DANCE AT NAF

Contemporary dance has a much bigger footprint at this year’s National Arts Festival, with a programme richly textured by a number of international influences, and Re-Fresh – a space for young, cutting-edge choreographers to show their creative mettle.

Inspired by Andre Carl van der Merwe’s novel Moffie, Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance, Bailey Snyman has created a dance play that will explore and expose the fears, anxieties and overwhelming sense of denial of gay people in the military. Delving into both historical and contemporary understandings of homosexuality and the armed forces, he considers universal struggles of the body politic.

South African choreographer Vincent Mantsoe is equally at home in both South Africa and Paris. His recent Dance Umbrella success Opera for Fools is framed by the complex nature of the shebeen-lifestyle, exploring what makes people enjoy their daily lives and enables them to forgive, but not forget. Orchestrated around some of the most dramatic moments of the seventies and eighties, the piece is created to the music of iconic South Africans such as Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Johnny Clegg, Sello ‘Chicco” Twala, and Stimela.

French choreographers Mathilde Monnier and Jean-François Duroure created their duo, Pudique Acide in New York. This is presented in a double bill with a second work, Extasis, which picks up the thread of the first and intensifies the data, giving insight into their wild invention.

!Aïa is a transversal work between art, culture, science and traditional wisdom created by the internationally renowned Taliipot Theatre company from Reunion. The result of this performative dialogue about our origins, life, and the relationship between human beings and nature is a kind of organic theatrical opera which transcends narration.

Researched across three cities: Barcelona, Berlin and Johannesburg; Inter.Fear is an artistic co-production between South African Athena Mazarakis and Spaniard Hansel Nezza. Weaving together raw physicality with evocative stage design and cutting edge interactive digital art, they create an immersive theatrical encounter that delves into that most basic, common and essential human emotion: fear, exploring its constant and insidious presence in our contemporary lives.

Cindy van Acker has made Switzerland her home, but boasts an international career that has seen her work staged at some of the world’s leading choreographic festivals. Trained in classical ballet, her two solos, Lanx and Obtus examine the connections between body and spirit, sound and rhythm with almost scientific precision.

Cape Town City Ballet presents Giselle – a delightfully dramatic ballet which tells the story of a girl whose ghost protects her lover from the vengeance of a group of evil female spirits who, jilted before their wedding day, rise from their graves at night and seek revenge upon men by dancing them to death. Performances will be accompanied by the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra.

Rhythms of the Eastern Cape, produced by the Eastern Cape Department of Sports, Recreation, Arts & Culture, highlights the vibrancy of the sub-tribes of the Eastern Cape: amaBhaca, abaThembu, amaKhoisan, abeSuthu and amaMpondo. Drawn from the various districts of the province, the programme reflects the provincial government’s commitment to act as a custodian of preserving and promoting indigenous knowledge systems and indigenous culture. The repertoire includes songs of working, initiation, prayer, rain, celebration, drinking and lullabies.

The 38th National Arts Festival runs from June 28 to July 8 in Grahamstown this year.

Bookings for this year’s “11 Days of Amaz!ng” open in May through Computicket. Booking kits will be available from selected Standard Bank branches, selected Exclusive Books and Computicket branches from May. For more information on the programme, accommodation and travel options visit www.nationalartsfestival.co.za (or click on the banner advert at the top of this page). Also join the National Arts Festival group on Facebook for all the latest news, or follow us on Twitter.

The National Arts Festival is sponsored by Standard Bank, The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, The Eastern Cape Government, The National Arts Council, City Press and M Net.