AUG 19 | From Africa
Battery Dance welcomes dancers and dance companies from Johannesburg, Kampala and Harare, in this virtual travelogue to Southern and East Africa. The unique stamp of these performers carries on a Festival tradition that saw dance from Gabon and Botswana in previous years.
Introduction by Uzodinma Iweala, Chief Executive Officer of The Africa Center in New York City.
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Program
ABDUL KINYENYA | UGANDA
TWETE (free ourselves) | U.S. Premiere
Abdul Kinyenya showcases the beauty of the land while seamlessly blending into nature and featuring the daily life of others. This film was made especially for Battery Dance TV and received the most viewership of any solo presented.
About the Artist
Founder of Batalo East and Co-founder and Former Artistic Director of Tabu Flo, Abdul Kinyenya is a leading dancer, choreographer, educator, arts festival director, and spokesperson for the field of dance in Africa. He holds a degree in International Business, and a Leadership and Social Enterprise Certificate from Dartmouth College. A Hip-Hop Dance Ambassador with The Kennedy Center and U.S. Department of State in 2010 and a Mandela Fellow in 2016, he serves as member of the International Society for the Performing Arts.
DUNIA DANCE THEATRE | ZIMBABWE / BELGIUM
Making Men
Shot in the breathtaking landscape of Zimbabwe, the film features strong rhythmical choreography with camera work that amplifies emotions latent in the movement. It focuses on a group of individuals in the process of reaching manhood; attempting to understand, questioning and expressing their doubts and break free of invisible chains, to find their true selves.
About the Company
Dunia Dance Theatre, founded in Brussels, Belgium in 2001, presents work in which story telling and elements of African mythology merge with modern and African dance techniques to create a contemporary dance experience. Harold George works with the plastic arts and new media including video, removing the boundaries separating artistic disciplines. The result speaks to the emotions through an aesthetic emerging from a diaspora experience.
LUTHANDO ARTS ACADEMY| SOUTH AFRICA
THINA (“WE”) | U.S. Premiere
A dance theatre piece created by Phumlani Nyanga, THINA portrays a young South African family interacting and growing together, and struggling to maintain harmony as siblings feud over money and inheritance.
About the Company
Based in Sedibeng, formerly known as the Vaal Triangle in Sebokeng, Luthando Arts Academy uniquely contributes to Contemporary African dance and music. The aesthetics, choreographic language, artistic direction and production values of the professional performances have been well-received by promoters, funders and audiences. The company focuses its work on the dual mission of educational outreach and professional dance creation.
MOVING INTO DANCE | SOUTH AFRICA
Road | U.S. Premiere
Road is the place where we want to be, and the route that guides us there. It is the journey that leads us to this destination, accentuating the experiences of life, through learning from this road travelled. Road has been performed on international in Europe. This work has won the Kurt Jooss International Award for choreography Essen, Germany, 2016; and Hannover 33 International Choreography Award, 2019, for its choreographer Oscar Buthelezi.
Everlast | U.S. Premiere
A journey into the dehumanization of labor through the separation of product from the producer and a forfeiting of rights of ownership to the product created. This work premiered in Moving into Dance’s Annual Season in 2015, and thereafter traveled to the Harare International Arts Festival in Zimbabwe in 2016.
About the Company
Moving into Dance was born in the cruel turbulence of 1978 Apartheid South Africa by Sylvia Glasser as an artistic response to the destructive policy of separateness. The vision drew on the creative capacity of the human spirit to connect, enliven, and transcend. Dance as antidote to division. Four decades later continuing our signature Afrofusion Dance; we continue this legacy. We give back, by sharing the gifts of this experience and learning with others.