Choreographer BreeH Cele’s work “uXinzelelo” wins Pick of the JOMBA! Live Open Horizons Platform

In the first time since COVID hit the globe in 2019, JOMBA’s popular Live Open Horizons made its way back live into the theatre to an appreciative audience, with Pietermaritzburg Choreographer BreeH Cele’s work uXinzelelo taking the honours receiving the “Pick of the Platform” award last night (29 August).

BreeH Cele (2nd from left) receiving the Pick of the Platform Award from Tammy Ballatyne (left) Jabu Siphika and Yaseen Manuel (Right) - Pic by Val Adamson

Jurors for the Open Horizons were dancer/choreographers Yaseen Manuel (Unmute Dane Company) and Jabu Siphika (FLATFOOT Dance Company) and dance writer and researcher Tammy Ballantyne.

uXinzelelo by BreeH Cele- Pic by Val Adamson

The jurors' citation read: “The Pick of the Platform was “uXinzelelo”, choreographed by BreeH Cele, with a carefully conceptualised work encompassing the weight of unique struggles faced by the black community when it comes to mental health concerns. Cele wove magic through the use of powerful, live vocals, strong voiceovers, evocative lighting choices, and disciplined, focussed performers. The stage was covered in white maize meal, which the performers became caked in as the strong choreography unfolded, with good use of the floor and imaginative partnering. At times, there was a sense of call and response between singers and dancers, as well as clever changes in pace and rhythm. An impressive work by a young woman who is using this research as part of her Master's studies.”

uXinzelelo  was performed by Nandile Khumalo, Sabelo Cele, Asanda S. Khathi, BreeH Cele, Slindile Mthethwa, Thulisile Sithebe, S'khona Mathenjwa, Pertunia Msani, Neo Dube and Nomthandazo Nxabela.

Accepting the award, which carries a small cash honorarium, BreeH Cele, said that she is looking to use it to further develop a short film on the work.

Inescapable, choreographed and performed by Siphesihle Vilakazi and Anneline Mazibuko- Pic by Val Adamson

Other works included Inescapable, choreographed and performed by Siphesihle Vilakazi and Anneline Mazibuko, from Durban, SA; SACRIFICIUM choreographed by Versatile Youth Company’  Thimna Sitokisi from Gugulethu, SA, and performed by Inam Dyonasi; Ndimphiwe Koloti; Sandile Dyushu; Buntu Anta and Simthembile Mampufo, and Giselle and me choreographed and performed by Sarahleigh Castelyn (SA/UK) .

SACRIFICIUM choreographed by Versatile Youth Company’  Thimna Sitokisi - Pic by Val Adamson

The jurors noted the common threads binding the four works on this platform – the deep, inner struggles with mental health and emotional trauma. All four found inventive ways to communicate their stories through well-rehearsed and conceived works, with attention to effective lighting and a variety of choreographic choices.

Giselle and me choreographed and performed by Sarahleigh Castelyn (SA/UK) - Pic by Val Adamson

JOMBA! continues until 8 September with performances workshops and discussions.

For more info go to jomba.ukzn.ac.za

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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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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.

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 ACCESS FESTIVAL 2023 – a Feast of Dance for All Abilities

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY in partnership with Stable Theatre presents its second annual edition of the FLATFOOT ACCESS FESTIVAL offering a week-long engagement (workshops, panel discussions, and performances) from 28 November to 3 December during South Africa’s National Disability Rights Awareness Month (3 November - 3 December).

The festival celebrates FLATFOOT’s 20-year history of encountering disability through dance education and development work, and more recently in their professional development work. 

“The journey toward access and training for dancers living with both intellectual and physical disabilities lies at the heart of FLATFOOT, and this small ever-growing festival,” says FLATFOOT’s Artistic Director Lliane Loots. “It is a wonderful moment of celebrating not just the incredible dancers, dance makers, and choreographers, but of the truly transformative power of dance to bind society together.”

FLATFOOT Downie Company

New works from the 7-year-old integrated dance programme working with dancers with Down Syndrome who fondly call themselves the “FLATFOOT Downie Dance Company", will be performed. The company also performed at the inaugural SIBIKWA BODY MOVES festival in Benoni, Gauteng in 2022. For this festival they will perform alongside FLATFOOT in a new work called “now that we are here …” created by Lliane Loots in collaboration with all the dancers.

