GARAGE DANCE ENSEMBLE

GARAGE DANCE ENSEMBLE (O’okiep, South Africa)

Gat innie Grond, Wond in My Siel

Gat innie Grond, Wond in My Siel (Hole in the Ground, Wound in my Soul)

Conceived, choreographed and directed by Byron Klassen

Director of Photography, Camera Operator and Editor: Ruth Smith

Actress and Writer: Esmé Mathinus 

Dancers: Faroll Coetzee, Jaime-Lee Hine, Lynette Du Plessis, Dustin Jannetjies,  Lihle Mfene

Featured Musician:  Sylvester “Oom Dollie” Fortuin.

Researcher: Janine Lange

Photographer:  Dale Davids

This new screen dance film tells stories focused on Namakwaland while simultaneously highlighting complex topics and issues relevant to the mixed race/ Coloured people of the Northern Cape and broader Southern African region. The production’s main focus is to facilitate a process of exploring and translating the memories, trauma and current lived experiences of the Khoekhoegowab (South Africa’s first people). The fusion of various dance styles and different types of music, supplemented with an actress narrating, and background audio-visual features, ensures a rich creation process and an exciting production.

About Garage Dance Ensemble

Garage Dance Ensemble has been in existence since 2011, when icons of modern dance John Linden and Alfred Hinkel returned to their native soil and developed a dance community in the region. In 10 years of total dedication, Garage has put down firm roots. Garage directors John Linden and Alfred Hinkel, after firmly establishing Jazzart Dance Theatre as South Africa’s flagship contemporary dance company, have dedicated the past five decades to the development and upliftment of marginalised youth. Since returning to O’okiep from Cape Town in 2010, Hinkel and Linden have birthed a new professional organisation aimed at developing and employing the artistic, technical and administrative skills of individuals from the area.  True to form Garage Dance Ensemble, under Linden/Hinkel council, have taken on the challenge presented by the pandemic and have adapted to the new normal by going digital. 2020 saw the creation of Garage’s first dance Film in the form of Die Dans van my Heenkoms, that premiered on the NAF and won a Fiesta award for best online production on the Vryataat Vees. Gat innie Grond, Wond in my Siel is Garage’s second on-line festival offering.