The industry’s best will gather in a three day seminar to converse about dance and performance hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts and the “JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival”.
The YouTube colloquium titled “JOMBA! Masihambisane Dialogues” will be held from Wednesday, June 2 to 4 and aims to support South African, African and diaspora dance and performance scholarships and research, in an accessible and community-driven manner.
Keynote speakers include award-winning and prolific South African choreographers Boyzie Cekwana, Nelisiwe Xaba and PJ Sabbagha.
Sessions include prepared papers as well as conversations, a workshop and performances.
Some of the highlights to look forward to are:
Works from Dr Anita Ratnam (Chennai, India) titled “Boxed”, which was created during the pandemic and has become a template of how an existing crisis can inspire original dance art.
A paper on choreographing violence and intimacies titled “In the shadow of his fist“ presented by Kamogelo Molebye.
This will explore choreography, screen dance and scenography as artistic mediums for choreographing intimacies through a performance.
A conversation by Tammy Ballantyne Webber, Ntshadi Mofokeng, Thobile Maphanga with contributions from Kivithra Naicker around “the role of the dance writer as dance goes digital”.
[DE]TACH presented by Lucky Karabo Moeketsi, explores the environmental habits that became a black society’s norm against the spectre of the Covid pandemic and the required social distancing.
And a workshop and paper entitled “When I slam my body into a wall, I know that it’s there” authored and facilitated by Kristina Johnstone, reflects on the facilitation of embodied practice in a virtual space of teaching, learning and creation.
The event will be live streamed to the JOMBA! YouTube Channel and can be accessed free of charge.
“The Dialogues” will also have a closed Zoom link for direct participants. To apply email Thobile Maphanga on [email protected].