For ten days Johannesburg will be engulfed by contemporary dance.
Main programme
The main programme opens on Thursday February 24 and Friday 25 at The Dance Factory, with circle by Sifiso Kweyama and Bloodlines by Lliane Loots. This double-bill programme features the Flatfoot Dance Company in both works which premiered in 2010 in KZN. The history of storytelling is re-ignited in circle, while in Bloodlines the choreographer navigates a remembering along South African histories. Bloodlines features the original spoken word by Iain Ewok Robinson and Patricia van Deutekom from Introdans, Holland. This work is created in partnership with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
PJ Sabbagha’s I think its Hamlet will have three performances, Friday February 25, Saturday February February 26 and Sunday 27 at 8pm in the Wits Downstairs Theatre. This work is a humorous look at Shakespeare’s classic play Hamlet with choreographer PJ Sabbagha playing around with concept and interpretation.
On Saturday February 26 at 7.30pm and Sunday February 27 at 2pm, Nigerian-born choreographer Qudus Onikeku will present a work called My Exile is in my Head. Onikeku has been living in France for several years and this work reflects what has been happening to him during this period. This work is presented in collaboration with the French Institute of South Africa and the French Consul.
Fringe programme
Also during the weekend is the Fringe Programme featuring new work from 19 selected young choreographers on Saturday February 26 from 2pm and on Sunday February 27 from 10am onwards, the Stepping Stones Programme will be presented. Both programmes are at The Wits Theatre.
On Monday 28 February and Tuesday 1 March at 7.30pm at the Wits Downstairs Theatre, a double bill featuring Lulu Mlangeni, the recent winner of the South African So You think you Can Dance competition, with a new work called ? and Songezo Mcilizeli with Reflex.
Hotel
Also on Monday 28 February and Tuesday 1 March at 8.30pm at the Wits Theatre is a new work choreographed by Mark Hawkins. Hotel, featuring compositions by Philip Miller and costumes by Robyn de Klerk, is a multi-layered, dance theatre work using Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem of the same name as a starting point. People, thoughts and ideas check-in and check-out, some linger and occupy, whilst some depart as quickly as they arrive. It is an uncontrollable place which is sometimes real and then again, sometimes only in our subconscious. Our mind becomes our hotel, a place which can be shrouded in secrecy and anonymity. Welcome to the Hotel of the mind!
The Dance Factory will host the next programme which is a mixed bill on Monday 28 February and Tuesday 1 March at 7.30pm. This programme features work by Mcebisi Bhayi from Johannesburg, Mdu Mtshali from Durban and Carolyn Holden’s To Whom Shall I leave my Voice? from the La Rosa Spanish Dance Theatre, Cape Town. This work focuses on a time when we put old people — wise people — behind closed doors, shut away, voiceless — in the name of ‘progress one woman, two phases of a lifetime — the younger, fearing what she might become… the older, celebrating who she has become.
On Wednesday 2 March and Thursday 3 March at the Dance Factory at 6.30pm, the Remix Dance Company from Cape Town will present a new work by Malcolm Black called Off-Key. This integrated dance piece features four dancers and three live musicians and includes two able-bodied dancers, a dancer in a wheelchair, and a deaf dancer. Off-Key is a simple love story where a desperate man is helped by unforeseen ‘cupids†of this world.
On Wednesday March 2 and Thursday March 3 at The Wits Theatre at 7.30pm, Cherice Mangiagalli will present a new work called Russians and Chips and she will share the programme with Jamila Rodriguez from Cape Town who is creating a work called I stumble Every Time. The third piece on the programme is called Right Inside by Tebogo Munyai.
Installation work
Sello Pesa will create a new installation piece called Inhabitant, which can be seen at the Goethe on Main on Thursday March 3 and Friday March 4 at 6:30pm. Inhabitant looks at spaces, specifically inner city spaces, in an area such as Johannesburg and how they are more than they seem superficially; a doorway becomes a home merely through the occupation of space even though it does not have the traditional structure of four walls and a roof. This work is presented in partnership with the Goethe-Institut South Africa.
Sexuality, masculinity, stereotypes and negative perceptions
Mamela Nyamza, recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artists Award for Dance 2011, will present a work called Shift on Thursday, March 3 and Friday March 4 at 8pm at the Wits Downstairs Theatre. Presented by Dance Umbrella, with assistance from the British Council, Shift is a dance performance that will explore issues of sexuality, masculinity, stereotypes and negative perceptions endured by sportswomen in South Africa. The dance will commemorate the lives of sportswomen; more especially the women who have managed to stand up against the patriarchal status quo that exists within our societies. Women who have managed to rise against the inequalities and discrimination that exist against women who are seen as different.
Tshwane Dance Theatre will present the highly acclaimed Redha’s Giselle on Friday March 4 and Saturday March 5 at the UJ Arts Centre at 7.30pm. Redha’s Giselle is set in apartheid South Africa and is very loosely based on the classic ballet where boy meets girl, Giselle. In Redha’s Giselle the boy in question is on the opposite side of the colour divide, and love all but runs smoothly. Their youthful and innocent love results in conflict, violence and even death. (Tshwane Dance Theatre in funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund).
Rampage
The final two days of Dance Umbrella 2011 will include a double bill programme with Rampage by Kieron Jina – disasters are taking place across the world, mutilations, torture, rape and abductions. People slashed with machetes, body parts sold. Girls forced into sexual slavery; babies crying, their legs chopped off. Women’s breasts sliced from them before or after they are gang raped and left to die—this is the reality of the world we choose to live in.
The second work is Kind of Blue by Fanny Skura and Mbuso Kgarebe – many different realities are lived through one existence, few synonyms for defining the same word…a different colour to paint the same picture. Is the power of colour making it hard to think beyond the colour? Can a colour ever be free of reference or allusion? The piece implements other strategies to recall the complexities, controversies and expectations concerning colours, human behaviors and relationships. This programme is on March 5 at 6:30 pm and March 6 at 1pm at The Nunnery at Wits.
Triple bill
On Saturday March 5 at 8pm and Sunday March 6 at 2,30pm at the Wits Theatre, a work called Vumbi, a collaboration by dancers and choreographers Lucky Kele, South Africa, Jared Onyago, Kenya, Meseret Yirga, Ethiopia, Esrael Akpan, Nigeria and Julie Iarisoa, Madagascar, shares the stage with Nicola Elliot from Cape Town who will premiere a new work called Proximity, Loss and Having. The third piece on this programme is Fractured by Fana Tshabalala.
The last piece in the Dance Umbrella 2011 programme is Mirage, a work created by South African Thabiso Pule, in collaboration with Hind Benale from Casablanca. This will be presented in the Wits Downstairs Theatre on March 5 at 9pm and March 6 at 3.30pm.
Master classes
A series of Master Classes will be offered during the Dance Umbrella 2011. The Goethe-Institut, South Africa is funding the Dance Writers’ Workshop, which will be facilitated by Zingi Mkefa from February 16-18, 2011, and the weekly Dance Umbrella newspaper produced by The Citizen Newspaper.
Bookings for Dance Umbrella 2011 can be made by calling Computicket – 083 915 8000 / www.computicket.com for all performances at the Dance Factory and the UJ Arts Centre; and Strictly Tickets — 073 725 7381 or online at www.strictlyticket.co.za for all performances at the Wits Theatre. Block bookings discounts are available — call 083 570 3083 for further information.
For further information please contact 011 492 0709/2033 or e-mail [email protected]. The Dance Umbrella 2011 hot-line for updates and programme schedules is 082 632 9561. Visit www.artslink.co.za/arts