Matsha. Loots says, “Mandla is a percussionist whose particular ability to score when working with dancers, is what hold BODIES OF WATER together. His range of instruments from djembe drums to the istolotolo (mouth harp) are truly phenomenal”.

BODIES OF WATER sees FLATFOOT partnering once again with lighting designer Wesley Maherry whose bespoke designs for this dance company has seen him win numerous awards. His lighting design is supported by his audio visual/cinematic stage projection designs that give BODIES OF WATER a unique performance landscape.

BODIES OF WATER only has four public performances at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from 10 – 13 April. Performances are on 10 and 11 April at 7pm, and 12 and 13 April at 2.30m. Booking is via WEBTICKETS. Tickets cost between R95 and R120.

There is a special schools’ performance on Friday 11 April at 10.30am where learners can watch the show and engage in a special one-off Q&A with FLATFOOT after the performance. Scholars pay R60 and accompanying teachers get a free ticket. This is via prior booking only via Lootsl@ukzn.ac.za.

BODIES OF WATER is made possible by a partnership with the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre (UKZN).

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JOMBA! Digital Open Horizons Pick Of The Platform Announced

The 26th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, which is currently running in Durban, announced its JOMBA! Digital Open Horizons “pick of the platform” awards for 2024 on Wednesday 28 August. The programme was screened on the festival’s YouTube Channel and is available for the remainder of the festival until 8 September here

The Digital Open Horizons platform invites digital submissions of original works from new and established dance-makers across Africa. These works which last 3 to 8 minutes, were reviewed by an independent jury and seven selected for this platform at the festival: Lacuna by Louise Coetzer (South Africa, Darkroom Contemporary), Echoes by Femi Adebajo (Nigeria), As the Mountain Stood Still by Dave Gardner/Jacques Batista (South Africa), Internal Struggles by Diana Gaya (Kenya), Yolk by Skyla Buchanan (SA/Cyprus),Moments by Marcia Mzindle (South Africa) and Blue Funk by Louise Coetzer (South Africa, Darkroom Contemporary)

The jury selected Yolk in first place, Echoes in second and Lacuna in third as the “picks of the platform”.

Yolk by Skyla Buchanan (SA/Cyprus)

Yolk was selected in first place for its “innovation, beautiful cinematography and interesting settings as well as its subject matter”. Filmed by Beatrice Mariani, and choreographed, performed, directed and edited by Skyla Buchanan a contemporary trained dancer, practitioner and choreographer working with a multidisciplinary approach to performance. 

Yolk is set against the oppressive heat of summer, and explores the link between womanhood and fertility - where the sense of being a woman is derived from a "bioessentialised" maternal instinct: “A woman with no children is a wasted potential of a womb, wasted space, wasted time, wasted life- the wasted yolk of a fresh egg.”

Echoes by Femi Adebajo (Nigeria),

Nigeria’s Femi Adebajo’s Echoes, performed by Adebajo and Janed Aduayom was awarded second place. This work was selected for its “interesting pace and rhythm as well as its use of location and space and his creation of tension and suspense.”

Adebajo is a creative multidisciplinary artist who focuses on exploring art as a medium of connection to the human mind. 

Echoes provides a creative representation of the concept of pressure and its influence on both the physical bodies and mental states of individuals. It aims to offer a powerful and artistic insight into the human experience, highlighting the effects of pressure and its significance in our lives.

Lacuna choreographed and performed by Mthuthuzeil November, directed by Louise Coetzer

In third place selected for its “wonderful play between dark and light, its use of slow motion and its cinematic sets” was Lacuna choreographed and performed by Mthuthuzeil November, directed by Louise Coetzer with videography: Oscar O'Ryan, and produced by Darkroom Contemporary.

Coetzer is a versatile dance artist also renowned for her multidisciplinary approach to performance art. Lacuna traces the unfilled spaces of the brutalist architecture enveloping the dancer. It is a cinematic study of light and shade, seen and unseen

The Festival offers a range of workshops, talks and performances and runs until 8 September. Tickets are available through Computicket.

All festival information is available on the festival website:  https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

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Honouring Durban’s Wesley Maherry’s 15 years as Production and Technical Manager for JOMBA!

In a surprise citation and award ceremony on the opening night of the 26th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience on Tuesday 27 August, in Durban, the festival’s Technical and Production Manager, Wesley Maherry, was awarded a special citation in recognition of his fifteen years of committed service to the festival.

Wesley Maherry Production and Technical Manager for JOMBA! receiving the citation at the opening of the festival from Lliane Loots Artistic Director/Curator of JOMBA!, and  Ismail Mahomed, the Director of the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Photo Val Adamson

“We often forget that live theatre cannot function without deeply motivated, organised and gifted people whose work is to technically serve the vision of the artists and make their work possible on stage. Long hours in dark theatres and endless admin, are some of the challenges. In this environment, the CCA and JOMBA! has been – and is – honoured to have Wesley Maherry in the role of Production and Technical Manager for JOMBA! and all its various offerings”, said Ismail Mahomed, the Director of the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

JOMBA! is South Africa’s longest-running and most successful African contemporary dance festival. In 2022, JOMBA! was awarded the National Institute for Humanities & Social Sciences Award for Best Digital Creations. In 2023, JOMBA! received an accolade from Business Arts South Africa for the festival’s outreach and activism work. 

“Wesley’s specialised stage production and digital technology skills underline why JOMBA! remains so highly acclaimed in the creative industries. His work on the online digital delivery of the JOMBA! MASIHMABISANI dialogues and colloquium and, of course, the main JOMBA! festival in both Durban and at our JOMBA! @ The Market Theatre in Johannesburg, is unprecedented. Fifteen years speaks to a deeply committed support of artists and artistic spaces”, says Lliane Loots, the Artistic Director/Curator of JOMBA! “2024 heralds the 15thanniversary year that Wesley Maherry has worked for UKZN’s Centre for Creative Arts and the JOMBA! Festival.”

Wesley works at UKZN’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre as a Production Manager. He is part of a very efficient but small team – headed by theatre manager Jackie Cunniffe - that keeps the Sneddon one of eThekwini’s preferred live theatre spaces. He has an undergrad degree in Drama and Performance Studies. In 2024, he graduated with an MA (through UKZN’s Drama Progamme) where he interrogated his lighting design practice with choreographers like Vincent Mantsoe and Lliane Loots. His MA began to look at how dance lighting can respond to the challenges and needs in Africa noting that most of the research around theatre and dance lighting is still only generated from Europe and America.

JOMBA! runs until Sunday 8 September in venues in Durban with a satellite event in Hilton and then goes to the Market Theatre in mid-September.

