
Fresh, innovative dance works on display for this year’s ‘On the Edge’
A preview of JOMBA! On The Edge by Nkanyiso N. Mazibuko
The JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience has been running for the past week under the theme “Legacy”. This landmark 20th edition celebrates 20 years of bringing the world to Durban through contemporary dance, and 20 years of nurturing and supporting the growth and development of contemporary dance in the city through open workshops, grants and the creation of platforms for local dancers and choreographers to showcase their work. As we enter the second week on Tuesday the 4th of September, we get a chance to watch new work created by these young choreographers from around Durban.
JOMBA! On the Edge is a festival platform that seeks to support fresh innovative contemporary dance work coming out of the Durban/KZN region. Choreographers and companies are selected each year due to work made either on the previous year’s JOMBA! Fringe, or at other regional and national performance spaces. Work that has potential for growth is given a platform and support through a small performance grant, and opportunities to interface with a mentor and/or a lighting designer, depending on the needs of the choreographer. And this year’s choreographers are JC Zondi, Kristi-Leigh Gresse and Tshediso Kabulu with Thamsanqa (Thami) Majela.
They are in luck to collaborate with Julie E. Ballard from Chicago, USA this year, who is a professional theatrical technician. Ballard was the lighting director at the Dance Center of Columbia College for nearly 8 years. She has freelanced for two decades in and around Chicago, and has travelled around the world with her high expertise in the field. The choreographers will get a chance to express their vision to her, and it shall all be made through honest communication, collaborate, patience and challenging work for their performances.
The first work on show, will be JC Zondi’s. Zondi was selected as the 2017 “JOMBA! Pick of the Fringe” his work “Intimate” was showcased alongside ten other works from across the country. Zondi is currently reading for his Masters in drama and performance studies at the UKZN Howard College Campus. After winning the award, he was interviewed by NEWS 24 and said that “Receiving the award was a great surprise, a reminder why I do what I do, and an incentive to keep creating”.
Indeed, we’re expecting nothing but a commitment of beautiful insightful work from Zondi as he presents “Classi_filed,” which is a physical theatre piece that depicts the role clothing plays in our lives. Our self-identities, personalities and work seem to morph with what we wear; while some revere clothing, others yearn to free themselves from the garments they wear. Through clothing, we have many bodies we occupy, hide behind, or wilfully create.
One of the choreographers fortunate enough to be part of this year’s festival is Kristi-Leigh Gresse, a Durban-born professional dancer and choreographer. She is trained in RAD ballet, AIDTA Modern/Contemporary and Tap. Gresse was a member of the KZN Youth Dance Company from 2007 to 2010, and in 2008 she travelled to America to dance. In 2011 and 2012, Gresse was selected for the South African Showdance formation team, which competed in the International Dance Organization World Showdance Championships in Reisa, Germany. She joined Break Thru Dance Company’s graduate course in 2012, and was accepted into the company in 2013.
The only female choreographer in this year’s JOMBA! On the Edge, Gresse’s work “Blank,” according to a program note, speaks of how “women in front of a mirror are unable to see themselves as they are. We are constantly filtering our identity through the lens of patriarchy. The piece interrogates the world of consumption of the female body for both pleasure and power.” She goes on a personal journey to “confront her identity; an identity that has become so obscured because of having the ideologies of the system consuming every aspect of her lived experience.”
“Blank” aims to “create a conversation around the idea of self-censorship brought on by both fear and the in heritances and how this is — in part — feeding the very system that oppresses [women].”
The third choreographer on this platform, is Tshediso Kabulu who hails from Welkom in the Free State, and whose life has been all about dance such that he has made a career out of it. Kabulu started dancing back in his hometown, with neither the resources nor support from anyone but his family. His career in dance took off when he was still at University. He has made a name for himself not only here in South Africa but also internationally; he has performed for productions like “Where Is Home” in the United Kingdom, “Homeland/Migrations” staged in Senegal (with Flatfoot Dance Company) and “Who Are You” at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival.
Kabulu danced and trained with Flatfoot Dance Company for four years. He is optimistic and ambitious, humble and authentic. Late in 2017, he launched his company, Afro Urban Dance Junxion, that offers access to people who want to do dance either for fun, or want to make a career out of it. This year Kabulu aims at improving his dance career even more and growing his company.
Co-choreographed with Thamsanqa (Thami) Majela, “Imvelo” is a newly-created work for JOMBA! 2018 that comes out of this dynamic duo’s “The Truth About the Truth,” an on-going dance project that started in 2017. Imvelo is a Zulu word that translates to mean origin, tradition, environmental, or even nature, depending on its use.
These young dancemakers are clear in their articulation in speaking about their identities and putting their hearts in these works, which we hope to be a beautiful night filled with the love of the arts. Dance is a very intellectual, yet emotionally soothing to the soul, and we hope to be stimulated by these works. Theatre is language and different artists, choreographers, dancers have their own ways of presenting their ideas to the audience with such artists on the line up an exhilarating show is definite.
“Classi_filed,” “Blank,” and “Imvelo,” fresh, innovative, contemporary dance works by JC Zondi, Kristi-Leigh Gresse, Thami Majela and Tshediso Kabulu, premiere at JOMBA! On the Edge, running one night only, 4 Sept. at 19.30 in the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. Tickets are R80, available at Computicket: http://bit.ly/2wzubVg, or at the box office one hour before the performance.

