Mamela Nyamza’s HATCHED ENSEMBLE is motivated by an original 2007 solo work which offered an autobiographical work that reflected on her life as a mother and artist. HATCHED ENSEMBLE builds on this and is now performed by seven ballet trained dancers from different racial and gendered backgrounds. Challenging issues of tradition, gender norms within the dance classics, and various issues around identity and belonging, HATCHED ENSEMBLE references both classical Western music and dance, with traditional African vocal scores.
Hannah Ma’s hannahmadance performs a work that links with South African performers Thobi Maphanga and Jabu Siphika. INVASION(S) analyses the act of invasion as the act of violently entering a (political, physical, biological) territory from a feminist, and post-migrant perspective.
With support from the Finnish Embassy (Pretoria), Virva Talonen presents a work in collaboration with Durban’s FLATFOOT Dance Company. Her Portable Home Project is a contemporary dance performance series that delves into a concept of home and its various definitions. The work is co-created by Finnish Lighting Designer Nanni Vapaavuori. Virva will also perform Nothing Personal a solo work she made in 2018 with Nanni Vapaavuori. The core of Nothing Personal lies in the relationship between the repetitive, minimalistic improvisational movement, written text and the audience.
Birmingham (UK) based ACE dance and music features in a spectacular double bill UNKNOWN REALMS – with choreography by Burkina Faso’s Serge Aimé Coulibaly and South Africa’s Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe. Coulibaly’s THE NIGHT BEFORE TOMORROW is a metaphorical night where people try to do their last dance before an uncertain tomorrow. Mantsoe’s MANA – THE POWER WITHIN which engages the sacred, ritualistic and shamanic.
In celebration of this 25th anniversary, JOMBA! will launch its special book done in partnership with the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, and supported by IFAS and BASA. Provocatively titled, Archiving History and Memory: 25 Years of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, the book has been edited by Tammy Ballantyne Webber. A special Johannesburg book launch will take place in tandem with The Market Theatre season, hosted by IFAS at Alliance Francaise Parkview on Saturday 16 September at 2pm.
JOMBA! and The Market Theatre will host four free dance workshops at the Sophiatown Studio in Newtown. Hosts of these are Vincent Mantsoe (South Africa) and ACE music and dance (UK), Mamela Nyamza (South Africa), Virva Talonen (Finland) and Hannah Ma (Germany).
Nanni Vapaavuori (Finland) hosts a lighting workshop: “LIGHT AS MATERIAL” in the Mannie Mannim Theatre at The Market. All workshops are open to dancers 16yrs and older. Booking essential with thobimaphanga@gmail.com
JOMBA! curator, Dr Lliane Loots says, “We are incredibly excited to pay our first visit to Johannesburg and The Market Theatre, and hope this is the start of a long-term partnerships that sees incredible dance being shared across our two cities and provinces. I can think of no better way to serve artists than making these partnerships a reality. This JOMBA! @The Market Theatre package showcases a broad range of contemporary styles and themes, reflecting local and global motifs that speak to our festival theme of “(in)tangible heritages.”
For more information about JOMBA! go to https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/
-Ends
For JOMBA!
Sharlene Versfeld
Versfeld & Associates
Public Relations and Communications
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 326 3235
Email: sharlene@versfeld.co.za