FLATFOOT Access Panthers

With the success and growth of the FLATFOOT Downie Dance programme, FLATFOOT set out (in the beginning of 2023) to start a new intake of dancers and training. After a series of workshops, and not excluding anyone, a group of six amazing dancers stuck it out and the group - now referred to as the “FLATFOOT ACCESS PANTHERS” – was born. The group was named by Kelly Louw – one of the participants. This will be their first public performance – and together and alongside the FLATFOOT company, they will perform a work called “finding home”.

Julia Pitt with FLATFOOT Dance Company

Loots’s ongoing work with dancers using wheelchairs is showcased in a special trio created for dancer Julia Pitt alongside FLATFOOT’s Jabu Siphika and Ndumiso ‘Digga” Dube. “This new work is called “the infinite space between us”, and is a journey taken by three dancers that delves into how we hold, walk and wheel past or towards one another as we attempt to find or break connections,” explains Loots. Loots’s on-going choreographic interrogations into the intimate politics of relationships, are given a unique spin as the dancers play around with duet, trio, solo formats – and a wheelchair.

WACO’s Dance Movember

The FLATFOOT ACCESS FESTIVAL also hosts two special guests: dancers from WACO’s DANCE MOVEMENT under the choreographic guidance of Jarryd Watson. DANCE MOVEMENT is a dance project that was created in 2007 to give access to children and youth, artists, dancers, choreographers, and people living with disabilities to dance training and skills development especially based in the South Durban area of Wentworth. They perform a special work called “Medicine” with choreography by Watson and featuring dancers Kyle Bowles, Bheki Khotsolo, and Cole Walljee.

Jurg Koch

The second special guest is Jürg Koch from Switzerland. Jürg has been working internationally as a performer, choreographer, and dance educator for over 20 years. He received his MA from the London Contemporary Dance School (1998) and, significantly, worked with Candoco Dance Company. His dance integrates disabled and non-disabled performers and this informs his artistic and educational approach. 

Jürg will run a series of workshops titled “in response to …” over three days of the festival (28 – 30 November). Sixteen eThekwini dancers will work on dance and access “in response to...”. The outcome of the workshop will have a staged viewing on Thursday 30 November at 2.30pm at The Stable Theatre and will be followed by a panel discussion with Jürg Koch, Lliane Loots, Jarryd Watson, and all the dancers from the workshops. The panel will discuss, amongst other issues, the working process used by Jürg and will offer space for participants to speak about their dance experience over the three days, all the while celebrating the rich diversity of disability dance work being done in Durban. Attendance at this viewing and panel discussion is free.

Finally, Jürg offers a small deeply personal performance from his own “The Printer’s Tray”. On the one hand, a printer’s tray is a sorting box, divided into a number of compartments to store movable type for printing. On the other hand, printer trays are used to store and display keepsakes and souvenirs; they are placeholders for memories and stories. For each event or performance, several pieces from Jürg’s collection are selected and presented as a linked set, at times with the possibility for the audience to choose the music for the performance of a particular piece.

FLATFOOT Dance Company

The Festival has been made possible through the partnership with the eThekwini Municipality’s Stable Theatre, with support funding from PESP 4, the National Arts Council and the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. The Festival also acknowledges the URKI funded African Disability Dance Network (ADDN) and how they have supported and encouraged disability and access dance work in South Africa and on the African continent.

Performances and workshops take place at The Stable Theatre 115 Johannes Nkosi (formerly Alice Street) Durban and take place on Saturday 2 December at 6.30pm, and repeated on Sunday 3 December at 2.30pm. Tickets are R80. The Stable Theatre is wheelchair friendly and there is safe parking on site. Bookings are through Computicket : 

https://computicket-boxoffice.com/e/flatfoot-access-festival-3-dec-2023-8RIGkr

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KwaMashu School of Dance Theatre performs at Green Corridors’ Green Hub as part of the Global Water Dance Festival 10 June

KwaMashu School of Dance Theatre will perform at the Green Corridors’ Green Hub near Durban’s Blue Lagoon on Saturday 10 June at 2pm as part of the Global Water Dance Festival, during World Oceans Week.

The 150 children from Durban and surrounding areas will perform a work called Waiting for Water as part of a global experience with other communities worldwide who will be participating in the Global Water Dance Festival.

The event is free and audiences are invited to bring their camp chairs or blankets and enjoy a picnic while joining communities in 180 worldwide locations in this international initiative to promote water and environment protection. 

Director of the KwaMashu School of Dance Theatre, Vusi Makhanya elaborates on the event: “The community of Durban is suffering from water cut-offs from time to time due to water loss, we wait for water for hours in long queues. Our work is called “Waiting for water” and is a Site-Specific Performance that highlights water conversation, safe water, and clean water for all.”

