Swiss style and sensuality for SA dance stages.
Brilliant news for dance aficionados is that the award-winning Swiss contemporary ballet work NILE will be touring venues throughout Southern Africa for two weeks in July.
Created by choreographers Laurence Yadi and Nicolas Cantillon, with original music by Sir Richard Bishop, NILE scooped the prestigious Swiss Award for Dance and Choreography in 2011.
Now, this sensual and beautiful work is winging its way southwards. It will be presented in South Africa and Mozambique by Company 7273, a Swiss/French contemporary dance outfit, and supported by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss arts council.
NILE can be seen at the Transnet Great Hall at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown on 5, 6 and 7 July 2014, before it heads to the Franco-Mozambican Cultural Centre (CCFM) in Maputo on 15 July 2014, and then to the Wits Main Theatre in Johannesburg as part of the 969 Festival on 17 July 2014.
In between these performances, from 9 to 12 July, Company 7273 will be in KwaZulu-Natal to present workshops and master classes for professional and semi-professional dancers, as well as for parents and children interested in contemporary ballet. These classes will be held in partnership with the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, as well as local dance companies Flat Foot and Siwela Sonke.
Company 7273’s choreographers and artistic directors, Ms Yadi and Mr Cantillon, worked extensively as performers and choreographic assistants at the Ballet Jazz Art in Paris, the Geneva-based Alias dance company and Rui Horta in Lisbon. In 2003, they started branching out to choreograph their own work, first with the piece La Vision du lapin, followed bySimple Proposition (2005) and then Climax (2006), which received the Lietchi Foundation’s Award for the Arts.
After En Concert and Laï laï laï laï, Listen & Watch (2009), the third installment of a trilogy exploring the relationship between dance and 1970s American folk music, marked Company 7273’s first artistic collaboration with experimental American musician Sir Richard Bishop – a composer, guitarist and singer who, in the early 1980s, co-founded ethnic-improv pioneers the Sun City Girls.
In 2011, this meeting of three creative minds came to potent maturity with the creation of the award-winning work NILE, which is now set to grace Southern African stages. Acoustic guitar music and the sounds of the region where the river runs, move these five dancers in a way that can be described as sensual and layered with emotion, and combines with the choreography to create a subtle, sexy energy.
Rich with allegory and abstraction, NILE conjures emotions that overtake the physical reality of the river to which it alludes. It is no longer just a river on a map, but a reservoir of imagination, a way to explore movement and the mental universe. The flow of the dancers’ movements creates a state of trance.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to witness French-Swiss contemporary ballet at its most cutting-edge and striking ! Book through venues, details below.
NILE Southern Africa tour itinerary: 5 to 17 July 2014
Week of workshops & master classes:
Aimed at professional & semi-professional dancers, as well as parents & children, in partnership with the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN), Flat Foot and Siwela Sonke
- 9 – 12 July
- Venues & times details on request
- Or, for more info contact Elroy Bell of Siwela Sonke Dance Company at elroybell@gmail.com
Performance:
- Franco-Mozambican Cultural Centre (CCFM), Maputo
- 15 July, 19h00
- More info and ticket purchase from: http://www.ccfmoz.com/
Performance:
- 969 Festival, Johannesburg
- Wits Main Theatre
- 17 July, 20h00
- Purchase tickets from WITS Theatre directly or vie webtickets at this link http://www.webtickets.co.za/
event.aspx?itemid=829172759