For more info go to jomba.ukzn.ac.za

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Dancers from Bangalore (India) for this year's JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience

The UKZN Centre for Creative Arts' JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, which takes place from  August 27 to September 8, will feature two exceptional performances from India by the Bangalore-based dancer and choreographer Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy. These performances will be presented both at UKZN, Durban and at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg with the support of the Consulate General of India (Durban & Johannesburg), and the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Government of India.

The performances will be at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in Durban on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 September, and at JOMBA! @The Market in Johannesburg on 11 and 12 September. These performances are part of a larger contemporary dance programme that includes workshops, panel discussions, and virtual screen dance presentations taking place at various venues in Durban, and followed by a condensed version in Johannesburg.

Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy.

Deepak Shivaswamy, trained in Yoga, and Indian martial art Kalaripayattu  has been developing pedagogy for contemporary dance since 2004. He is a significant figure in contemporary dance, exploring modern Indian identities and its evolving concept of home. His latest double bill, titled "Vasudaiva Kutumbakam," which also features choreographers and dancers Prashant More and Mirra, reflects this journey. The term, which translates to "the world is one family," serves as a guiding principle for his performances at JOMBA!. Shivaswamy explains, “This concept of universal kinship inspires our work, using dance as a universal language to connect and resonate with audiences globally.”

Weight of Time

Deepak Shivaswamy’s first piece, Weight of Time, challenges conventional notions of art's purpose. It invites audiences to let go of expectations and simply be present, savouring the performance as an experience in itself. His second piece, Mycelium Maatu, draws inspiration from the mycelium—a natural network of fungal threads that interconnect in intricate, organic patterns. This concept profoundly influences Shivaswamy’s approach to dance, encouraging a creation that mirrors the mycelium’s interconnected and evolving structure.

Mycelium Maatu

Among the exciting additions to JOMBA! 2024 are opportunities for audiences to engage directly with dancers and choreographers. These include special sessions where attendees can hear from the artists about their creative processes and works. On September 6, Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy will join JOMBA! curator Lliane Loots for an on-stage discussion following his performance, as part of the JOMBA! TALKS DANCE series. This conversation will offer deeper insights into Shivaswamy’s work and creative vision.

On Friday, September 6, Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy, alongside Prashant More and Mirra, will lead a free open workshop titled Aattam Idam: A Place for Playing. Scheduled from 4pm at the UKZN - Howard College Campus Drama and Performance Studies Dance Studio in Durban. This workshop is based on the concept of “PLAY.” It invites participants of all skill levels to explore dance and movement through creative and joyful expression. This is followed by another workshop on September 12 at The Market Theatre.

These workshops are offered free of charge to participants, but booking is essential as places are limited. The workshop is only open to dancers over 16 years. Book with e-mail thobimaphanga@gmail.com.

They will also present a closed workshop with Rudra Dance Company and ParamAtham Dance Theatre in Durban on Saturday 7 September,

Performance timings are 7pm on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 September at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, and at 6.30pm on 11 and 12 September at The Market in Johannesburg

For more information and to see the full programme, go to: https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

Booking via COMPUTICKET for Durban, and by WEBTICKETS for Johannesburg.

South African Online Contemporary Dance Conference Attracts Global Participation

The annual online South African contemporary dance conference JOMBA! MASIHAMBISANE DIALOGUES, hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts’ JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, taking place from 22 to 24 May, 2024, has attracted significant participation from around the globe.

This conference or academic colloquium, is now in its fourth edition and will feature dance-makers, academics, dancers, educators, and researchers from 11 countries including Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, France, Germany, South Africa, UK, USA, and Zimbabwe. The theme or “provocation” this year is (RE)TURN TO THE DRUM? looking at contemporary dance’s engagements with traditions, cultures, memory, hybridity, and contested identities.

The conference which is free and open to all interested, features keynote addresses, panel discussions, as well as “abstracts or papers” presented by participants.  An opening keynote address will be made by steering committee member Dr Mbongeni Mtshali, a performance-maker, scholar, artist, and teacher based at the University of Cape Town,  in dialogue with the rest of the steering committee that includes dance-focussed academics, researchers, and practitioners: Clare Craighead (lecturer at the Durban University of Technology), David Thatanelo April (director, teacher, choreographer, and dance lobbyist), Gift Marovatsanga (CEO and Facilitator at Refined Images Studio), Dr Lliane Loots (lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal), Dr Sarahleigh Castelyn (Associate Professor/Reader University of East London UK), Thobile Maphanga (dance practitioner, scholar, creative collaborator, reading for her MA at UKZN) and Prof Yvette Hutchison (South African Reader/Associate Professor at the University of Warwick UK).

Dada Masilo

Keynote dialogues will be held with Dada Masilo, South African dancer and choreographer, known for her unique and innovative interpretations of classical ballets; SA-born, now France-based Robyn Orlin an internationally celebrated contemporary dance-maker, dancer and teacher; Mamela Nyamza award-winning choreographer and dancer who is known globally for her innovative and deeply intersectional and political dance-making; Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe, winner of international and national awards in performance and choreography, demonstrates that to be successfully integrated into the performance arena as a contemporary artist, one does not have to disavow one’s cultural heritage; Moeketsi Koena professional dancer, teacher and choreographer, and co-founder of newly incorporated Itrotra Art X Connection - a newly registered arts platform.

Additionally, Canadian Dena Davida introduces TURBA, a new journal that negotiates histories of the study and practice of live arts curation, and Thobile Maphanga chairs a fascinating panel with Albert Ibokwe Khoza (South Africa), Djam Neguin (Cape Verde) and Lorin Sookool (South Africa) titled where they will interrogate a possible common zeitgeist that is calling these contemporary artists from Africa, to dig up ‘past’ narratives and re-present them in the bold ways that they are.

Papers, digital engagements, and further dialogues open up important discussions around contemporary identity and how it relates to imagined and real histories as they intersect with culture and tradition in dance-making. The “(re)turn to the drum” is set up as both a question and as a tipping point to think about our futures.

Some of these  papers and engagements will be presented by:

Alexandra Gonçalves Dias,

Alexandra Gonçalves Dias, dance artist and Professor at UFPEL in Brazil, with a dedicated focus on decolonising narratives;

Claude Jansen, part of Dancing Instruments - In Conversation with Looted oBjeCts – a long-term journey with a team of Namibian and German curators, healers, artists and (O)Ngoma Drums;

Fabrice Mazliah, a choreographer and performer/dancer based in Germany/Switzerland, who has initiated long-term research into embodied knowledge and the heritage inscribed into dance practitioners;

Francesca Matthys, a South African Interdisciplinary dance artist, writer, facilitator and Kundalini yoga teacher based in London;

Kristi-Leigh Gresse

Kristi-Leigh Gresse, a South African dancer and choreographer known for her transformative impact on the arts.

