Feast your eyes on a plethora of dance productions as “Digital JOMBA!” gets underway from Tuesday, August 25 to Sunday, September 6.
Artistic director, Dr Lliane Loots shared a few of her favourites - make sure you check it out for free on the website, jomba.ukzn.ac.za
“USA Dance On Screen Package”
Curated by Lauren Warnecke, Peter Chu, Rachel Miller and Tara Aisha Willis.
“When seeking films for this project, we consciously sought out films which showcased a varied American experience both culturally and stylistically.
“Our intentions were to give a voice to those who are often unheard from and to present films that have artistic integrity, show a variety of movement styles and explorations, and have multiple ways in which an audience might “read” them.
“Overall, we chose films that spoke to the multitude and variety of American communities, cultural experiences, sexual orientations, and gender identities to give JOMBA! audiences a taste of the diverse landscape of American dance makers”.
“Somewhere At The Beginning”
Germaine Acogny is considered as the “mother of Contemporary African dance”. She created her own Technique of Modern African Dance, and with her husband Helmut Vogt she created the Ecole des Sables in Senegal, International Centre for traditional and contemporary African Dances.
She teaches, dances and choreographs for her company Jant-Bi and also performs solo pieces, touring worldwide. “Somewhere At The Beginning” is unflinching and brave and traces African history interwoven with her own life narrative.
Nine JOMBA! Digital Edge short dance films
KZN based dance makers created digital screen dance works to premier at the festival. Challenged to work with the theme “Intimacies of Isolation”, the dance makers were offered some digital technical support but other than that, the work is their vision and making.
Jabu Spihika’s “Ya kutosha”
An intimate and terrifying exploration of gender-based violence and what it means to be trapped in the home.
Kristi-Leigh Gresse’s “Fellow…”
An exploration of an artist’s state of mind in isolation. It is a journey through this maze in search of light.
Leagan Peffer’s “Kairos”
A personal exploration of when passion and purpose meet. In love, in anger, in deceit, in loss as in failure, this work interrogates how life allows us to face struggle.
Nomcebisi Moyikwa’s “U n g a n y a k u m”
This work is an experimental multidisciplinary contemplation, a devotion, a prayer decomposed. It is an engagement with silence – demonstrated by blank spaces. It is an intentioned meditation that seeks evidence for this question: What does it mean to insist not to die?
Sandile Mkhize’s “Time”
An exploration of history, forefathers, revolution and ways of being under COVID-19 - and a seeking for our humanity.
Sifiso Kitsona Khumalo’s “Walls”
A deeply intimate exploration of a father-daughter relationship set against the separation imposed by Covid-19 and the lockdown.
Tegan Peacock’s “Control - Alt - Delete”
This short film offers an intimate exploration of the struggle with control or the loss of it. Both internally and externally our lives have been radically altered and everyone is fighting to regain control and find a new normality …
Tshediso Kabulu’s “Space of Colour”
An unflinching exploration of race and its intersection with class, in an intimate look at poverty and the uneven distribution of power and resources in South Africa; set against the backdrop of isolation and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Zinhle Nzama’s “Shadow”
An intimate look at friendship and the validations of having someone there for you always, even when you cannot hold hands in a world that now asks for distancing.
This work is performed by two bodies: Zinhle Nzama and Kirsty Ndawo
Gregory Maqoma’s “Exit/Exist”
Maqoma returns to his ancestral past to re-interpret the complexities of our contemporary world.
The narrative centres around the great Xhosa chief and warrior, Maqoma, who, in the late 1800s, clashed with the English over cattle and land and finally met his death on Robben Island.
Maqoma reconfigures memory in a transformational and poignant solo performance that fuses storytelling with his own unique contemporary dance vocabulary and spirited live music.
Through his signature integration of traditional and contemporary dance, he invites audiences to reflect on who we are, where we come from, and how all of these facets, past and present, inform our personal and collective identities today.
“JOMBA! In conversation” live streams with:
Vincent Mantsoe (South Africa/France) - “Dance In A Digital Age”
The tension of pulling the log, the weight and momentum of cutting wood, the energy in-between two extreme points. A strike in motion that can break various e-motions and power.
Cut the cot, break the pattern, stand tall, move in a precise path.
Jürg Koch (Switzerland) - “The Printer’s Tray”
On the one hand a printer’s tray is a sorting box, divided into a number of compartments to store movable type for printing.
On the other hand, printer trays are used to store and display keepsakes and souvenirs. Fragments of memories and stories.
My Printer's Tray is a collection of short pieces from 1999-2020.
They are building blocks and fragments. On the one hand they are pieces, which pursue and develop a specific choreographic idea.
On the other hand, they are core phrases from bigger pieces and larger productions. It is an archive as well as an ongoing artistic and choreographic practice.
Ondiege Matthew (Kenya)
“Generations” - A solo by Ondiege Matthew
This solo dance is accompanied by spoken word, performed by Teardrops at the Kenya National Theatre during lockdown.
“Essential Services” - A depiction of the ordinary Kenyan response to the Covid 19 Pandemic, and especially the lockdown and the strict guidelines that followed.
Themba Mbuli (South Africa) - “ManMade”
The film is created in memory of his grandfather. It has been over a year since his passing, yet his clothes still hang in his closet.
The memories are archived through his clothes, with each clothing item telling its story; from his brown corduroy that he wore when working in his garden, to his grey shiny suit that he loved wearing to church.
ManMade metaphorically deals with the concept of clothes and the closet; the clothes are seen as thoughts and the closet as the mind that carries the thoughts.
The creation was triggered by the lockdown period.