Zimbabwean dance group blooms bold at Arts Festival
20 May 2015
Saying a resolute no to xenophobia by their very presence at this year's National Arts
Festival, Zimbabwe's leading dance company Tumbuka will be staging a production that
explores the "Zimbabwean self, focusing on the masculine presence, through dance,
movement and space".
South Africa’s biggest arts event runs from 2 to 12 July in Grahamstown.
Portrait of Myself as My Father was co-created by New York-based
Zimbabwean performer/choreographer Nora Chipaumire in 2014 when she visited
Zimbabwe as part of a research tour of four African cities supported by the New York
Live Arts Suitcase fund.
Since the company's inception in the early 1990s under the dynamic leadership of
British choreographer Neville Campbell, Tumbuka have been making bold and
passionate statements. Narrated through a uniquely Zimbabwean movement vocabulary
that is at once vigorous, energetic and direct, they have tackled social issues ranging
from the AIDS struggle, to Rwandan genocide, to first-hand accounts of the dire
economic situation in Zimbabwe.
"With contemporary dance you can talk about anything in life," says Tumbuka dancer
Mathias Julius. "Any issue that we need to talk about, we do."
"kuTumbuka" is a Shona word meaning "to flower or bloom" and this is a company that
truly lives up to its name. Tumbuka rose to international acclaim in the 1990s, touring
extensively throughout Africa and Europe. But the company almost collapsed in the
early 2000s, with the withdrawal of donor funding and many of the country's leading
dancers leaving for elsewhere.
Undeterred, they have battled on under impossible circumstances to keep dance alive in
Zimbabwe. They return to the National Arts Festival this year with fresh energy following
a winning performance of
Portrait of Myself as My Father at the
Johannesburg Dance Umbrella in February.
"Chipaumire spent two months in
the studio with the Tumbuka dancers in a research
process that explored Zimbabwean movement and identity, the culmination of which is a
50-minute work for 10 dancers and three musicians,’ says Tumbuka Dance Company
spokesperson Anna Morris. "She donated her work to the Tumbuka repertoire in an
effort to help us emerge from a decade of difficulty and re-establish our identity as a
premier African contemporary dance company."
In
Portrait of Myself as My Father, Chipaumire "celebrates masculinity,
male presence and representation, the black African body and performance".
Breaking through the current fearful climate of xenophobia to bring Grahamstown
audiences the best of contemporary Zimbabwean expression, Tumbuka’s performances
at this year’s National Arts Festival are bound to be heartstopping.
Source:
Mational Arts
Festival