Lara Barzon, an EUTOPIA co-tutelle PhD fellow with a joint PhD between Theatre and Performance Studies (University of Warwick) and Cultural Studies (University of Ljubljana);

Marcia Mzindle, a freelance writer, drama, and performance tutor at the University of KwaZulu Natal (Howard College), choreographer, and dancer;

Onalenna Sellwane, a writer, theatre maker, and digital marketing creative based in Johannesburg;

Rainy Demerson, a dance artist and scholar invested in global intersectional feminism and decolonial embodiments;

Saranya Devan, recognised for her versatility in drama, dance performance, and choreography and holds a Masters in Bharathanatyam from the University of Madras and a Masters in Dance from the UCT;

Moving into Dance

Sylvia “Magogo” Glasser, a cultural activist, teacher, choreographer, mentor, anthropologist, and writer, who founded Moving into Dance in 1978 as a non-racial dance company and training organisation and was director until 2013;

Tatenda Kanengoni, a Zimbabwean writer, researcher, and multimedia storyteller.

 The conference will be streamed live on YouTube on the following link https://www.youtube.com/jomba_dance. Participants will present on Zoom, and those who wish to apply to join in the “Zoom Room”, can contact Thobile Maphanga at thobimaphanga@gmail.com

For more information and news, as well as the schedule – go to:

https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/masihambisane-dialogues/ 

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Veteran South African dance-maker, Robyn Orlin, named the 2024 JOMBA! LEGACY ARTIST

The 26th annual JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, hosted by UKZN’s Centre for Creative Arts, has announced that it will honour veteran South African dance-maker Robyn Orlin as the 2024 JOMBA! Legacy Artist. 

Orlin’s work we wear our wheels with pride and slap your streets with colour… we said ‘bonjour’ to satan in 1820 … will feature at JOMBA! which takes place at The Sneddon Theatre in Durban from 27 August to 8 September, with a satellite festival at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg from 11 to 14 September 2024.

Robyn Orlin

Originally created in 2021 we wear our wheels …  is a collaboration with Johannesburg based Moving into Dance. This is a work that negotiates the complicated Durban rickshaw histories – and it finally comes to Durban.

Born in 1955 Johannesburg, Orlin’s vision of contemporary dance continues to be a kind of aesthetic eclecticism where she draws heavily on her own histories of ballet and modern, and a fascination with film and cinema. She has shifted the boundaries of what we consider dance to be, often falling into witty and biting political satire. Her love of kitsch, tutus and yellow plastic ducks has seen her creating iconic images that still haunt a South African dance landscape. 

we wear our wheels with pride and slap your streets with colour… we said ‘bonjour’ to satan in 1820 … 

Orlin was trained at the London School of Contemporary Dance (1975-1980), then at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1990-1995). She began her career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher in South Africa, where she was quickly spotted, as much for the singularity of her dance making, as for the chaos that reigns in her creations.  Her (multiple prize-winning) dance piece Daddy, I have seen this piece six times before and I still don’t know why they’re hurting each other, which mocks the difficulties and shortcomings of the young rainbow nation, but also classical ballet as a trajectory of discrimination, enabled her to tour in Europe and brought her international recognition. France has since become a creative territory for her and she has made her first film, Hidden Beauties, Dirty Stories (Ina/Arte, 2004), her first opera, Handel’s L’Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (Opéra Garnier, Paris, 2007), and her first theatre production, Les Bonnes, by Jean Genet (Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris, 2019) in France. She continues to create work in South Africa.

Artistic Director and curator, Lliane Loots says, “The JOMBA! festival’s 2024 overall curatorial theme and provocation is “the memory of home” and we can think of no South African artist better suited to unpack both the simplicity and complexity of this in her work. Memories are about history, belonging, sometimes suffocating nostalgia, and maybe also about charting new futures … Robyn’s work is all of this and more”.

“Orlin’s work has not been performed in South Africa for many years, and so it is with great thanks for the support from IFAS (Paris) and IFAS (Johannesburg), that JOMBA! welcomes her back to South Africa as our 2024 JOMBA! Legacy artist.”

JOMBA! takes place at The Sneddon Theatre in Durban from 27 August to 8 September, and the satellite festival takes place at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg from 11 to 14 September 2024.

we wear our wheels …  will be performed on 7 and 8 September in Durban and on 11 and 12 September at The Market in Johannesburg.

For more information go to www.jomba.ac.za.

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY 21st Birthday Season “JOURNEY”

Celebrating its 21st birthday, Durban's award-winning FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents a short season of contemporary dance that promises to nourish and enrich, at The Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre on 10 and 11 May.

Titled JOURNEY, the season features two new works, one by resident choreography and artistic director, Lliane Loots, and a another by special guest from Madagascar, Gaby Saranouffi. The season not only celebrates the 21-year journey of getting to this milestone, but it also delves into the head and heart of what it means to be alive at this point in history. 

Saranouffi's SORITRA (traces) opens the evening in a fast-paced journey of self in a search for “traces of where we come from and where we are going.” Inspired by a Malagasy indigenous abstract strategy board game called “diam-panorona”, the movement of stones on a board, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally are intriguingly replicated in a contemporary dance formation with bold athletic movements. Interestingly this work is now in its own 21st-year as Saranouffi has shared it in many spaces and places. She says, “I love letting it breathe new life when new dancer step in and learn it and make it their own. This is a work about the translation of culture, history and memory from one body to another and I am so excited to give it now to FLATFOOT on their 21st birthday.”

Loots's premieres a new work for FLATFOOT, titled the salt on your skin, and begins to journey to the cities (or sites?) of the interior in an often painful, always beautiful, look at intimacy. Referencing sweat and skin, and other acts of love and labour that make up the everyday of our lives, this work is co-created with the six resident FLATFOOT dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Ndumiso Dube and Siseko Duba). Drawing on deeply personal stories of love, loss, and ultimately hope, the salt on your skin sees Loots once again using dance to delve into the small stories to imagine; and thus change the bigger narrative that hold our lives. Loots says, “we often mistake intimacy as being only about romance and sex, and while this is also true, the intimacies of raising children, being a mother or father, of mourning lost family and friends, of waking up each day to come to work, of sweating in the studio as we dance through this all, is a shared intimacy that the FLATFOOT dancers have given me. This work, on our 21st birthday, is for the six dancers – it is a love song we created together”. 

the salt on your skin is made up of four sections that traverse a landscape of intimacies, loss, love, shame, and hope. With subtle and evocative lighting by Wesley Maherry, this is a surprisingly gentle dance work given the voracity and intimacy of the unfolding stories. 

