August 8, 2006
By Thabang Mokoka
THERE will be swaying of bodies and stomping of feet when the 2006 New Dance Festival, presented by Wits Theatre and The Dance Factory gets under way on Thursday.
Now in its third year running, the New Dance Festival was established to provide a platform for dancers and choreographers from the continent. The festival runs for 10 days from 9 to 19 August.
Even township rhythms will be on display
"[The festival] is about how we tell stories through our body movements," said arts administrator for Arts Unlimited Charmaine Monareng :
Some of the companies presenting works include Gaara Company from Kenya and a collaborative work by Kettley Noel of Mali and Augusto Cuvilas of Mozambique. South Africa will make its mark through a line-up of young choreographers that include Gregory Maqoma, Sifiso Kweyama, Sbonakaliso Ndaba and Portia Mashigo, who all participated in a Young Choreographers Residency programme during the FNB Dance Umbrella 2006.
Monareng hopes the festival will give the audience insight on how the art of dance can convey messages through body movement.
The festival will open at the Wits Downstairs Theatre with choreography workshops first held in Soweto by Kettly Noel and Augusto Cuvilas.
The workshops, which will be held on Wednesday, 9 and 10 August at 7.30pm, are designed to help choreographers examine what they want to do, in order to find new ways of creating work and participate in L'Autre.
L'Autre, a collaborative work by Kettley Noel and Augusto Cuvilas, will premiere on the same evening at the Wits Theatre.
According to a press statement, L'Autre is a work that reflects on isolation and connection, and rather than telling a story, is a philosophical questioning of life and each other from distant stages.
On Friday and Saturday August 11 & 12
Four Solos, a piece created by four selected choreographers who participated in the Young Choreographers Residency Programme during the FNB Dance Umbrella 2006, will be presented at the Wits Downstairs Theatre from 7pm. The four are Funeka Ramorula, Irven Teme, Lucky Ratlhagane and Mpho Masilela.
Four Solos will be followed by three other performances at the Wits Theatre at 8.15pm.They include a work called Pictures on The Wall by Sifiso Kweyama, Deeper than Blue by Portia Mashigo and a collaborative work called A Side Portion of the Limelight (Part 2), which examines the question, "I was taught these dance steps... now what do I do with them?".
Pictures on The Wall is inspired by the pictures displayed in the Apartheid Museum telling stories South Africans can relate to. It was created by Mashigo when she lived in Nairobi with Opiyo Okach. Deeper than Blue looks at what society defines as success: is it money or art, and how much of themselves do artists sell to get by?
On Monday and Tuesday August 14 & 15
A collaborative work between Vuyani Dance Theatre and Moving into Dance Mophatong - Rhythm Colour by Gregory Maqoma - will be presented at the Dance Factory. Based on the1976 youth struggle and Soweto riots, the piece looks at inner spiritual "colour", depicted by the outer rhythm.
On Wednesday and Thursday August 16 & 17
Durban-based artist Sbonakaliso Ndaba will perform a piece called Holes in the Heart at 8pm at Wits Theatre. Set in an informal settlement, the piece traces a young girl's journey to womanhood and the choices she makes along the way based on her experiences as well as the situations she finds herself in.
On Friday and Saturday August 18 & 19 August
The festival will close with a piece called Shift... Centre... Series 5: Joburg-Durban-Maputo, created by Kenyan choreographer Opiyo Okach at the Dance Factory at 8pm. The piece uses improvisation, and instant composition and audience interaction to interrogate double relations between "space and perception" and "perceptions and identity".
Tickets for The New Dance Festival cost between R40 and R65, excluding Computicket service charge. Concessions are available for students, block bookings of 10, pensioners PAWE and PANSA members.
For further information, please contact Georgina Thomson or Charmaine Monareng at 011 482 4140/ 011 482 5179.
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