Rerouting Arts and JOMBA! come back to the Midlands - 2 September at 7pm
For one night only, Midlands audiences will be able to experience international dance artists from Romania and Madagascar, performing right on our doorstep. Presented by Rerouting Arts in partnership with UKZN’s Centre for Creative Arts and its 25th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, Ramanenjana will be showcased at the St Anne’s College Theatre on Saturday, 2 September at 7pm.
Ramanenjana is a docufiction performance about a dance that made history. In Malagasy, Ramanenjana means something that makes you rigid but also something that makes you strong. Amidst diseases, social unrest, and healing rituals, the show critically discusses several versions of the same mass dance event.
Following several years of research, Ramanenjana examines dance's societal role and how colonialism may have spread misconceptions about an extraordinary movement. Collaborating with ethnomusicologist and musician Olombelo Ricky, choreographers Simona Deaconescu and Gaby Saranouffi, along with three performers, playfully explore the Ramanenjana phenomenon using historical texts, dynamic hand gestures, and ecstatic movement.
This JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience is the 25th celebration of this stalwart KZN festival. The curatorial provocation, “(in)tangible heritages” has created space for artists to interrogate dance offerings that negotiate the intersectional personal and political paths that have allowed critical dance makers to arrive at this place.
Tegan Peacock, founder of Rerouting Arts, says, “We feel privileged to again be partnering with JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience to bring an evening of dance to Midlands audiences. Hosting visiting artists on our local stomping ground offers a unique opportunity to watch and engage with the global arts scene and experience a world of dance that sometimes seems removed from our daily life."
“This important relationship with Rerouting Arts, now in its second year, allows the festival to reach out to new audiences in a most accessible way,” enthuses Lliane Loots, curator and Artistic Director of JOMBA! “Contemporary dance is often seen as inaccessible to the uninitiated. Then, through engagement, discussion, and the shared experience as an audiences, it opens up new insights to the world. This is exactly what we hope to achieve.”
Ramanenjana will be performed at St Anne’s College Theatre, 50 Hilton Ave, Hilton on 2 September at 7pm.
Tickets for performance are R80 and can be booked in advance through Quicket:
For more information on JOMBA! Go to www.jomba.ukzn.ac.za
Supplied.