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Africa: Africa's Oldest Dance Festival Evolves to Overcome the Pandemic
The Conversation Africa, 23 August 2021
Now in its 23rd year, JOMBA! is a contemporary dance festival housed at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Creative Arts, one of five festivals run by the Durban-based… Read more »
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South Africa: Dancers Defy Covid-19 By Embracing Film
New Frame, 3 December 2020
Four short dance films are a testament to mentorship, creative collaboration and the refusal of artists to be defeated by Covid-19 and lockdown restrictions. Read more »
Africa's Oldest Dance Festival Evolves to Overcome the Pandemic
Now in its 23rd year, JOMBA! a contemporary dance festival is going digital for the second year, with a feast of dance films, performances, seminars, and exhibitions under the theme Border Crossings. The festival is set to stream from August 24 to September 5, 2021.
The dance festival connects South African dancers to the rest of the continent for performances and workshops, expressing the need to open artistic borders within Africa. And because of the Covid-19 pandemic, JOMBA! is pioneering the online festival space, writes Lliane Loots for The Conversation.
Covid-19 has been a brutal wake-up call to the vulnerabilities of artists - as creatives, creators, and storytellers - recognised that they need to take the lead in shaping how they emerge from the novel coronavirus pandemic.
In the African Crossings Platform, there are four screen dance films created by the talented Marcel Gbeffa (Benin), Gaby Saranouffi (Madagascar), Robert Ssempijja (Uganda), and Bernardo Guiamba, also known as Pak Ndjamena, (Mozambique). The four dance films that have emerged from the mentorship programme all contain themes of ritual and introspection in a time of isolation and uncertainty, as connecting points.