JOURNEY is at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre for only 3 performances, 10 May @ 7pm, 11 May @ 2.30pm, and 11 May @ 7pm. Tickets cost R120 (R85 for pensioners, students, scholars and block bookings of 10 or more). 

Booking via COMPUTICKET: https://computicket.com/event/journey/6688047

This season is made possible through a special partnership with the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.

Thanks to Itrotra Art X Connection NPC.

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Call for papers for third JOMBA! MASIHAMBISANE DIALOGUES – 24 to 26 May

The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts in partnership with Warwick University (UK) and the African Dance Disability Network, calls for submissions of abstracts, papers and digital participation for the third annual JOMBA! MASIHAMBISANE DIALOGUES, a colloquium to engage in robust and meaningful conversations around contemporary dance, online from 24 to 26 May.

JOMBA!’s curator, Dr. Lliane Loots is working with Warwick’s Prof. Yvette Hutchison on a two-year UKRI – AHRC funded research project entitled Encountering disability through contemporary dance in Africa, and thus the colloquium will focus into the provocation of “Integrated dance practices: moving centres”. A host of dance, practitioners, academics and associates are expected to participate including Joseph Tebandeke, a Ugandan dancer and choreographer based in Kampala, who will be one of the key-note speakers at this edition. The actual colloquium will be presented online and open to public viewing.

Unmute Dance Company - photo by Val Adamson

This third annual JOMBA! MASIHAMBISANE DIALOGUES, hosted in the 25th anniversary year of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, sets out to engage scholarship, pedagogy and practices into integrated dance as an embodied form with a particular African focus, without being exclusive.

The call out for papers, digital scholarship and any new integrated forms of knowledge sharing is open and closes on 4 April 2023. For more details or to download the official call-out frame of reference go to https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/masihambisane-dialogues/

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Flatfoot dance company's Love Song for KZNSA Gallery 31 March & 1 April

“LOVE SONG” is FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY’s first performance offering of 2023 in which they partner with the KZNSA Gallery to offer – for two performances only - a site-responsive and intimate dance experience that is sure to ignite passion and beauty. Performances take place on Friday 31 March and Saturday 1 April at 6.30pm.

“LOVE SONG” collaboratively created by the full company (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba and Ndumiso Dube) under the choreographic direction of Lliane Loots, is a mesmerising journey into the heartland of the workings of the heart and how we love. Love is explored through bonds of friendship, intimate partners, as well as the social connection we share as community. 

FLATFOOT's Siseko Duba (jumping) and Ndumiso 'Digga' Dube in "LOVE SONG" (Photo by VAL ADAMSON)

Loots says, “at a time in our collective histories as South Africans, where so much seems impossible, we decided as a company to create a new dance work that really celebrates the power of how we connect (and maybe disconnect?) and that finds strength in the bonds we share as human beings. Far from looking away and avoiding the fault lines of our current lives, “LOVE SONG” looks at how this terrain is navigated in how we choose to love”. She goes on to say, “I have been humbled – as I always am – by the stories lovingly shared by the FLATFOOT dancers whose own choreographic journey is celebrated in this new work”. 

FLATFOOT once again push themselves to embrace new ways of making and thinking dance. “LOVE SONG” will dazzle and delight as the dancer move you to be moved by them! 

The KZNSA Gallery (Glenwood) will be open from 5.30pm on both 31 March and 1 April with a special dinner menu for those who want to eat, and the bar/coffee bar will be open both before and after the show. Running time if the show is 55 minutes.

Tickets are R100  (12 years and under -R80 and booking is essential due to limited seating capacity (contact flafootdancecompany@gmail.com).

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Photo on homepage: FLATFOOT's Sbonga Ndlovu and Zinhle Nzama - CREDIT: Val Adamson

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY travels to Kenya at the end of February 2023

Durban’s much-loved FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY heads to Kenya on 24 February for a two-week exchange project with Nairobi and Siaya based DANCE INTO SPACE. The exchange comes out of a large project headed by Dr. Lliane Loots (Artistic Director of FLATFOOT) and Prof. Yvette Hutchison (Warwick University, UK) that is setting up a network of African choreographers, researches and dancers called the African Disability Dance Network (ADDN). Funded by a two-year grant from UKRI – AHRC, that will be officially launching digitally on Tuesday 20 February.

FLATFOOT’s Jabu Siphika

Alongside a portfolio of award-winning performance work, FLATFOOT’s integrated dance work has seen it nationally spearhead work with dancers with Down Syndrome, and its numerous programmes with dancers with physical disabilities. FLATFOOT travel to Kenya to share and learn from sister dance company DANCE INTO SPACE (DIS) headed by Ondiege Matthew. DIS, whose work has seen them collaborate with artist from Birmingham Rep (UK) and whose work is supported by Amnesty International, offer a mission to share artistic skills with people from all walks of life and to create work that cross all sorts of borders – both physical, cultural and social.

Loots and Matthew met first in Nairobi in 2019 and have kept a strong connection over the lock down years and now finally get to meet in a dance studio. Loots says, “I cannot begin to say how excited I am by this opportunity to work with Ondiege. He is a man whose dance work and vison are blazing trails in Africa. While our friendship is strong, being able to move together and share creative energy is a dream.  I remain so humbled by Ondiege’s agenda to create deeply humanising integrated dance practices in Africa – I am looking forward to learning from him!”

Lliane Loots and Ondiege Matthew

Loots travels to Kenya with three of the senior FLATFOOT dancers, Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama, where they will engage in a full daily programme of shared classes and training and begin to work on joint choreography with their Kenyan counterparts.

In a rounding off of this exchange, Matthew and some of his DIS Kenyan dancers will travel to Durban, South Africa,  to the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience (hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu Natal in 2024 to share their work with South African audience and dancers.

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Sibikwa Arts Centre Presents Body Moves an International Inclusive Dance Festival 10 – 16 October 2022

The Sibikwa Arts Centre presents the first International BODY MOVES Dance Festival for able bodied and disabled dancers to be held at the Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni from 10 - 16 October 2022.

Flatfoot Dance Company with the Flatfoot Downie Company

The Festival challenges perceptions and expands understanding of dance and disability, promoting cultural exchange, collaboration and cooperation between African and European countries. The participation of the dancers and dance companies from Ireland, Italy, Flanders and the Netherlands has been made possible by the generous support of their respective European embassies. The South African dancers have been supported by the Gauteng Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, and Joseph Tebandeke, a choreographer from Uganda, has received financial assistance from the British Council and Tractus Art.

