Durban - After two years of online offerings, Durban’s Jomba contemporary dance experience is back in person, offering exhilarating new performances from top dancers and choreographers from South Africa and around the world.
Hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts , the festival takes place from August 30 to September 11. It also sees the reopening of the Elizabeth Sneddon theatre.
Artists hail from Mozambique, Switzerland, Reunion, India, and the best dancers South Africa has to offer. The festival offers a array of performances, workshops, after-performance Q&A’s, panel discussions, virtual screen dance, and the JOMBA! Youth dance platform that supports the growth of Durban’s young dance communities.
Three new works by local choreographers and dancers, Sandile Mkhize, Tegan Peacock, and Pavishen Paideya will premiere at the festival.
“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 artistic director Liane Loots.
They will present their work on September 2 at 7pm and September 3 at 2.30pm.
Co-founder and artistic director of the Phakama Dance Theatre, Sandile Mkhize will premiere Take Me Back Home, a duet that rethinks notions of black masculinity and brotherhood. He takes us on a journey of what home means for the body – a place of self-discovery and self-interrogation.
Pavishen Paideya, accomplished dancer and choreographer and artistic director of Indian dance company Rudra Dance Theatre, presents Samsara – a culturally authentic dance journey into diaspora Indian South African identity and about home and belonging.
Performance artist and founder of Rerouting Arts, a collaborative arts organisation, Tegan Peacock presents 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.
In addition, three free contemporary dance masterclasses will be held.
- August 31 August from 4pm - 5.30pm: Nelisiwe Xaba (SA) and Marie-Caroline Hominal (Switzerland) will experiment with movements based on their work Hominal/Xaba which opens the festival and also share their artistic practices.
- September 7 from 4pm - 5.30pm: Edna Jaime (Mozambique) will focus on improvisation techniques and the use of emotional energies to find movements and rhythmic coordination, heavily influenced by the traditional dances of Mozambique.
- September 10 from 10am - 11.30am: Vincent Mantsoe (SA/France) offers a masterclass on his technique of GOBA – the bend, to be grounded and to plié. The technique is based on the control of the movement, energy and the use of breath within movement. This articulation is based on the traditional forms from Zulu, Pedi, Sotho and Xhosa styles and forms which have been translated by Mantsoe and have evolved over time and within his dance work. This masterclass is not for beginners.
The workshops are for dancers over 16 years old and booking is essential via Thobi Maphanga on [email protected]. All workshops will take place at Studio 410 at The Playhouse.
Live performances take place at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre and the Stable Theatre, as well as online events. Tickets for Sneddon performances are R80, R65 for students, scholars and pensioners from Computicket. Other events are free.
For the full programme visit the JOMBA! website at https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/
The Independent on Saturday