Monday, September 3, 2018

JOMBA! ON THE EDGE


(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.
 
  (Thami Majela & Tshediso Kabulu)

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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