Dada Masilo is currently fascinated by tragic heroines in dance and literature – the lack of motivation (as authored by men) for their madness and/or suicides; and historically, the misogyny of formal religion.

Moya Michael, international dancer/choreographer of note, has lent her personality and skill to renowned choreographers Anna Teresa de Keersmaecker and Akram Khan. Now she is to offer the public a uniquely, innovative solo work - a raw, intimate study and deconstruction of her identity used as a mirror to humanity’s struggle to define itself in a shapeless, fragile and always boundless reality.

Gates of Hell by Fana Tshabalala, uncle stans jane and john doe by Mari-Louise Basson, Imbokodo by Mdu Mtshali & Unknown Equation by Ivan Teme.

“I am of mixed race. Black and White. I do not know how much of each. All I know is that I am me and that is what I would like you to see. Not your version of what you think I should be or an image of me that is comfortable for you to accept.”

Desiré Davids

 

Inter.Fear by Athena Mazarakis and Hansel Nezza, Cellardoor by Alan Parker and Canvas by Louise Coetzer: Company: Darkroom Contemporary

In a time when, in the name of “progress”, we put old people -wise people- behind closed doors, shut away, voiceless – ..one woman, two phases of a lifetime – the younger, fearing what she might become...the older, celebrating who she has become

The relationship between hearing and seeing is when two brothers are torn between their abilities. A young dancer is challenged to find a way to show why he is called the best dancer in town. What is consumed through the eye has now to go through the ear.

Focuses  on a journey of search for the truth  “coming clean”, purity, healing, growth, newness which can be symbolic of death and new beginnings, individuality and space that define our inner being. The work represents freedom from the physical body, as we experience in sleep and while dreaming where we don’t use our physical bodies, but instead use our mental and spiritual bodies to experience our dreams.

‘off key’ is an integrated dance piece with four dancers and three live musicians. There are two able-bodied dancers, a dancer in a wheelchair, a dancer who is deaf, a drummer, a bass guitarist and a saxophonist. It is a simple love story: a desperate man is helped by unseen, unforeseen forces (cupids from the world beyond, if you like) to find meaning.

This is Malcolm Black, the artistic directors’, debut choreographic piece for stage; stepping away from the roll as performer where he has been a iconic performer for the last 10 years. Black was nominated for Best Newcomer in Contemporary Dance in 2002 by the FNB Dance Indaba.

Through this piece the choreographer deals with personal questions of home,belonging, non-belonging and forms of exile. To give the word to the embodied body, that had passed through such tunnel of experience. In his own rationality, there is no exile without a prior movement or emigration, he who says exile, says home in reverse, but the concept of exile is not about relocation or departure, the only thing that is real is the tragedy that such loss of home constantly brings to one’s existence.

This work is presented with assistance from the French Institute of South Africa and the French Embassy South Africa