Tebandeke (Uganda)

Four new works will be premiered at the Festival:

• A collaboration between Moving into Dance disabled dancers from their Enable Through Dance programme and Sibikwa dancers from the Inclusive Creative Arts Programme (ICAP). This new dance piece yet untitled will be choreographed by Joseph Tebandeke from Uganda.

• Unmute Dance Company from Cape Town in collaboration with MonkeyMind Company, a Flemish contemporary and Performance Company based in Ghent lead by choreographer Lisi Estaras.

• A new duet will be created for Eva Eikhout a Dutch dancer and TV presenter to be partnered by Thapelo Kotlolo, a dancer from Sibikwa. Adriaan Luteijn from Introdans in the Netherlands will choreograph the duet.

• The Italian company Officine di Creazione will premiere a new work and Sighile Hennessey from Ireland will make her debut solo performance.

The South African companies participating in the Body Moves Festival supported by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture (Gauteng) are Flatfoot Dance Company from Durban, Sibikwa Arts Centre, and Moving into Dance. Unmute from Cape Town has received financial assistance from the General Representation of the Government of Flanders in South Africa.

Unmute

This multi-faceted Festival includes workshops from 10 – 14 October at Sibikwa and open to all abled and disabled dancers. Choreographers from the Netherlands, Ireland and Italy will facilitate the international workshops. Unmute Dance Company will facilitate workshops in schools.

To promote conversations between academia, civil society organisations and artists about disability and dance a hybrid colloquium hosted at the Sibikwa Theatre and live streamed on the Sibikwa Arts Centre Facebook page will take place on Thursday 13th October from 18h00 – 19h30 and Saturday 15th October from 16h30 to 18h00.  

The entire Festival including workshops and rehearsals will be filmed as part of a collaborative research project on Disability Dance and Citizenship in Africa, spearheaded by Dr Lliane Loots [Founder of Flatfoot Dance Company & Lecturer at KZN SA] and Prof Yvette Hutchinson [University Warwick UK].

All events will take place at the Sibikwa Arts Centre, Cnr Liverpool and Bolton Rd Benoni. 

Registration to participate in the workshops and colloquium is free on Quicket. Tickets are available on Quicket for the dance programme on the 15 & 16 October from 2 – 4 pm, tickets bought on Quicket are R80 per person, for a group booking of 10 or more R70 per person, and R100 at the door.-ends

Innovative Dance Works Commissioned for JOMBA! EDGE Platform at Dance Festival

Innovative Dance Works Commissioned for JOMBA! EDGE Platform at Festival

Three KwaZulu-Natal dance-makers have been commissioned to create works for this year’s JOMBA! EDGE platform, as part of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience taking place from 30 August at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in Durban.

JOMBA! which is presented by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal has a long history of supporting Durban and KZN-based dance-makers and has offered grants to three choreographers/dancers to help push their creation of new local work. In the JOMBA! EDGE mentored platform, Sandile Mkhize (Durban), Tegan Peacock (Pietermaritzburg) and Pavishen Paideya (Durban) will present their work on Friday, 2 September at 7pm and Saturday, 3 September at 2.30pm.

The same programme will be presented by JOMBA! and Rerouting Arts at the Old Mushroom Farm in Howick on 17 September at 6pm.

“All three have displayed an uncanny survival instinct and despite so much lost time for dance over the COVID shut down, all three have continued to make meaningful work over this time,” says JOMBA!’s Artistic Director Lliane Loots. “We are delighted to honour them in our 2022 festival and have asked to respond to the curatorial provocation of this year’s festival – the (im)possibility of home.”

Sandile Mkhize

Co-founder and Artistic Director of Phakama Dance Theatre Sandile Mkhize will premiere TAKE ME BACK HOME, a duet that begins to rethink notions of black masculinity and brotherhood. He takes us on a journey to what home means for the body – a place of self-discovery and self-interrogation.

Pavishen Paideya

Accomplished dancer and choreographer and artistic director of Rudra Dance Theatre, an Indian dance company, Pavishen Paideya presents SAMSARA - an honest and culturally magnificent dance journey into Diaspora Indian South African identity and ideas of home and belonging.

Tegan Peacock

Performance artist and creator and founder of Rerouting Arts, a collaborative arts organisation, Tegan Peacock present HEAD_SPACE as she attempts to trace the internal conversations of the body and the mind in turmoil. It is a mapping of patterns, pressures and struggles, a performative cartography of self and belonging that works with live music.

The festival offers a 13 day feast of contemporary dance, and includes performances and dance talks at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre with a Youth Open Horizons event at the Stable Theatre and select online offerings, as well as workshops, and an extensive online blog.

The Festival takes place from 30 August to 11 September. Tickets for performances at the Sneddon Theatre are R80, and R65 for students, scholars and pensioners through Computicket (https://tickets.computicket.com/). All other events are free.

(Tickets for the programme in Howick on 17 September at 6pm are R80 and can be booked through https://bit.ly/BookJombaReroutingHowick

For more information follow on social media or go to the website: https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

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24th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Announces its first live programme in 2 years

24th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Announces its first live programme in 2 years

30 August to 11 September 2022

The 24th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, has announced its programme for its first live festival since 2019, which takes place at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, UKZN from 30 August to 11 September 2022.

The theme of this JOMBA! centres around “the (im)possibility of home”, and offers dance and theatre fans a treat of 13 days of world-class contemporary dance and performance from both local and international dance-makers. Artists hail from Mozambique, Switzerland, Reunion Island, India, and of course, includes the very best that South Africa has to offer. This edition offers a powerhouse of performances, workshops, after-performance Q & A’s, panel discussions, virtual screen dance, and the return of the JOMBA! youth dance platform that continues to support the growth of Durban’s young dance communities.

“We are thrilled and relieved to be finally presenting our much-loved festival – live and in-person, while keeping some works and events online to include those not able to attend,” says Artistic Director and Curator, Dr Lliane Loots. “This year, through the theme “the (im)possibility of home”, we have set out to interrogate a series of dance offerings that negotiate heritage, culture, nostalgia, and identity, which explore a sense of belonging and how this persists, changes, and transforms through time – and what a time (both local and global) for this moment!”

Vincent Mantsoe

Within this theme, Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe will be honoured as the 2022 JOMBA! Legacy Artist. “This year marks a 30-year history of Mantsoe’s career as a dancer and choreographer and we can think of no better way to honour this incredible icon in South Africa’s historical dance trajectory than to celebrate with him,” says Loots.

There will be a live performance of Mantsoe’s new solo work KOMA, the screening of his short dance film CUT (part 1) made during lockdown and his two-year process (2021 and 2022) of working with Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY and the long journey to making CUT (part 2) – which will premiere at the festival, and he will present a masterclass.