“We would love to see Durbanites out in full force,” says Makhanya. “Participants and audiences of all ages are invited to learn some dance choreography that’s being taught around the globe and will feature as our grand finale of the day.”

Green Corridors will have representatives at the event to talk about environmental issues Durban citizens face and how this relates to water, and the urgent need to put interventions in place to preserve and conserve our water resources.

The Dance Theatre is funded by Tänzer ohne Grenzen e.V. (Dancers Without Boarders) in German with partners and collaborators are Global Water Dance Creatives, LABAN/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, LIMS in New York, with endorsements from the Green Corridors and it’s Green Hub and the eThekwini Municipality’s Parks, Recreation & Cemeteries, Arts and Living Cultures and associates are ASSITEJ Theatre for Youth's Social Empowerment Fund Project (SEF).

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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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JOMBA! Masihambisane Dialogues #2 - free online Colloquium for dance-makers, dancers, researchers and academics

MEDIA RELEASE

JOMBA! Masihambisane Dialogues #2 - free online Colloquium for dance-makers, dancers, researchers and academics

The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, and the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience presents their second annual edition of the JOMBA! MASIHAMBISANE DIALOGUES #2 a free three-day online dance colloquium on YouTube which runs from 25 to 27 May 2022. 

Aiming to support the growth of scholarship and dialogue as it affects the evolving development of dance, physical performance and its relationship to history, memory and our current society, these 2022 dialogues take the theme of “Dancing Archives”. 

“The purpose of these dialogues is to stimulate robust discussions and debates over ideas of how embodied dance archivists (artists, scholars and curators) can be agents of change in how they create and think about an archive,” explains Dr Lliane Loots, a lecturer at UKZN and the Chair of the Colloquium Steering Committee. “We want to look at how and what is remembered, and  this specifically in decentring capitalist, heteronormative, able-bodied patriarchy within the frames of, amongst other ideas, decoloniality and postcoloniality.”

Keynote speakers include Nadine Mackenzie from Unmute Dance Company, and she is joined, over the three days of the colloquium, by artists like Gregory Maqoma, Sonia Radebe, David April and Vincent Mantsoe. Continental voices, specifically looking at the role of dance festivals in re-making African archives, include Quito Tembe (Mozambique) and Adedayo Liadi (Nigeria).

The dialogues also welcome a range of local and international young and established dance and performance scholars who will be sharing their works and ideas on this digital platform in carefully curated sessions. The final outcome of the dialogues will be an edited collection of papers (both written and digital) that will freely be available in the JOMBA! MASIHMABISANE archives to read and watch.

The international editorial and steering committee include Dr Mbongeni Mtshali (UCT), Prof Yvette Hutchison (University of Warwick, UK), Clare Craighead (DUT), Dr Sarahlegh Castelyn (University of East London, UK), Dr Lliane Loots (UKZN), Gift Marovatsanga (UniZul), David April (UP) and Thobile Maphanga (UKZN).

The JOMBA! MASIHAMBISANE 2022 DIALOGUES will be live-streamed on 25, 26 and 27 May to the JOMBA! YouTube Chanel and can be accessed free of charge: https://www.youtube.com/jomba_dance

There will also be a closed ZOOM IP for direct participants and for those who wish to apply to join and be present in the DIALOGUES room. To apply for direct access and to be present in the digital ‘room’ please contact Thobile Maphanga on thobimaphanga@gmail.com

Please also access the full three-day programme via:  https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/masihambisane-dialogues/ 

ends.

UKZN’s CCA & JOMBA! presents JOMBA! 2021 Masihambisane Dialogues

The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts and the

JOMBA! CONTEMPORARY DANCE EXPERIENCE presents

JOMBA! 2021 Masihambisane Dialogues

2 – 4 June 2021

An open three-day dance colloquium hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts and the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival with support funding from the NIHSS, on Youtube, will focus on new ways of engaging dance/performance scholarship, practice, and practice-led research in innovative, provocative and interesting ways from 2 to 4 June 2021.

JOMBA! Masihambisane Dialogues aims to support South African and African (and Diaspora) dance and performance scholarship and research in an accessible and community-driven manner. An international community of dance/performance scholars have curated what promises to be an engaging dialogue around dance.

This year’s curatorial committee include Mr. David Thatanelo April - University of Pretoria (SA), Ms. Clare Craighead - Durban University of Technology (SA), Mr. Gift Marovatsanga - University of Zululand (SA), Dr. Lliane Loots - University of KwaZulu-Natal CCA (SA) [chair and organiser], Dr. Sarahleigh Castelyn - University of East London (UK), Ms. Thobile Maphanga - Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN - SA)[postgraduate student representative and colloquium administrator] and Dr. Yvette Hutchison - Warwick University (UK).

