Menu
Menu
JOMBA! is delighted to be honouring Mamela Nyamza (featured on our poster!) as the 2023 JOMBA! Legacy Artist. Mamela’s cutting edge and deeply interrogated dance work spans over two decades of dance making in South Africa and internationally, and as JOMBA! hits its iconic 25th year, we can think of no better artist to celebrate as our JOMBA! Legacy Artist. We celebrate Mamela for her vison and practice, and for significantly contributing to our country’s rich critical contemporary dance history and legacy.
Mamela Nyamza was born in Gugulethu township, near Cape Town in South Africa. From the tender age of 8 years she studied ballet at the Zama Dance School in Gugulethu, and proceeded to graduate from the Tshwane University of Technology with a National Diploma in Ballet in 1994. After studying, she was awarded a contract at the State Theatre in Pretoria. During this tenure, Mamela started to think of radically deconstructing the normative expectations of who qualifies to be a classical ballerina and, in this process (in 1999), she was awarded a prestigious scholarship to study at the Alvin Ailey International School for Dance in New York. She was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist award for Dance in 2011, and continued her innovative choreography and performance. Her original HATCHED (which was created in 2007) was her first work to kick-start her long obsession of unapologetically demystifying, deconstructing and trampling on the norms and standards of the dance/classics. Recognised globally for her innovative and deeply intersectional and political dance making, JOMBA! is proud to celebrate Mamela Nyamza as one of South Africa’s most important dance voices – and to celebrate her very tangible heritage in the lexicon of African dance making.
Concept, Choreography and Direction: Mamela Nyamza
Dancers: Kirtsy Ndawo, Kearabetswe Mogotsi, Khayalethu Ndlovu, Thamsanqa Tshabalala, Itumeleng Chiloane, Dayan Beukes, Amohelang Rooiland and Noluyanda Mqulwana
Opera Singer: Litho Nqai
African Multi-Instrumentalist: Azah Mphago
Production Technical Director, Stage and Lighting Design: Wilhelm Disbergen
Costume Designer: Bhungane Mehlomakulu
“The line between art and life should be kept as fluid and perhaps indistinct as possible” – Allen Kaprow
HATCHED ENSEMBLE is motivated by Mamela Nyamza’s original 2007 solo work HATCHED which offered an autobiographical work that reflected on Mamela’s own life as a mother and artist. HATCHED ENSEMBLE builds on this almost 16 years later, in a new work that is now performed by nine ballet trained dancers from different racial and gendered backgrounds. Challenging issues of tradition, gender norms within the dance classics, and various issues around identity and belonging, HATCHED ENSEMBLE references both classical Western music and dance, with traditional African vocal scores. HATCHED ENSEMBLE speaks to anyone who has ever felt a conflict with their own identity and questioned where they belong within the status quo.
This work is made possible with support from:
National Arts Festival, The Market Theatre, PESP 4, National Arts Council (South Africa), Department of Sports, Arts and Culture (South Africa), and Friends of “Mamela’s Artistic Movement” – #FRIENDSWHOSUPPORTTHEARTISTS
Parental Guidance Advised