Hominal/Xaba

South Africa’s doyens of contemporary dance - the controversial and critical dance-makers – Mamela Nyamza and Nelisiwe Xaba feature with Xaba opening this year's festival in a collaboration with Swiss dance maker Marie-Caroline Hominal in a work intriguingly and simply titled Hominal/Xaba. 

Mamela Nyamza

The deeply interrogated and thoughtful Mamela Nyamza offers her newest work GROUNDED. performed with her son Amkele Mandla, in which she offers us a look into her South Africa where democracy superficially seems to be in a working condition, but actually has small cracks not easy to see.

Edna Jaime

In partnership with the Goethe-Institut South Africa, JOMBA! will host the inimitable Mozambican dance-maker Edna Jaime in her remarkable solo Um Segundo (One Second).

Fana Tshabalala

Fana Tshabalala, the 2019 JOMBA! Mellon Artist in Residence, makes a welcome return with his Broken Borders Arts Project to premiere his latest solo work Zann, which he began creating as part of the 2019 residency. 

Three new works by Durban choreographers/dancers - Sandile Mkhize, Tegan Peacock, and Pavishen Paideya will premiere at the festival. All three were given grants to help push their creation of new local work in the JOMBA! EDGE mentored platform.

The JOMBA! YOUTH OPEN HORIZONS (formerly the Youth Fringe), will feature a host of local dance talent at The Stable Theatre.

The virtual offerings include the JOMBA! AFRICAN DIGITAL VOICES, OPEN HORIZONS and an online panel discussion.

In the JOMBA! AFRICAN DIGITAL VOICES platform Mozambican choreographer and dancer Pak Ndjamena, who collaborates with photographer and filmmaker Ivan Barros, has been commissioned to make a screen dance offering One Step at a Time; while Reunion Island’s Didier Boutiana and his company SOUL CITY present a dance film titled Le Sol Oblige (The Earth Obliges) a humbling and beautiful look at the relationship of the individual to ideas of home and land, and to community. Mantsoe’s Cut (part 1) features online here too.

JOMBA! OPEN HORIZONS (formerly the JOMBA! Fringe) continues to support dance-makers working in film. A jury will select six films to showcase from a call for submissions earlier this year, and the top three will be announced after the viewing. 

The festival closes with a virtual conversation between Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts (Bangalore, India) and artist Simon Senn (Switzerland) looks at the dance work of this amazing centre and the incredible project between Senn and Bharatha Natyam dancer Rohee Oberoi.  

There are three open workshops (dancers over 16 only) for dancers and dance-makers, an industry-related session entitled JOMBA! Forging Futures, and the much-valued JOMBA! KHULUMA online writing residency will feature write-ups, interviews and reviews. More details to be announced soon 

Live performances take place at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre (UKZN), the Stable Theatre (one performance and free) as well as virtual/online (free) .

Tickets for Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre performances are R80 full price, R65 – students, scholars and pensioners. Booking is through Computicket.

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Flatfoot Dance Company in Earth Rhythms at KZNSA Gallery

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY  in partnership with the KZNSA, presents …EARTH RHYTHMS

@ KZNSA GALLERY, Durban

Durban: Join FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY for two performances only at Glenwood’s iconic KZNSA Art Gallery in Durban on 10 and 11 December at 6.30pm.

In a family friendly celebration of rhythm, joy and the sheer delight of the dancing and moving body, FLATFOOT will take you on a journey of magical explosive dance that celebrates how rhythm connects us all. Choreographed in a sharing of skills and styles by the full company; Lliane Loots, Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba, Ndumiso Dube, and Zinhle Nzama, this performance also features celebrated Durban poet Ongezwa Mbele as her rhythmic spoken words weave a connection between dance, music and the healing time and tides of the ocean. 

FLATFOOT's Sbonga Ndlovu in full flight - photo by Val Adamson

EARTH RHYTHMS is a delightful showcase of FLATFOOT’s unique - award-winning - contemporary dance style mixed in with a bit of popular street dance that will bring a smile to your face.

In honouring the holiday season, this partnership with the KZNSA is a dine, wine, shop and dance happening– doors open from 5pm so you can do some early evening Christmas shopping at BUZZART21, grab a bite to eat and settle into your seats for the 6.30pm show start! The show is one hour.

 The venue is Covid compliant and no mask, no entry! Each performance has a limit of x100 audience members only – book soon to avoid disappointment. No walk-ins/at the door sales - all tickets MUST be prebooked and paid for in advance.

COST: R100 per ticket (under 13s: R80)

Bookings made via flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com

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JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Call for Submissions for New Digital Platform - “Open Horizons”

JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience

Call for Submissions for New Digital Platform - “Open Horizons”

The Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) presents the 2021 JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience as a virtual event with performance, workshops, and online engagements from 24 August to 5 September. Applications are now open for JOMBA! “Open Horizons”, formerly known as the “Fringe”, which now offers a long and a short form platform for the submission of screen dance/digital dance work.

From the 2019 Something's not right choreographed by Carla Mostert and Rafe Green pictured here

“This remains an open access platform for any and all contemporary dance makers to apply and showcase their work at the festival,” explains Lliane Loots, Artistic Director of the Festival. “We invite professional, experimental, and young choreographers, dancers and dance companies to apply for participation on either (or both) with digital dance or screen dance work.”

The festival is looking for work that is located within the broad spectrum of contemporary dance, with preference being given to South African and African submissions. 

The Long Form welcome works between 5 and 8 minutes long, which will be streamed on the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience’s YouTube channel.

The Short Form welcomes works that are 1 to 3 minutes long and will be streamed on Youtube as well as its social media channels, in a lower res format, to enable wider accessibility, and can be shared across various social media platforms.

For both these platforms a panel will select three “Pick of the Open Horizons” which sees three Long Form dance-makers being awarded after the festival, R3 500, R2 500, and R1 500 respectively, and three Short Form being awarded R2 000, R1 500 and R1 000 respectively.

All criteria and information about submissions as well as application forms can be found on this link: https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/open-horizons/

Submission closes on Friday 9 July at 4pm (SAST).

Queries can be submitted via email to jombafestival@gmail.com.

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Flatfoot to Dance in the Park - Botanic Gardens, Durban, 7 - 11 April at 5pm

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY 

in association with the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust, 

presents  “PARK DANCES #1” Durban Botanic Gardens

 7 – 11 April @ 5pm

COST: R100 per ticket 

Join Flatfoot Dance Company for its inaugural “Park Dances #1” in the lush surroundings of Durban’s exquisite Botanic Gardens for an outdoor sundowner dance experience from 7 to 11 April at 5pm each evening.

This short outdoor season, allows the audience to relax and safely watch Durban’s much-loved dance company in a celebration of joyous dance with good music in true Flatfoot style.