Keynote speakers include award-winning and prolific South African choreographers Boyzie Cekwana, Nelisiwe Xaba and PJ Sabbagha. Sessions includes prepared papers as well as conversations, a workshop and performances. 

A panel entitled BOXED and Its Inspirations for the Future, based on Dr. Anita Ratnam (Chennai, India) 2020 work Boxed, which was created during COVID and has become a template of how an existing crisis can inspire original dance art. Panelists include  Dr. Ratnam, Producer/Presenter, Chitra Sundaram, Series Consultant .

Choreographing violence and intimacies: exploring choreography, screendance and scenography as artistic mediums for choreographing intimacies through a performance lecture titled In the shadow of his fist, is the paper to be presented by Kamogelo Molobye, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, SA

Tammy Ballantyne Webber (Johannesburg, SA), Ntshadi Mofokeng (Johannesburg, SA), Thobile Maphanga (Durban, SA); with contribution from Kivithra Naicker (Seoul/Durban, KOREA/SA) join a conversation around “the role of the dance writer as dance goes digital”.

Dr. Sarahleigh Castelyn, University of East London, United Kingdom presents a paper entitled Intimacy as a Political Act: Contemporary Dance in South Africa 

[DE]TACH presented by Lucky Karabo Moeketsi (Gauteng, SA), explores the environmental habits that became a Black society’s norm against the spectre of the COVID pandemic and the required social distancing.

Hannah Ma (Luxembourg, Germany)  presents Why intimacy is the sphere where embodiment and integration becomes evident in the evolution of humankind in a globalised, capitalist world with contributions by respondents Nai Ni Chen (New Jersey, USA) and Nora Amin (Cairo, Egypt).

Digital Dance and domesticity: the work of female East African choreographers in a time of COVID is the paper presented by Charlie Ely (University of Leeds, UK) which looks at how the new realities of the pandemic have shaped the work of female East African choreographers, including Diana Gaya, Catherine Nakawesa and Pili Maguzo.

Mlondiwethu Dubazane (Cape Town, SA) and Nomcebisi Moyikwa (Durban, SA - University of KwaZulu-Natal) present Language is a breathable place: “that words must get out of the way for something else to come through’’ (Klonaris, 2011) in which they re-think ideas around language and the embodied self.

A workshop and paper entitled ‘When I slam my body into a wall, I know that it’s there’ authored and facilitated by  Kristina Johnstone (University of Pretoria & WITS, Gauteng, SA) reflects on the facilitation of embodied practice in a virtual space of teaching, learning and creation, specifically looking at ways of facilitating touch and the importance of creating moments of synchronicity (shared time). 

JC Zondi (China/South Africa) and Simphiwe "Fiddy" Ngcobo (Durban, SA) present Performing Uncertainties which open discussion around the relationship of film to dance making and, significantly the role of the audience/viewer in all of this.

Lorin Sookool (Cape Town, SA) in conversation with Thobile Maphanga (Durban, SA) speaks around her experience of creating her work Prayer Room (2020). She will discuss the processes and possibilities of engagement in art making during the times of COVID-19 in a session titled De-Snubbing the ‘Jack of All Trades’.

The full programme can be accessed on this link:  http://bit.ly/JombaColloquiumProgramme

It will be livestreamed to the JOMBA! YouTube Chanel and can be accessed free of charge on www.YouTube.com/Jomba_Dance  

The Dialogues will also have a closed ZOOM link for direct participants and for those who wish to apply to join and be present in the “room”.  Access to this is limited and participants need to apply to Thobile Maphanga on thobimaphanga@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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FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents BUSY SEEING RED KZNSA GALLERY 21 Feb 2020

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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Maritzburg Dance-Makers honoured with 2019 JOMBA! Eric Shabalala Dance Champion Award

Media Release

Maritzburg Dance-Makers honoured with 2019 JOMBA! Eric Shabalala Dance Champion Award

The 2019 JOMBA! Eric Shabalala Dance Champion Award, in honour of the memory of Eric Mshengu Shabalala who tragically passed away in 2011, was given to two Pietermaritzburg dance-makers Bonwa Mbontsi and Tegan Peacock, at the 21st JOMBA!Contemporary Dance Experience on 5 September.

Speaking at the award hand-over, Artistc Director of JOMBA! Lliane Loots said, “ The award is given not only in recognitions of performance or choreographic excellence, but also more profoundly and more importantly, it is given in recognition of dance practitioners who have worked tirelessly to help grow a culture of dance and dance training in KwaZulu-Natal – who have supported the growth of dance as an art form at both community and regional level.”

