24th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience -ends September 11, 2022, at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre & Online
There are six days left of the 24th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, and time to catch top dance-makers from SA, Mozambique and France live on stage at Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre and online until September 11.
“This is our first physical event since 2019, and we have enjoyed relatively good support as people have started to venture out from behind their COVID-based online lives,” says JOMBA! artistic director, Dr Lliane Loots. “So we are looking forward to growing our audiences back up again, and it is encouraging to see the warm reception artists have received and the developing re-interest in going out to live performances.”
This 24th edition has offered a range of performances, workshops, panel discussions, virtual screen dance and a delightful JOMBA! youth dance platform.
Still left to catch until Sunday September 11 are:
Edna Jaime
(Mozambique) & Fana Tshabalala (SA)
The inimitable Mozambican dancer and choreographer Edna Jaime performs her remarkable solo Um Segundo (One Second). Set against the ‘stay home’ of the pandemic, this solo is about a strong sassy woman fighting to rise off the floor and be seen and heard. Edna is here courtesy of the Goethe-Institut South Africa.
(Right: Fana Tshabalala. Photo by Val Adamson)
Fana Tshabalala, the 2019 JOMBA! Mellon Artist in Residence, premiers his latest solo work Zann that he began creating as part of the 2019 residency. In what we feel is a full circle for both Fana and JOMBA!, audiences can look out for Zann, a deeply moving solo exploration into unstable states that look at delusions of freedom in a world of change
Thursday 8 September at 19h00: Mamela Nyamza (SA) - Sneddon Theatre
The deeply-interrogated
and thoughtful Mamela Nyamza offers her newest work GROUNDED performed
with her son Amkele Mandla. She offers a look into her South Africa where
democracy superficially seems to be in a working condition, but actually has
small cracks not easy to see. Nyamza looks at these cracks and asks where and
when they started.
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Friday 9 September at 7pm and Saturday 10 September at 14h30: Vincent Mantsoe (France /SA) & Flatfoot Dance Company – Sneddon Theatre
Vincent Sekwati
Mantsoe, the 2022 JOMBA! Legacy Artist, will perform his new solo work KOMA
that looks at layers of the passages of time through a symphony of rhythms and
African rites that speak to very contemporary ideas of the need for sacrificial
changes if we are to shift both ourselves and humanity
Mantsoe will showcase his ongoing two year process (2021 and 2022) of working with Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY and the long journey to making CUT (part 2) – that premiers at the festival. In setting out to share his technique with FLATFOOT, Mantsoe took the company of seven dancers through his training system of GOBA and has made a live performance that sits next to his short film. Also dealing with the shift between an individual and collective sense of self set off by the pandemic, CUT (part 2) is a journey to finding our humanity again.
(Right: Vincent Mantsoe (left) with Sifiso Khumalo in FLATFOOT collaboration)
Sunday 11 September at 14h30: Virtual JOMBA! Online Conversation with Simon Senn (Switzerland) and Rohee Oberoi Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts (Bangalore, India) (Free)
By documenting
movements through motion capture technology and exploring the data with real
time game engine software, dancers and collaborators Senn and Oberoi wander in
the abyss of questions and issues raised by those new technology tools. For any
interested in New Technologies and its relationship to dance, this will be a
fascinating conversation between continents!
There are still free virtual offerings in the JOMBA! Open Horizons and African Digital Voices which can be seen until September 11 on the festival’s Youtube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/Jomba_Dance
JOMBA! Khuluma daily blog gives insights into the work at the fest in the form of reviews and interviews - written in both English and isiZulu. Check the blog:
JOMBA! Khuluma Blog:
https://jombafestival.medium.com
Tickets for Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre performances are R80 (R65 students, scholars and pensioners). Booking is through Computicket.
JOMBA! is one of the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts annual festivals. For more information on the JOMBA programme and other festivals, click on the CCA logo to the right of this article.
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