The first 2020 project to be supported by the newly launched Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation is a partnership with the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival Experience and the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts.
The initiative known as the STAND Foundation JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival Choreographic Mentorship Project, has combined four young choreographers who have already tested their choreographic languages on the JOMBA! Dance Festival platform, with four experienced mentors over a ten-week period, and they are now almost ready to show their new digital dance pieces.
The four young choreographers are Sabelo Cele, Pavishen Paideya, Kaldi Makutike, and Phumlani Mndebele and they have been mentored by Alfred Hinkel, Gregory Maqoma, Sbonakaliso Ndaba and Musa Hlatshwayo, all of whom are celebrated choreographers with numerous awards and decades of experience between them.
Sabelo Cele’s dance film, is titled “Isabelo” and offers a provocative ceremony that begins to unhinge the relationship of sexuality to traditional African philosophy. Challenging the heteronormative and the legacies of Christianity in Africa, Cele’s film is sure to provoke a lot of discussion.
Pavishen Pideya also returns to his cultural traditions in his work “RUPA”. “RUPA” is inspired by ancient Indian sculpture and the Indian customs around the shape and movement of the body. Pideya has a unique ability to celebrate his Disapora Indian heritage but also to jolt it a little and offer the slightly unexpected.
Kaldi Makutike’s “THOUGHTS IN MY HEAD” is a deeply personal journey into this choreographer’s own mind and the work has come about through the prompting of the mind’s wondering and the conversations we have in our heads. This is a beautiful and painful look at mental illness and depression and the power of dance – and dance making – to be transformative.
Phumlani Mndebele’s dance film, “Descent Into Death” is inspired by Howard Storm’s novel “My Descent into Death”which captures his near death experience and his experiences in a realm unknown to the living – it is an engagement with the light, with darkness and all in between.
Lliane Loots, Director of the CCA’s JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience says that she has been “overwhelmed by the hard work and dedication of both the four selected choreographers and their amazing mentors, and by the serious and important screen dance work being made”. She goes on to say, “we are really pushing a new growing screen dance genre in South African dance and it feels very significant to be helping artists to make work at this time”.
Gregory Maqoma, Chairperson of STAND says, “We are really excited by this collaboration with JOMBA! as it reflects STAND’s commitment to engaging in partnerships with serious players in the dance and theatre world, and our shared vision to build and support a new generation of outstanding dance and theatre-makers”.
The four new screen dance offerings will premiere as a 40 minute package for FREE on Thursday the 3rd December at 7pm via the JOMBA! YouTube Chanel, and then will be made available for individual viewing on the JOMBA! website until the 18th December.
JOMBA! YouTube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Jomba_Dance
JOMBA! website: https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/
