(Lorin Sookool, Jabu Siphika & Zinhle Nzama)
Dance that moves away from traditional
performance spaces to challenge its audience has always been of interest to
contemporary dance-makers. In the spirit of adventure and creating new ways in
which to interact and engage with audiences, this year the JOMBA! Contemporary
Dance Experience joins forces with the Durban Art Gallery to present a JOMBA! @
DAG a free public event tomorrow (Friday, September 7 at 18h00 at the Gallery
in Anton Lembede Road.)
This event brings together dance-makers and
fine artists in the unique site-responsive space of DAG. In keeping with the
Women’s Month DAG exhibition theme of “SHE” which has been curated by Jenny
Stretton, JOMBA! @DAG features work by Durban women dance-makers Lorin Sookool,
and Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama, Swiss choreographer and dancer Ioannis
Mandafounis, Malagasy Gaby Saranouffi who partners with South Africa’s Moeketsi
Koena and films by Spain’s Aïda Colmenero Dïaz.
Lorin Sookool, fast developing a reputation
for her iconic pop art, street funk and contemporary dance confluence, presents
The Moon and Her Bloom that looks at
the relationship between the sexual and the sacred. Jabu Siphika and Zinhle
Nzama collaborate on a dance performance installation called Locked that looks at contemporary black
(African) women’s lives that transect township, rural and urban living. The
work will feature three generations of women (mothers, children and gogos). It
is a very personal encounter with black women’s private and public selves and
the questions around identity that link into the ‘#metoo’ phenomenon.
Ioannis Mandafounis, once again shares his
unique vision of challenging audience/dancer relationships. His latest duet ONE-ONE-ONE offers the simple staging of
two parallel lines on the floor and two chairs, one on each line. The dancers
invade the public space and invite the audience into an unexpected experience
providing a witty and challenging dance work.
Malagasy Gaby Saranouffi partners with South
Africa’s Moeketsi Koena in a riveting duet CORPS/BODY
a collaboration between four artists from France, South Africa, Madagascar and
Mozambique that explores embodied links between the real and unreal through
photography, music and dance.
Dance films created by Spain’s Aïda
Colmenero Dïaz called SHE-POEMS are
short solo pieces of contemporary dance performed by creative African women
that Dïaz has encountered in her travels on the continent and are inspired by
poems written by women.
JOMBA! @DAG is free and there is a cash
bar.
Like on Facebook (JOMBA! Contemporary Dance
Experience) and follow on Twitter (Twitter@Jomba_dance).-