JOMBA! and Rerouting Arts are back in the Midlands on Saturday, 7 September at 14:30
Once again local Midlands audiences are invited to come and experience a one time performance from international and local dance artists, right here on our doorstep. Presented by Rerouting Arts in partnership with UKZN’s Centre for Creative Arts and JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, Close by … / La rue d’à-côté … will be showcased at the Platform Gallery in Lions River on Saturday 7 September at 14:30.
Founded in 1994 in Marseille, France, Ex Nihilo works with the clear intention of moving dance beyond rehearsal studios and stages to ‘break down walls’ and engage with the public, transforming public spaces into sites for research, creation and performance. Ex Nihilo work outdoor which involves exploring space through bodies, constantly renewing each spatial experience. This gives rise to a direct interaction with the ‘viewer’ outside conventional settings and without formal invitation - whether passers-by, residents, or audience. Here lies the birth of movement and choreography.
Ex Nihilo has a long history with Durban and the JOMBA! festival, and return for this years’ 26th edition in a much-anticipated encounter with Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY. Anne Le Batard and Jean-Antoine Bigot will collaborate and guide the six resident FLATFOOT dancers in a series of site specific and site responsive encounters in and around Durban, and Hilton (as part the JOMBA! and Rerouting Arts partnership).
In a choice made to perform ‘close by’ to more formal theatre and performance art spaces at this years’ JOMBA!, Ex Nihilo and FLATFOOT, encounter the outside pathways and ways of being that emerge from immersive research that looks at how space is explored by the body. Often quirky, always daring, and continuously mesmerising, this dance work is an engagement with both the everyday and the extraordinary.
Tegan Peacock, founder of Rerouting Arts, says, “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience to present internationally recognised dance artists to our local Midlands audiences in unexpected and exciting venues. Presenting this site-specific work at The Platform Gallery is a new offering and I can’t wait to see the response in experiencing dance performance in a new and profound way.”
“This quirky site specific collaborative work is a very accessible piece of contemporary dance, that we hope will delight, and entertain, and most importantly create dialogue amongst the audiences that experience it.,” says JOMBA! curator Dr Lliane Loots. “We are grateful for this dynamic partnership with Rerouting Arts that enables us to bring our work further afield.”
Close by … / La rue d’à-côté … will be performed at the Platform Gallery at the Lions River Station on Saturday, 7 September at 14:30.
Tickets for the performance are R85 and can be booked in advance through Quicket:
For more information on JOMBA! Go to www.jomba.ukzn.ac.za
Photo credit: Martine Derain
Supplied.