The Indian Ocean and the Love Dance
photographic exhibition were the stunning backdrops for the Durban Dance Awards
2013 last weekend.
Presented by KZN DanceLink, the annual
awards were held this year at the Old Pump House at Dairy Beach, in association
with eThekwini Municipality’s Arts and Culture department and the opening of
acclaimed arts photographer Val Adamson’s retrospective dance photography
exhibition.
Said KZN DanceLink chairman Lynn Maree:
“KZN DanceLink wants to honour and acknowledge the ways in which our dancers
and choreographers are feeding this city and each other – be it by exploring
another dance style, finding a new way to move or to tell our stories, working
with music or interacting physically and spiritually with the space and the
people around them.”
The Dancer of the Year award went to Julia
Wilson of Flatfoot Dance Company for her “extraordinary growth in range and
depth, both as a technician and as a performer whose presence on stage is
totally compelling”. Although first and foremost a dancer, Wilson is an
all-rounder with interests in most aspects of the performing arts, including
design and production. She joined Flatfoot as a full time professional dancer
and dance educator last year, the same year she received the Breakthrough/Newcomer
award.
Choreographer of the Year went to Sifiso
Kweyama, for his work Ngichaze/Define
with Flatfoot Dance Company that moved and inspired all who watched as to how
dance can speak”. Kweyama is a highly respected and talented dance teacher,
lecturer, choreographer and leader in the South African dance community. His
interest in dance began in Durban dance while attending UKUSA Arts Project at
the University of KwaZulu-Natal and in 2004 he established his own Okhela Dance
Theatre.
The Breakthrough/Newcomer award went to
Leagan Peffer for her performances in worlds
apart. Peffer is an Mzanzi graduate from 2011 and is now a member of KZN
Dance Theatre based at the Playhouse.
A new award, The Ubuntu Award for Dance in
KZN, went to Jarryd Watson for his work with Dance Movement “for inspiring his
dancers to have confidence, humour, skill, timing and verve”.
“Dancing saved my life,” says this
award-winning hip-hop dancer. Growing up in Wentworth, a township south of
Durban, Watson had a choice between a career in dance or becoming a gang
member. He chose wisely and today is Chairman and Dance Director of the Wentworth
Arts and Culture Organisation. He has also worked as a hip-hop choreographer
and instructor for various dance companies across South Africa, including
Flatfoot Dance Company, Dance Movement and Maverick Events. He has danced in
Bollywood movies and in numerous corporate and entertainment events. In 2012 he
was part of the ensemble who danced in Liz Lea’s a free mind at The Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.
The final award, the Abalolongi Award for
services to dance in KwaZulu-Natal, went to Minette de Klerk, whose dance
academy has trained many young dancers. De Klerk moved to Durban when she was
12 and started ballet because an orthopaedic surgeon suggested, in her words,
“ballet would be a better option to strengthen her unfortunate legs and feet”.
Ballet was taught at her primary school, and so, age 5, she began. Her first
ballet teacher, Yvonne Ostermeyer, instilled in de Klerk her love of dance and
of performance.
“It is her love for children, her teaching
skills, and that love of dance and of performance, that has made her the
special person she is,” said Maree “Complete dedication and complete interest
in making things great for everyone: her dancers, her teachers, her fellow
lovers of dance: Minette selflessly gives and gives and gives.”
The ceremony was opened by acclaimed
storyteller and poet Gcina Mhlope, who also presented the awards.
Adamson’s Love Dance exhibition is open at the Pump House daily from 10h00 to
16h00 until August 11.
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