This hour-long explosion of dance has been collaboratively created by the full company: Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Lliane Loots, Zinhle Nzama, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba and Ndumiso Dube. It offers a rich confluence of African rhythms, with classical and contemporary influence and execution.

This is the first Flatfoot’s “Park Dances” taking place during 2021 that will engage the natural environment of Durban’s parks as renewed and reimagined spaces to watch dance. 

“We are delighted to start off our Park season in collaboration with the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust and to have this opportunity to share this incredibly beautiful living space with audiences,” says Artistic Director Lliane Loots.

This is a family-friendly performance and audiences may bring picnics and blankets to sit on. Entrance opens at 4.15pm for patrons to settle in, enjoy a picnic or a stroll around the gardens before the show begins at 5pm. 

There is ample safe parking at the main Botanic Gardens Visitors Complex entrance. All COVID-19 safety protocols are in place, and masks must be worn. There is a maximum audience of 50 per show with demarcated areas to sit. Tickets are R100 and must be booked and paid for in advance – there are no door sales. To book contact Clare on flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com.

The Body Politics remembered during Women’s Month through Dance at JOMBA

Media Release

The Body Politics remembered during Women’s Month through Dance at JOMBA

South Africa honours and celebrates the role of women in society during this Women’s Month and on Women’s Day (9 August), in commemoration of the 1956 march of about 20,000 women to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to petition against the country's pass laws. In this remarkable show of solidarity, women gathered together in defiance to make change. 

“64 years later our annual JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, taking place in August, women’s social, economic, and political struggles, challenges, hopes, and joys, are exposed and expressed through their work and bodies,” says Lliane Loots, Artistic Director of JOMBA. “Dance is a visceral art form that gives space to a body politics and what better way to image defiant and powerful women than those dancing”. 

JOMBA! is especially pleased to feature some of Africa (and the world’s) most powerful female voices in dance and especially Senegal’s award-winning choreographer and dancer, Germaine Acogny, considered as the “mother of Contemporary African dance”. Her 2015 work Somewhere at the beginning will be streamed during the festival and is a remarkable solo featuring a 73-year-old Acogny dancing and narrating a journey of self-identity as black, female, and African.

Flatfoot Dance Company choreographer and dancer Jabu Siphika’s solo piece Ya kutosha, created for JOMBA, is an intimate and terrifying exploration of gender-based violence and what it means to be trapped in the home.

Twelve-year-old Lethiwe Zamantungwa Nzama teams up with her father Sifiso Kitsona Khumalo as she makes her professional debut in a piece called Walls, which is a deeply intimate exploration of a father-daughter relationship set against the separation imposed by COVID-19 and the lockdown.

Chicago, USA-based Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre, under the direction of Nicole Clarke-Springer will feature in Parallel Lives a dance narrative inspired by poor, working women who have shared life-changing events, both beautiful and tragic. Danced with robust power, this is a must-see of this year’s festival. 

From India Anita Ratnam, a highly respected as a performer, writer, speaker, arts entrepreneur, and culture mentor features in Stone ... once again that reveals the facets of gender through misrepresentation and misogyny. This work was made after Donald Trump’s election as USA president.  Ratnam’s main area of focus is in the re-interpretation of traditional tropes from myth and legend using a feminist lens.

Robin Orlin , a power-house dance-maker, known for her incisive wit and ability to confront issues head-on in the dance space, presents a work created for Johannesburg-based Moving into Dance Mophatong called Beauty remained for just a moment then returned gently to her starting position ...”

From New Orleans, Leslie Scott and BODYART Dance Company return to the JOMBA “stage” with several works, all of which show huge courage and bravery in pushing the boundaries of the dancer’s relationship with audiences.

Other women dance-makers on the programme include Kristi-Leigh Gresse, Leagan Peffer, Nomcebisi Moyikwa, Tegan Peacock, Zinhle Nzama presenting works on the opening night which have been commissioned by JOMBA.

Digital JOMBA will stream online from jomba.ukzn.ac.za from 25 August to 6 September 2020.

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JOMBA! Goes Digital and Global ! 25 August - 6 September 2020

The Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

presents

22nd (DIGITAL) JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience

25 August - 6 September 2020

South Africa’s benchmark dance festival, the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, presented by the Centre for Creative Arts, University of KwaZulu-Natal, celebrates its 22nd year with its first-ever digital edition, which will go online, and be available free to a global audience from 25 August to 6 September 2020.

“It is clear that we will not be able to deliver a festival in the same manner as previous years,” explains Artistic Director Dr Lliane Loots. “COVID-19 has shifted the arts world very significantly and in this fragile environment, dance - still defined as a full-contact ‘sport’ – remains separated from rehearsal spaces, from theatre venues, and various sites. The somatic, visceral body is absent right now we believe - as a holding block for future embodied work – that they can still offer dance-makers, dance-lovers, and audiences space to engage serious, beautiful, and important new dance making via a re-visioned JOMBA! 2020.”

This year’s JOMBA! is a carefully curated explosion of dance and conversions about dance-making, offering both a look back at some iconic dance works and dance makers, but it also significantly looks forward to exploring what dance can be in a digital space and a digital time. 

2020 JOMBA! offers 7 vibrant platforms for audiences to engage:

The JOMBA! Legacy (celebrating 21years of JOMBA!) programme features nine key dance-makers from all over the globe who have had a significant impact on making JOMBA! the premier contemporary dance festival in Africa. This is a rare opportunity to look back for a moment and to celebrate some of the world’s most iconic dance-makers who have shared their work on JOMBA! stages: From South Africa Gregory Maqoma and Musa Hlatshwayo are featured; dissenting and remarkable Robyn Orlin shares work she has made with Johannesburg- based Moving into Dance Mophatong; Africa’s two most illustrious voices Nigeria’s Adedayo Liadi and Senegal's Germaine Acogny who is often quoted as the ‘Mother of African contemporary dance’ shares an incredible and definitive solo work (“somewhere at the beginning”) danced at the age of 73. And the exquisite feminist artistry of India’s Anita Ratnam is featured in her challenging revision of Indian mythology. 

Long time JOMBA! guests, INTRODANS from The Netherlands, grace the festival with neo-classical work made before lockdown that never quite had a life on stage. In an on-going partnership with the US Consulate, two remarkable American dance companies that have had a huge impact on JOMBA! over the years are also featured; both hailing from Durban’s twin cities of Chicago and New Orleans. Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre from Chicago and Leslie Scott’s New Orleans BODYART Dance Company. 

The JOMBA! Digital Edge has provided grants to nine Durban dance-makers who continue to make waves on the local dance scene, to create short dance films that will premiere on the opening night of the festival, and will be available to view on the JOMBA! website for the duration of the festival.

