Mamela Nyamza et les Soweto Kids

Le Ishbuja incarne cette capacité de la danse à circonscrire les bords d’un vécu, à incarner sans les dissocier l’énergie et la violence, l’espoir, les attentes et les impasses d’une jeunesse confrontée aux inégalités, à la fragilité des conditions de vie

Behind this unique creation, bringing together contemporary dance and the urban dances from the Johannesburg townships, was the meeting between Mamela Nyamza, a South African female performer, and the kids of Soweto’s Finest. The meeting of an artist, who in her work tackles the different images, paradoxes and pressures but also the fighting spirit of women in this society, and of a group of young dancers, interpreters of “Ishbuja”, a movement symptomatic of the creative effervescence of the post-apartheid generation. Expressive and narrative, engaging the entire body, “Ishbuja” embodies the capacity of dance to delimit the boundaries of an experience, and to embody, without dissociating them, the energy and violence, the hope, expectations and dead-ends of a youth confronted with inequalities, unemployment and the precariousness of living conditions. Rhythmic, explosive, their bodies become the crossroads of varying influences – African traditional dance, fragments of hip-hop – giving this form a scope that outreaches the context that witnessed its birth. This meeting of street and stage is an opportunity to extend their respective practices: their show alternates moments of pure dance, deploying all the aspects of “Ishbuja”, and the positioning of the tension of the problems affecting South African society, of which the role of women and the social disparities are doubtless the most worrying symptoms. Mamela Nyamza’s body becomes a surface of multiple projections, a “totem” filled with desires, repulsions and fascinations. Together, they form a prism intermingling jubilant dance and revelations of the darkest areas.  

Source: Maison de la Danse