Cape Town, 4 September 2023 – Dance enthusiasts, art and theatre lovers and anyone looking for a moving experience that can suspend reality and transport them to a world of exceptional creativity transcending time and space, take note of an upcoming performance by South Africa’s leading contemporary dance theatre company.
Jazzart Dance Theatre turns 50 this year and will honour the occasion with a dazzling expression of love, life, and the joy of dance at its home – the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town.
The ’50 Years of Dance Celebratory Festival’ is an exciting, stimulating and thoroughly celebratory programme, elevating and honouring the life-changing impact and longevity of contemporary dance in South Africa. The festival will showcase an exciting host of national and international guest companies and artists, featuring Jazzart’s young, energetic, and ambitious students and professional company of dancers, along with specially invited guests from around the country.
The Jazzart Festival of Dance two-week programme encompasses a series of masterclasses and workshops and a mixed bill of performances.
In week 1 Jazzart’s celebrated alumni Sifiso Kweyama, Celeste Botha, Elvis Sibeko and Shaun Oelf showcase works alongside multiple award-winning artists Vincent Mantsoe and Gregory Maqoma. They are joined by South African dance legend Sylvia Glasser and Moving into Dance which shares an historic legacy with Jazzart, being one of South Africa’s longest standing contemporary dance companies.
The programme includes short works created by graduates of Jazzart, Sinenhlanhla Sihlangu and Keagan Damons and an exciting offering from the unique partnership between Jazzart & Unmute Dance Theatre featuring a work by Andile Vellem and Yaseen Manuel.
Week 2 of the festival will feature an exciting new collaboration between Jazzart, Cape Town Opera, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and the Phoenix Dance Theatre featuring the new, critically acclaimed 5-star production of ‘Requiem: Journeys of the Soul,’ which has been choreographed and directed by Jazzart’s Artistic Director, Dane Hurst, with music by Mozart and Neo Muyanga.
This brand-new production premiered in June this year at the Leeds Grand Theatre in collaboration with Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre and was hailed as a 5-star “knock-out double bill”. It promises to be a thought-provoking and poignant expression of remembrance and rebirth in a post-pandemic society.
The new works were commissioned by Opera North (UK). Mozart’s iconic masterpiece ‘Requiem’ is performed with the companion piece by Neo Muyanga’s new work entitled ‘After Tears’ which has been described as an “invocation of South African rituals of mourning and remembrance – ultimately celebrating the beauty of life – colourful, joyous, uplifting: food for the soul.”
This ‘50th Celebratory Festival of Dance’ will be a true celebration of contemporary dance, demonstrating just how and why this company is a household favourite on home soil, and continues in making a strong name for itself on the international stage.