(JC
Zondi’s “Classi_filed” - Nandile Khumalo, JC Zondi, Londeka Zondi & Vuyo
Ndawonde)
The annual JOMBA! Contemporary Dance
Experience, hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative
Arts showcases a feast of dance from August 28 to September 9, 2018, at various
venues around the City.
One of the features of the festival, which
celebrates its 20th anniversary, is JOMBA! On The Edge, which aims to encourage
young dance-makers to create new work and to draw new creative young audiences
into the festival.
Three young professional local dance-makers
were awarded grants to premier new work on this platform tomorrow (Tuesday September
4) at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.
A major talent on the local dance landscape
and winner of the 2017 JOMBA! Pick of the Fringe award, JC Zondi, opens this
programme with Classi_filed - a
physical theatre piece that depicts the role clothing plays in our lives.
Zondi’s unique style of contact improvising and lyrical choreography is
intensified in this work.
(Kristi-Leigh
Gresse)
The gutsy Kristi-Leigh Gresse, having just
received a gold Fringe Ovations Award at the 2018 National Arts Festival for
her work Sullied, offers her newest
creation, Blank. In this work, she
follows her interrogations of the role of women in society. Her strong
technical prowess as a dancer is situated against stark and dangerous subject
matter that is making the dance community in South Africa sit up and notice.
Finally, Tshediso Kabulu who has opted to share this grant with fellow dancer Thami Majela in a joint creation called Imvelo. Imvelo is a Zulu word that translates to mean origin and/or tradition.
This work is a gentle and often intimate look at human relationships that journeys back to origins and beginnings. It question societal ‘truths’ that often get in the way of love and tenderness.
Of special note is that all three of these
choreographers have collaborated with JOMBA!’s visiting Chicago (USA) lighting
designer Julie Ballard who has shared
her technical skills with these three emerging choreographers in bringing their
work to the stage.
JOMBA! On The Edge takes place tomorrow (Tuesday,
September 4) at 19h30 at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.
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