The 24th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience has reached its halfway mark and the festival organisers are grateful for the support.
Hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, JOMBA! 2022 saw dance-makers from Mzansi, Mozambique and France showcase their talent live on stage at Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre and online since August 30.
“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,” commented 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.
Below are some of the shows you can still catch until Sunday, September 11:
Edna Jaime and Fana Tshabalala: Tuesday, September 6 and Wednesday, September 7, at 7pm.
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.
Fana Tshabalala, the 2019 JOMBA! Mellon Artist in Residence, premieres his latest solo work, Zann, which he began creating as part of the 2019 residency.
In what we feel is a full-circle moment for both Fana and JOMBA!, audiences can look out for a deeply moving solo exploration of unstable states that look at delusions of freedom in a world of change.
Mamela Nyamza: Thursday, September 8, at 7pm.
The deeply interrogated and thoughtful Mamela Nyamza offers her newest work, Grounded, performed with her son Amkele Mandla.
She offers us 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.
Vincent Mantsoe and Flatfoot Dance Company: Friday, September 9, at 7pm and Saturday, 10 September, at 2.30pm.
Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe, our 2022 JOMBA! Legacy Artist will perform his new solo work Koma, which looks at layers of the passage of time through a symphony of rhythms and African rites that speak to 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 of working with Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company and the long journey to making CUT (part 2) – that premieres at the fest.
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.
Virtual JOMBA! Online Conversation with Simon Senn and Rohee Oberoi Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts: Sunday, September 11, at 2.30pm.
By documenting movements through motion capture technology and exploring the data with real-time game engine software, dancers and collaborators Senn and Oberoi wander into the abyss of questions and issues raised by those new technological tools.
Tickets are available at Computicket from R65.