South
African Company takes us into an emotional heartland
Dance Umbrella is proud to present Boyzie Cekwana’s Floating
Outfit Project in one performance at the beautiful, new Waldorf
Performing Arts Center on Saturday, January 28, 2006 at 8:00 p.m.
The Waldorf Performing Arts Center, 8702 South View Road, Austin,
TX.
Boyzie
Cekwana brings his 8-member Floating Outfit Project to Austin
to perform two of their award winning works. In JA, NEE, Cekwana
responds to the people around him, creating a work that is a meditation
on the harsh realities of post-apartheid Africa: its male-dominated
society, rampant AIDS, unchecked violence and child abuse. Employing
the symbolic use of gumboots, which are a strong symbol of exploitative,
mass, cheap labor, he illustrates a more potent source of depravation,
abuse in urban South Africa, mining. RONA ("Us" in Sotho),
is a celebration of spiritual identitiy and history, both past
and present. RONA takes us into a volatile mindscape, an emotional
heartland where Cekwana silhouettes history and geography as myth
merges with germinating identity as he retraces African spiritual
roots in a controlled and ritualistic journey for 3 dancers, one
of whom will play live musical accompaniment.
Hailed
as the Wunderkind of South African dance, Boyzie Cekwana began
his dance training in Meadowlands, Soweto. At 23, he
was appointed Resident Choreographer of the now defunct Playhouse
Dance Company. This was the first such appointment for an African
Choreographer in the history of the Performing Arts Councils in
South Africa. He has received numerous choreographic awards and
his work has been commissioned by The Scottish Dance Theatre,
the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and The Washington
Ballet.
Through
the polyphony of African and Western elements Ja,nee holds the
hope
to find solutions to global issues through human power ”
Thuringer Allgemeine, Germany (March 2004)
This
presentation is funded in part by the National Dance Project of
the New England Foundation for the Arts, with local funding from
National Endowment for the Arts and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Additional funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
and The Ford Foundation.
Additional support has been provided by the Heartland Arts Fund,
a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance funded by the National
Endowment for the Arts with additional contributions from the
Texas Commission on the Arts, Courtney S.Turner Charitable Trust,
and foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas,
Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas and by the City
of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division, Texas Commission
on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and private contributions.
SM.jpg)
Boyzie
Cekwana brings his 8-member Floating Outfit Project to Austin
to perform two of their award winning works. In JA, NEE, Cekwana
responds to the people around him, creating a work that is a meditation
on the harsh realities of post-apartheid Africa: its male-dominated
society, rampant AIDS, unchecked violence and child abuse. Employing
the symbolic use of gumboots, which are a strong symbol of exploitative,
mass, cheap labor, he illustrates a more potent source of depravation,
abuse in urban South Africa, mining. RONA ("Us" in Sotho),
is a celebration of spiritual identitiy and history, both past
and present. RONA takes us into a volatile mindscape, an emotional
heartland where Cekwana silhouettes history and geography as myth
merges with germinating identity as he retraces African spiritual
roots in a controlled and ritualistic journey for 3 dancers, one
of whom will play live musical accompaniment.
Hailed
as the Wunderkind of South African dance, Boyzie Cekwana began
his dance training in Meadowlands, Soweto. At 23, 
he
was appointed Resident Choreographer of the now defunct Playhouse
Dance Company. This was the first such appointment for an African
Choreographer in the history of the Performing Arts Councils in
South Africa. He has received numerous choreographic awards and
his work has been commissioned by The Scottish Dance Theatre,
the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and The Washington
Ballet.