August 3, 2006
By Ndaba Dlamini
GIFTED dancer, teacher and rising choreographer Dada Masilo returns to the Dance Factory after a study stint in Brussels to take part in an exuberant contemporary dance programme, Tutus For Africa!
Masilo will perform her swan solo Dying, Dying, Dead as part of the dance programme, which is being held under the auspices of the Women in Arts Festival, a fiesta of dance photography, music, theatre and poetry performed by South Africa's finest women artists.
This year's celebrations mark the fifth year since the inception of the festival and coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Women's March on Union Square.
It will be held at various Newtown venues from 4 to 13 August, as part of Joburg's Arts Alive programme.
Discovered in 1997 by Dance Factory director Suzette le Seur when the 11-year-old Masilo performed with her Meadowlands dance troupe The Peacemakers, Masilo has defied all odds to become one of South Africa's most promising dancers.
A spell at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg, from where she matriculated in 2002, enriched her dancing skills in classical ballet with contemporary. She also studied in Cape Town with Alfred Hinkel's famed Jazzart Dance Theatre.
Masilo went on to audition at Anne Theresa de Keermaeker's Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (PARTS) in Brussels where she managed to snatch one of the 30 first-year places.
After two years of study, 21-year-old Masilo returns to her home, the Dance Factory.
Tutus for Africa! will also feature the Johannesburg Youth Ballet in Timothy le Roux's With Stars in their Eyes with music by Barbara Streisand, Tchaikovsky and Combustible Edison.
Award-winners Dance Factory Youth appear in a Swan Lake deconstruction, Von Rothbart's Letter and former Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner, Tracy Human, will direct current recipient Hlengiwe Lushaba in a tutu.
On National Women's Day, Nelisiwe Xaba will present They Look at Me and That's all They Think, an extraordinary piece of work she first presented at the 2006 FNB Dance Umbrella.
This presentation is derived from the story of Sara Baartman, whose birthday will be celebrated on National Women's Day. Baartman has become a symbol of the oppression of the African woman by colonisation, and its zoo-like way of looking at Africans. For Xaba, this story is an allegory for her own artistic journey, from Soweto to the eurocentric world of art today.
Dying, Dying, Dead is part of the Women in Arts festival in Newtown
(Photo: Suzy Bernstein)
Tutus For Africa! is on at the Dance Factory on Friday, 4 August at 7.30pm; Saturday, 5 August at 6pm and Sunday 6 August at 2.30pm. Tickets cost R40 for adults; R20 for students, pensioners and groups of 10 or more. Children under 15 pay R10. Tickets are available from Computicket.
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