The dance-makers were asked to work loosely around the theme of “Intimacies of Isolation” and there were interesting differences in modalities of filming, from cell phone to cameras. Feature choreographers are, Jabu Siphika, Kristi-Leigh Gresse, Leagan Peffer, Nomcebisi Moyikwa, Sandile Mkhize, Sifiso Kitsona Khumalo, Tegan Peacock, Tshediso Kabulu, and Zinhle Nzama

Continuing its partnership with the USA, JOMBA! has invited guest US-based curators Lauren Warnecke, Peter Chu, Rachel Miller, and Tara Aisha Willis to put together a collection of “Dance on Screen” films in an inspired and poetic one hour package of short dance films that explore the length and breadth of film dance in the USA. 

The Digital JOMBA! Fringe showcases 18 African-based dance-makers work from an open application process. JOMBA! will award prizes to the top three dance films in this section. 

Four globally significant dance-makers who have embraced digital dance making under lockdown will host a live conversation around their work and what it means to have made this shift in a programme called Conversations…Dance in a Digital Age. Featured choreographers/dancers are Vincent Mantsoe (South Africa/France), Jürg Koch (Switzerland), Themba Mbui (South Africa), and Ongiege Matthew (Kenya). Both Mbuli and Matthew will offer the world premiere of their new ‘lockdown’ dance works on this JOMBA! platform. 

Once again the JOMBA! blog and digital newspaper - JOMBA! KHULUMA - will involve the on-going support of dance writing and dance criticism through a series of closed webinars/seminars for graduate dance students. 

After years of photographing JOMBA, the fest photographer  Val Adamson will share her work in an exhibition - 21 Years of JOMBA! Through The Lens. This not only honours her extraordinary photographic eye, but it is also a moment of visually remembering the festival’s history through her evocative capturing of dance on stage with her Nikon cameras. 

Digital JOMBA! 2020 runs from 25 August to 6 September off the website, jomba.ukzn.ac.za. All platforms for 2020 are free of charge and a full programme is available via the website. 

For more information and updates on the programme visit Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Dancing in a Digital Space - JOMBA 2020

Media Release

Dancing in a Digital Space

JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Calls for Fringe Applications

For its 2020 Online Edition

In the wake of the COVID-19 global upheaval and its impact on live performance, the much-loved JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts, University of KwaZulu-Natal, calls for Fringe Applications as it announces its move online for its 2020 edition in August/September.

“It is clear that we will not be able to deliver JOMBA! in the same manner as previous years,” says JOMBA’s Artistic Director Lliane Loots. “COVID-19 has shifted the arts world very significantly and we will remain one of the hardest hit sectors both now and even post COVID-19.  But as an artistic entity, which offers a time and space for artists to engage in serious and important new art and dance-making for audiences, we believe we must continue with our work and so have begun planning in an environment of fragile uncertainty for a re-visioned digital JOMBA! 2020. “

Loots goes on to explain, “The idea is to imagine JOMBA! to be a benchmark of what a dance festival could possibly be or become at this zeitgeist in our history. As we began to curate what will be a fascinating programme, we would like to reach out for digital submissions for the JOMBA! Fringe 2020.”

Professional, experimental and up-coming choreographers, dancers and dance companies are invited to apply for participation on the JOMBA! Digital Fringe platform.

As JOMBA! is a contemporary dance festival, works that are located within the broad spectrum of contemporary dance will be considered, and preference will be given to South African and African submissions. 

For the JOMBA! Digital Fringe, works that are specifically conceived, and created for film and for a  digital platfom, and that develop interesting dynamics between dance and screen/digital/film disciplines will be considered.

A panel of experts (local and international) will adjudicate the works presented as part of the JOMBA! Digital Fringe, and our “Pick-of-the-Fringe” works will be announced publically.   

Application forms which outline all the submission criteria can be requested via e-mail from jombafestival@gmail.com with the subject line “Request for 2020 JOMBA fringe application form .

Applications close at 4pm on Friday 10 July 2020.

Flatfoot dance Company presents - Seeing Red

Media Release

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents BUSY SEEING RED

KZNSA GALLERY: 21 February 2020 @ 6.30pm

Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company celebrates its 17th anniversary this year as one of South Africa’s leading contemporary dance companies with a new dance theatre work, Busy Seeing Red at the KZNSA Gallery on Friday 21 February.

With an international touring reputation for excellence and a host of national awards under its belt, Flatfoot’s arrival at this momentous 17th mark is a testament to a dedicated team of dancers and administrators.

In keeping with its reputation of creating and performing edgy, controversial, beautiful and intelligent dance, Flatfoot partners with the KZNSA Gallery to offer a site responsive dance work that ask the audience to engage all the different space of the gallery. In a fluid display of exquisite technical training, Flatfoot’s 7 resident dancers dive heart first into the inner politics of ‘seeing red’. Asking questions that are on all of our lips as South Africans, Busy Seeing Red, negotiates the personal politics of anger. From exploring remembrances of colonial race and current gender violence, this dance theatre work offers a surprisingly gentle embodied encounter with dance that will leave audiences breathless.

Embracing a collaborative creative process of making this performance, the three senior Flatfoot dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama) have jointly collaborated in the choreography with Artistic Director of Flatfoot, Lliane Loots. “As a dance maker I am increasingly interested in the power of multiple voices to tell stories and what better way than to encourage the profound dance voices of the senior Flatfoot dancers to bring their vison to this work”, says Loots. She continues, “it is and has been a remarkable journey making this collaborative dance work and seeing what we share and where we differ as South Africans – I remain deeply humbled by the power of our dance/art to allow dialogue – especially at a time in history when there is so much rage and anger”. 

Also featured in Busy Seeing Red is Flatfoot junior company dancer, Mthoko Mkhwanazi stepping into his first professional choreographic role in the company. “Seeing this young Flatfoot dancer in the role of choreographer in this work is a testament to not only his own talent and drive, but to the nurturing role that Flatfoot had played in offering this space to our up and coming practitioners”, says Loots.

Dancing in Busy Seeing Red are; Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu, Ndumiso Dube, Siseko Duba, and Mthoko Mkhwanazi. Lighting and sound design by Wesley Maherry and Clare Craighead.

The Busy Seeing Red  will be performed at the KZNSA Gallery is on Friday 21 February at 6.30pm. Tickets cost R60 and seating is limited. Tickets can be pre-booked via flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com or on a first come first serve at the KZNSA Gallery on the night. Door sales and Gallery open from 5.30pm. The KZNSA restaurant and coffee bar will be open for pre/post show meal and drinks.

This dance work will travel onto the Hexagon Theatre in PMB in early May 2020.

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