JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Announces International Guests for 25th Edition

This year, the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience presented by the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) celebrates its 25th anniversary, offering dance fans a 13-day treat of world-class contemporary dance that will see both local and international dance makers converge on Durban from 29 August to 10 September.

Alongside the very best that South Africa has to offer JOMBA! will feature international guests from Mozambique, Switzerland, Netherlands, Madagascar, Uganda, Romania, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. This 25th edition offers not only a powerhouse of performances but workshops, residencies, talks, panel discussions, and virtual screen dance.

The theme for this year is “(in)tangible heritages”. Curator and Artistic Director, Dr Lliane Loots elaborates: “In curating this year’s festival, we have invited dance makers to reimagine their – and our – relationship with ideas of belonging and our varying (in)tangible heritages. The 25th JOMBA! is honouring artists who, through their work and their moving bodies, generate a new sense of belonging that questions who we are at this critical moment in our history”. 

Mozambique’s award-winning dancer/choreographer Pak Ndjamena

Mozambique’s award-winning dancer/choreographer Pak Ndjamena presents his arresting solo work, DEUS NOS ACUDI / GOD HELPS US, that interrogates contemporary African male identity and pulls no punches in its message. 

Thobi Maphanga in hannahmadance’s INVASION(S) (Germany)

Two dance companies from Germany will feature: Hannah Ma’s hannahmadance performs a work that links with South African performers Thobi Maphanga and Jabu Siphika.  INVASION(S) analyses the act of invasion as the act of violently entering a (political, physical, biological) territory from a feminist, and post-migrant perspective. Helge Letonja and his company Of Curious Nature – made up of artists from all over the world presents UN-ZEIT which creates hypnotic images where the perception of time seems to fray and dancing bodies search for support. 

Virva Talonen (Finland)

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY in Portable Home Project (Finland /SA)

With support from the Finnish Embassy (Pretoria), Virva Talonen presents a work in collaboration with Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY. Her Portable Home Project is a contemporary dance performance series that delves into a concept of home and its various definitions. The Portable Home Project is co-created by Finnish Lighting Designer Nanni Vapaavuori. 

ACE dance and music (UK)

Birmingham (UK) based ACE dance and music features in a spectacular double bill – UNKNOWN REALMS – with choreography by Burkina Faso’s Serge Aimé Coulibaly and South Africa’s Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe. Coulibaly’s THE NIGHT BEFORE TOMORROW is a metaphorical night where people try to do their last dance before an uncertain tomorrow. Mantsoe’s MANA – THE POWER WITHIN engages the sacred, ritualistic and shamanic. 

Ramanenjana (Romania/Madagascar)

JOMBA! partners again with Rerouting Arts at St Anne’s (Hilton) to share a collaboration between Romania and Madagascar. Ramanenjana is a docufiction performance about a dance that made history. The work examines dance’s societal role and how colonialism spread misconceptions about this extraordinary moment in history. Ramanenjana will also be performed for audiences in Durban. 

Unmute Dance Theatre (SA)

JOMBA! continues to open up access to work that makes visible intersections around dance and disability. JOMBA! 2023 DANCEABILITY FOCUS features dance-makers who are shifting global perceptions around disability: Joseph Tebandeke (Uganda), Unmute Dance Theatre (Cape Town, South Africa), and an inclusive programme from Introdans (Netherlands).

Joseph Tebandeke (Uganda)

Introdans (Netherlands)

In partnership with ASSITEJ, JOMBA! offers the new JOMBA! FOR YOUTH FOCUS aimed at younger audiences, to help grow youth audiences for dance.

Switzerland’s Joshua Monten’s GAME THEORY 

Artists from Switzerland and the Netherlands feature in a new JOMBA! programme that travels to schools and also offers public performances. Switzerland’s Joshua Monten, brings a delightful engrossing work called GAME THEORY that will travel to two schools. This work looks at some of the building blocks of play: freedom and rules. Dutch Dance company de Stilte, focuses on developing productions and performing for children. They bring FLYING COW choreographed by Jack Timmermans which is the story of two girls and a boy who embark on a stand-off, flying on the wings of their imagination.

FLYING COW choreographed by Jack Timmermans (Netherlands)

Other features of the 25th Anniversary festival include two major South African works, the JOMBA! Youth Open Horizons, JOMBA! ON THE EDGE, after performance talks, an engaging dialogue with dance-makers, the launch of the 25th-anniversary book, a series of free workshops and masterclasses, a lighting workshop, a screen dance residency, a dance writers residency, and a smaller curated festival at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg.

Tickets are R80 or R50 (students, scholars, pensioners) or R350 – once off FULL festival pass to see everything.