“This year the award is being given to two incredible dance champions. These amazing individuals work have spent dedicated years of there still young lives being part of an incredible re-surgence and re-growth of dance in Maritzburg, being a powerful nexus for contemporary dance in KZN. Most significantly that have not done this only in their own work, but have found a way to create a bigger sense of community and of sharing spaces and resources to grow dance – this is what this award is honouring.”

Bonwa is a graduate of UKZN, Pietermaritzburg, where he obtained a BA degree in Psychology and Drama & Performance Studies, with a specific focus on dance performance and choreography. He has worked with choreographers and dancers, PJ Sabbagha, Fana Tshabalala, Shanell Winlock and Craig Morris, taught at Maritzburg College for four years and co-founded ReRouted Dance Theatre.

Specifically to the award, he runs an outreach youth development work in Pietermaritzburg and Melmoth in association with J.A.W. (Justice and Women). In 2018 he founded the Bonwa Dance Company, which has strong outreach and dance development programme called the Super Troupers that prides itself on its integrative approach to dance education, performance opportunities and youth empowerment.

Tegan started her dance training in Classical Ballet and a BMus (dance) degree at the UCT’s School of Dance. In 2013 she relocated to Pietermaritzburg where she helped to co-found contemporary dance company, ReRouted Dance Theatre. Both individually and with her collaborators, they have choreographed and performed on numerous arts platforms around the country, , and won a 2016 Standard Bank Ovation Award at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival for BIRD/FISH.

Tegan conceptualised and held the first ReRouting Arts Festival in Pietermaritzburg this year. The festival is a site-specific multi-disciplinary arts festival that uses alternate public spaces around the city. The festival aims to create unique audience experiences, build bridges and create dialogue between different socio-economic and cultural demographics while promoting a culture of art and dance within the city. “It is this phenomenal and courageous act of opening this PMB festival space for dance and dancers is what we honour,” said Loots.

In accepting the award Bonwa Mbontsi said, “It's a blessing and an honour to receive this prestigious award, I'm so proud to be standing on the shoulders of giants like brother Eric Tshabalala. In the (outreach) work (I do) I have found how powerful dance can be in creating personal change in these in these young individuals’ lives. Through time and through the ages, great thinkers have urged us to dance creatively through life…I appeal to everyone in this challenging time of change to dance together (to find solutions to these challenges and provide an antidote for some our social ills).”

Tegan said, “I would like to thank Jomba, the Centre for Creative Arts, Lliane (Loots) and the organising committee for the honour and recognition you bestow upon us this evening. Your unwavering support of dance and local artists is unprecedented and truly valued in KwaZulu-Natal.  I am in awe of the work that you do and grateful for the privilege of learning and growing under your watchful gaze. I believe that the evolution and sustainability of dance will come from the creation and growth of community more than that of individuals working in isolation. As such, Jomba and similar spaces, along with the varied dance work that is taking place, are critically important in developing a culture of art within the city and its people.”

-ends

Notes from Lliane Loots Speech:

In selecting recipients, the Jomba! committee look for those gifted individuals who have gone above and beyond – often without funding – to dedicate themselves to the cultural industry and to put KZN dancers and dance on the national and international map. We are also mindful of KZN dance practitioners who have supported the Centre for Creative Arts and the JOMBA! platforms by taking advantage of the free workshops and for tirelessly bringing work to the Youth Fringe and the JOMBA! Fringe platforms. This too is an indication to us of a desire to grow dance.

Past recipients of this prestigious award include Jarryd Watson for his work with the Wentworth Dance Movement, Sifiso Khumalo for his dedicated work in growing the Flatfoot Dance Company’s dance education and development programmes. In 2013, the award was given jointly to Byron ‘Bizzo’ Tifflin and Preston ‘Kayzo’ Kyd - two dancers who still continue to grow a community of dancers. In 2014 the award was jointly given to Jabu Siphika, Julia Wilson and Zinhle Nzama. They are especially honoured for the dance development work they are doing though FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY with young girls and women in KZN and with using dance to address a society fraught with difficult gender politics that often makes the lives of young women so challenging. In 2015 the award was given to the inimitable Ntombi Gasa of Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre for a lifetime of growing dance in this province through her teaching, choreography and dance administrations. 2016, 17 and 18 saw three of KZN most amazing dance practitioners honoured; Musa Hlatshwayo, S’fiso Magesh Ngcobo and Mduduzi Mtshali.