21st Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience

JOMBA_2019_temp_web28 Aug - 08 Sept
Contemporary Dance Festival

The Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) and eThewkini play host to the 21st annual edition of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience.  This year’s 21st birthday edition offers a hearty dance buffet packed full of dance delights that will titillate, challenge, and entertain audience of all ages and art inclinations!  The world’s best contemporary dance come to Durban to our 21st  birthday bash editon – don’t miss out!

The celebrated Cape Town based Jazzart opens the festival this year. This is their first ever trip to JOMBA! and so Durban audiences are  in for a huge treat. Durban’s own Boyzie Cekwana collaborates with Lebanese dance maker Danya Hammoud in an intimate dance theatre experience that offers these two extraordinary dancers in a duet that speak to the interior politics of relationships. Fana Tshabala, join JOMBA! as the UKZN Mellon Foundation Artist-in-residence and will be collaborating with Durban’s much loved FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY in an explosive premeire.

JOMBA! 2019 has set up a wonderful partnership with the USA, and will host two American companies this year. The first is funded by the US Consualte and is a Washington-based company called the Dakshini/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company. In a style that sees the confluence of the ancient Indian style of Bharatha Natyam with the ethos and flow of contemporary modern dance, this company will dazzle with its flow, synthesis and sheer beauty. And coming all the way from our twin city of New Orleans is Leslie Scott’s company BODY ART in an intriguing site specifc work for the Durban Art Gallery (DAG) which will take audiences on a jouney into the very heart of contemporary American identity.

The DAG event will also see a unique collection of “South-South Dance on Screen” short films guest curated by Brazilian filmmaker Sofía Castro.

South Africa’s icon of African contemporary dance, Vincent Mantsoe, returns to JOMBA! 2019 to offer the world premier of his new work to the festival. Titled “SoliiDad” the work is a deeply personal journey into the very nature of being. Mantsoe is set in a double bill with Johannesburg based Lulu Mlangeni –a young up and coming dance maker who is taking the country by storm. She will present her duet called “The Encounter” and it is a brave and unflinching contemporary journey into African spirtuality and belonging.

On the local Durban front, JOMBA! is always proud to set as its mandate the support and growth of our local Durban up and coming dance makers and so is deeply proud to have awarded two ‘JOMBA! On The Edge’ grants to Sizwe Hlophe and Thulisile Binda. Both Hlophe and Binda have been commissioned by JOMBA! to premier new creations and are given mentorship and the full supportof the JOMBA! technical team to realise their work for stage.

The festival also has a JOMBA! Youth Fringe and a JOMBA! FRINGE, both with selected and curated dance works that celebrate a rich and vibrant city of artists who are making meaningful and beautiful dance, and a series of workshops and masterclasses (all for free!) that are offered in various venues in the eThekwini area and open to all (though booking is essential).

Don’t miss this jam packed 12 day festival of dance and the celebration of the 21st birthday of JOMBA!

Tickets: R80
(Student/scholar/pensioner/group booking of more than x10): R60
Tickets available at Computicket https://online.computicket.com/web/festival/jomba_contemporary_dance_experience_2019/36555946/ or 0861 915 8000 or at any Checkers Money Market Counter)

For more Information, interviews and pictures please contact:
Sharlene Versfeld
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 326 3235
Tel: +27 (0) 31 811 5628
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: www.versfeld.co.za