AFTER a two year absence the Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience will host a live programme from August 30 to September 11.
Jomba! is a contemporary dance festival that takes place annually. It is hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Creative Arts.
The event is considered one of Africa’s benchmark dance festivals. Its objective is to promote dance and offer dance theatre that challenges its audiences.
In an interview with POST, Dr Lliane Loots, Jomba! artistic director and curator, said due to the Covid-19 pandemic the festival had been carried out virtually for the two years.
“We learned so much doing an online festival about technology and we made friends with communities whom we may never had met but it is just not the same. Jomba! has always been about making a space and giving that space to artists who are doing serious and important work to showcase their artistry. We are happy to be able to go live on stage this year.”
The theme for this year’s event is “the (im)possibility of home”.
Loots said: “The theme came out of lots of discussion. As we are coming out of Covid, the world has changed so much. The idea of what constitutes home has become a significant thing in people’s lives. We are not just meaning the four walls of a structure that might house you when you sleep. We are also thinking about the idea of home as the idea of belonging. Where do we belong?
“In many ways the move to technology pushed us a little towards more global connections. It was easier to connect with bigger communities. So it’s the idea that home also grew.
“But at the same time in this Covid era and the geopolitics in the world that we live in, it has meant that the world has got increasingly more refugees and more homeless people. Covid also showed the fault-lines of not only our own society but also the global politics. It’s the idea of us questioning - do we want to belong? And what does belonging mean?”
Loots said the war in Ukraine also fed into the theme: “In the back of our heads in a profound way was the war in Ukraine and the displacement of people. But not only just Europe. We were particularly interested in how the world got onto the bandwagon of the invasion of Ukraine but seldom are the many wars that are going on in Africa thought about. The war in the Central African Republic, the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, northern Mozambique. These are wars that are happening all the time.
“So we were also interested in the global politics around Africa and the wars in Africa not getting the same attention. And again, it’s that idea of whose lives matter? Whose homes matter?”
Loots said another aspect was more personal.
“For many dancers our bodies are our homes. This is the home from which we operate. And we had a hard time (during the pandemic) where that home has had to be silent. So it is the idea of what happens when we start to come back to the body and start to make work again.
“So all of these are the impulses behind the curation of the festival. It was about finding work that speaks to and engages these politics of belonging and stability and looking at the possibility or the impossibility of home. The idea of belonging is political, it’s social, it’s economic and we thought it would be wonderful to give that as more of a provocation to the artists to start thinking about their place in the world at this point.”
Over its 13-day programme, Jomba! will present contemporary dance and performance from both local and international dance-makers.
Artists from Mozambique, Switzerland, Reunion Island, India and South Africa will perform live. This edition of the festival also offers various workshops, after-performance Q & As, panel discussions, virtual screen dance, and the return of the Jomba! youth dance platform which promotes the growth of Durban’s young dance communities.
A highlight on the programme is three new works by Durban choreographers/dancers - Sandile Mkhize, Tegan Peacock and Pavishen Paideya. They will premiere at the festival under the Jomba! Edge mentored platform.
“In a way this platform sits at the heart of the festival because we identify choreographers from the KZN region, not necessarily young, and they could be up and coming. We particularly want to honour the three who were selected this year because even though there was Covid and lockdowns, these three managed to keep their work going at some level.
“We wanted to honour the innovative spirits that they have. We have selected these three, very divergent dance-makers from three different communities. They were asked to also respond to the provocation of the festival - “(im)possibility of home”.
“We offer support if they need help with mentorship in their choreography, we offer financial support, but we are offering them technical support with the opportunity to work with a designated dance lighting designer and sound technicians.
“For us it is about developing the dance industry in KZN and supporting the artists who are there and may need that little push of support to get their work on a professional platform and to get the media and publicity support they need. We hope their work gets picked up by other festivals,” said Loots.
Tickets for performances at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in Durban are R80 full price and R65 for students, scholars and pensioners.
Loots said keeping the ticket price low was strategic.
“We know that with Covid everyone got stuck in their homes so we wanted to make the tickets affordable. This would mean that people would not have to choose only one night to attend. There are a lot of performances and hopefully with the money they would have spent on one ticket, with this ticket price, they can see at least three performances. People will hopefully come back and support the festival and get involved in the workshops and the panel discussions.”
* For more information about the festival, visit www.jomba.ukzn.ac.za Booking is through Computicket.
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