“As Durban and South Africa’s benchmark dance festival JOMBA!, hits its 22nd year, it is clear that we will not be able to deliver a festival in the same manner as previous years. COVID-19 has shifted the arts world very significantly. In this fragile environment, dance – still defined as a full-contact ‘sport’ – remains separated from rehearsal spaces, from theatre venues, and various sites in our cites.
The somatic, visceral body is absent right now but the CCA and the JOMBA! team believes – as a holding block for future embodied work – that we can still offer dance makers and audiences space to engage serious and important new art and dance making via a re-visioned JOMBA! 2020. “
DR. LLIANE LOOTS • ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: JOMBA! • CONTEMPORARY DANCE EXPERIENCE
PLATFORM ONE: JOMBA! LEGACY (celebrating 21yrs of JOMBA!)
We have invited nine key dance makers from all over the globe who have had a significant impact on making JOMBA! the premier contemporary dance festival in Africa.
PLATFORM TWO: JOMBA! DIGITAL EDGE grants
JOMBA! has given nine KZN based dance makers a grant to make a dance film to premiere at JOMBA! 2020.
PLATFRORM THREE: DANCE ON SCREEN (USA)
A one-hour curated package of x10 short dance films emanating from the USA. Emphasis is on crafted filmmaking and choreographers working in the idiom of screen dance in the USA.
PLATFORM FOUR: DIGITAL JOMBA! FRINGE
This year’s open JOMBA! FRINGE is digital. Top three are offered a small cash prize.
PLATFORM FIVE: DANCE IN THE DIGITAL AGE – conversations
Short digital works by 4 invited choreographers will be shown followed by an online discussion on dance in lock down, going digital …
PLATFORM SIX: JOMBA! KHULUMA BLOG and DIGITAL NEWSPAPER
This year’s blog and digital newspaper will involve the on-going support of dance writing and dance criticism through a series of closed webinars/seminars for graduate dance students.
For 2020 this will be a four-way parentship between:
– University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, South Africa)
– University of the Witwatersrand – The Ar(t)chive (Johannesburg, South Africa)
– See Chicago Dance (Chicago, USA) and Columbia College Chicago (USA)
– University of East London (London, UK)
PLATFORM SEVEN: THROUGH THE LENS.
21 Years of JOMBA! Through The Lens – a digital photographic exhibition of Val Adamson’s work