Booking through COMPUTICKET

For more information go to https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

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Creativity a high priority in Finland echoed in the collaboration of Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen with Flatfoot Dance Co

Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen has spent the last few weeks working with Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company in a collaboration entitled Portable Home which will be performed at The Courtyard Theatre at DUT, Durban on November 4 and 5.

Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen

According to Jonna Pukkila, Cultural Attaché from the Embassy of Finland (Pretoria), this is the fourth collaboration between Talonen and other dance companies, and the first with an African company. “High on the educational priority list is developing creativity and it’s interconnectedness with nature and this collaboration supports the country’s desire to extend its creative reach beyond the north,” she says.

“Culture has made Finland what it is today. Creativity is highly valued and each child is treated equally. All teachers in creative subjects have vocational degrees in arts. After basic education, creative studies continue in Finland’s top-class universities. Finnish Modern Dance is rooted and fresh at the same time. Even though contemporary dance is a relatively young art form in Finland, it is developing and growing all the time internationally.”

“Finland has reinvented itself in just one short century – and is still at it,” continues Pukkila. “The mindset that drove to build a new society is still hardwired into Finns – and it continues to drive Finland forward today. The Arctic climate gave us guts – or ‘sisu’ as we call it. A lot of Finnish inspiration comes from Finns unique relationship with nature. The only thing we have a lot of is trees and water. People, not so much. That’s why we believe in equality and take good care of each other – and know the value of doing things together. Virva in her work exercises exactly this. A great way for a Finn to express feeling is by actions and movements rather than words.”

Flatfoot Dance Company in rehearsal for Portable Home.

Portable Home is a long-standing project of Virva’s and an extension of her work done in Finland, Palestine and Japan which delves into concepts around home and its various definitions.

The work can be seen at The Courtyard Theatre on 4 November @ 7pm, and on 5 November at 2.30pm and 7pm.

Bookings are via Clarec1@dut.ac.za and go for R80 (students and scholars @ R50).

Please note that limited ticket available for 4 November @ 7pm.

For more information on Virva Talonen: www.virvatalonen.com

More information on Finnish Dance https://www.danceinfo.fi/en/

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Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen works with Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY

Portable Home, a global dance project by Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen comes to Durban, South Africa! The project has already been presented in various artistic versions in three countries. For its 4th instalment and first in Africa, Talonen has collaborated with Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company. Portable Home will be showcased atThe Courtyard Theatre for three performances only on November 4 and 5.

Virva Talonen

In a bold move to support cultural collaboration and partnership between Finland and South Africa, the Finnish Embassy in Pretoria, with support from Dance Info Finland, offered an open call to South African dancers and dance companies to apply to work with - and host - Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen. The call process was efficiently facilitated by South African Dance Arts Alliance (SADA). After a slew of applications and interviews, Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY was finally selected and, according to Flatfoot Dance Company’s Artistic Director Lliane Loots, “it has been a love project from day one!”

In her artistic dance work, Virva often focuses on the contradiction between the fragility and strength of the human self, and her free flowing and grounded dance technique is both deeply meditative and deeply mesmerising in its fluid power. Loots says that “it has been such an enormous pleasure and learning curve hosting and working with Virva these past few weeks. Her quiet dedication and very focused clear methodology of working has won over the six resident FLATFOOT dancers – I am really looking forward to seeing the final outcome of this extraordinary dance exchange!”

Virva is working on her long-standing project Portable Home with FLATFOOT in continuation of work done in Finland, Palestine and Japan. Portable Home is a contemporary dance project which delves into concepts around home and its various definitions. Home can be a practical or a concrete place, but it can also refer to a state of mind or a bodily sensation. Most often the definition of home is in constant flux. The Portable Home project, which embraces all these open ideas of home, is co-created by Virva Talonen and Finnish lighting designer Nanni Vapaavuori. During the years 2016 - 2018, the Portable Home project visited in Japan, Palestine and Finland. In every country Virva and Nanni presented Portable Home, they have worked together with local artists on the theme of home to create a localised dance performance. Portable Home is now visiting Durban and South Africa where Virva is collaborating with the dancers of FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY; Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu. Siseko Duba and Ndumiso ‘Digga’ Dube.

Flatfoot Dance Company

Working off improvisation and dance interactions that eventually get structured into some incredible and soulful dance work, Virva’s South African leg of her Portable Homequartet will be on show at The Courtyard Theatre on 4 November @ 7pm, and on 5 November at 2.30pm and 7pm. 

Bookings are via Clarec1@dut.ac.za and go for R80 (students and scholars @ R50). 

Please note that limited ticket available for 4 November @ 7pm. 

For more information on Virva Talonen: www.virvatalonen.com

More information on Finnish Dance https://www.danceinfo.fi/en/

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