Durban - The annual JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience turns 20 this year. Hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, this landmark edition brings to Durban the world of contemporary dance and nurtures the development of local dancers.
It will be held from August 28 to September 9 at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, with performances at the Open Air Theatre and the Durban Art Gallery.
The programme includes dance companies and choreographers from Joburg, Cape Town, Spain, Switzerland, India, the US and Madagascar. It also offers spaces for the evolution of eThekwini’s dance community.
The opening features Joburg-based Moving into Dance Mophatong with two new works: Sunnyboy Motau’s Man Longing, which uses dance and poetry to explore the sinister world of human trafficking; and guest artist Khutjo Green’s collaboration with female dancers in The Women Who Fell From The Moon, inspired by the Nina Simone’s song Four Women.
Acclaimed Indian dancer and choreographer Anita Ratnam presents her award-winning work, A Million Sitas. It is a re-telling of the classic Ramayana, using voice, movement, song, dance and storytelling.
Two dance-makers from Madagascar feature this year - Malagasy Gaby Saranouffi partners with South Africa’s Moeketsi Koena in a duet, Corps/Body, which explores links between the real and unreal. Haja Saranouffi presents a duet, Danse Des Bouteilles, based on a duel between myth and reality.
Spain’s Aïda Colmenero Dïaz presents her solo, Aka Nativa, a manifesto for life and the living.
Musa Hlatshwayo presents Udodana, which premiered at the National Arts Festival.
In Swiss choreographer and dancer Ioannis Mandafounis’s duet, One-One-One, dancers invite the audience into an unexpected experience.
This year's Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance, Durban's own Musa Hlatshwayo, presents Udodana, which premiered at the National Arts Festival. This explores the black male body.
There is also a collaboration between Durban's Flatfoot Dance Company and Cape Town's Unmute Dance Company.
JC Zondi, who won last year's JOMBA! Pick of the Fringe award, presents Classi_filed. Kristi-Leigh Gresse offers her newest creation, Blank. Tshediso Kabulu and Thami Majela present Imvelo.
Most performances are at the Sneddon at 7.30pm (September 9 at 2.30pm) with the youth fringe at the Open Air Theatre UKZN on September 2 at 2pm and Durban Art Gallery on September 7 at 6pm. Tickets at the Sneddon cost R80 or R60 through Computicket. Other events are free. Go to www.cca.ukzn.ac.za, click on JOMBA!