(Published - 23 October 2019)

The CHR is excited to host Mamela Nyamza, an artist, choreographer, dancer and performer in a Public Conversation. The event will take place on 1 November 2019 at 6pm at Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Observatory, and is part of a series of events with the acclaimed artist. Nyamza, a graduate of Alvin Ailey International School for Dance in New York, a classically trained ballerina, and an accomplished choreographer, has produced and performed in numerous award-winning productions. These include, among others, The Meal, 19-Born-16-Rebels, Kutheni, and Umendi. More recently, Nyamza’s production De-Apart-Hate was nominated for the Broadway World South African Awards for Best Choreography, and Nyamza was identified by the Daily Review of Australia as one of the thirty international artists to track in 2018.

The Public Conversations is a series of public dialogues with arts practitioners and their legacies, convened by the Factory of Arts of the Centre for Humanities Research. The series hosts iconic figures in facilitated public conversations with artists to think about their work, art and influences, affirming the necessity of engaging the significance of the arts for reshaping the ways in which we perceive the world. The Public Conversations series is one part of a larger set of initiatives by the Factory of the Arts at the Centre for Humanities Research, including masterclasses in voice, movement, and improvisation for both artists in residence as well as next generation artists from across the City of Cape Town and further afield. Both the masterclasses and the public conversations aim to provide opportunities for artists to develop and deepen areas of technical mastery across creative disciplines, and feature nationally and internationally renowned teachers in these areas of practice. These masterclasses as well as the public conversations are part of a larger commitment by the Centre for Humanities Research to bring scholarship and arts practice closer.

Nyamza’s expertise and practice is informed by a deeply conceptual commitment to unsettle existing boundaries in the space of performative arts. Her work is also interested in what it means to think and practice aesthetics and politics alongside one another. In her own words, ‘One cannot separate concept from creation and choreography, and they all must go hand-in-hand to yield to a complete performing artist’. It is in this way that Nyamza’s work is important as an activating force in the continued work of the CHR in its scholarship, postgraduate training, and its arts programmes in the Factory of the Arts and LoKO.

Date: 1 November 2019
Venue: Theatre Arts Admin Collective
Methodist Church Hall, cnr Milton and Wesley Street, Observatory
Time: 6 pm
Entry: Free
Please RSVP Micaela Felix at centreforhumanitiesresearch@uwc.ac.za

For more information visit: http://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/a-public-conversation-with-mamela-nyamza/