CELEBRATED choreographer and dancer Mamela Nyamza has been appointed one of the fellows of the University of Cape Town's Donald Gordon Creative Arts Fellowships
The fellowship is to be taken under the auspices of the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (Gipca).
The other fellows for 2012 are the highly-acclaimed African-American photographic artist Jared Thorne, contemporary physical performance artist and director Richard Antrobus, published author Henrietta Rose-Innes and Michael MacGarry, who won the 2010 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art.
Mamela, who won the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Dance, said she was very surprised by the news.
"I never thought that as a dancer and choreographer one was going to be considered at such a high academic level. This opportunity came just at the right time. I will use it to interrogate the style of dance I was taught. I want to look at dance from a fresh angle.
"I was taught ballet and I know how to perform ballet. But this is the time to deconstruct the past and look at the present with regard to dance style," Mamela said.
The choreographer said though it was important that one received the kind of "textbook perfect" earlier lessons in ballet, now was the right time to interrogate those traditional dance techniques.
Mamela's work essentially considers the engendered body, and the contemporary definition of dance through her experimentation around themes of men and (mostly) women's roles and issues.
She asks how the body can be used as an instrument outside of conventional expectations - using dance to gain access to the deepest parts of the body, emotions, lightness and fears, and to elicit higher demands of ourselves.
Practically, her interest lies in the deep exploration of experimental forms of natural movement, and the simplicity of choreographing without using dance steps that are typical and conventional - often through the juxtaposition of movement of untrained and trained dancers.
Her project will scrutinise our contemporary understanding and experience of time - and human movement in it.
"I am now going into an institution to say, 'Well, I have in the past been taught certain dance techniques and that is all fine and well. But for now, let me share with the university community the Mamela experiences and definition of dance'.
"We need to chart the dance map of the future - in the same way a lot of things have changed since the 1980s.
"I mean, we as a society were used to communicate by writing letters to each other. Now we use modern tools such as Facebook and e-mail. Dance must do the same - move with the times," she said.
Mamela and other fellows will commence their fellowship from February next year.
"The good thing about this fellowship is that it will allow me to do university work as well as have time for my own individual projects. It is very flexible," she said.
The artist is considered to be one of the busiest on the international dance scene. A week ago, she returned from an extensive tour that took her to the UK as well as the US.
"And next week I am going to Slovenia," she said.
Body language
CELEBRATED choreographer and dancer Mamela Nyamza has been appointed one of the fellows of the University of Cape Town's Donald Gordon Creative Arts Fellowships
The fellowship is to be taken under the auspices of the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (Gipca).
The other fellows for 2012 are the highly-acclaimed African-American photographic artist Jared Thorne, contemporary physical performance artist and director Richard Antrobus, published author Henrietta Rose-Innes and Michael MacGarry, who won the 2010 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art.
Mamela, who won the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Dance, said she was very surprised by the news.
"I never thought that as a dancer and choreographer one was going to be considered at such a high academic level. This opportunity came just at the right time. I will use it to interrogate the style of dance I was taught. I want to look at dance from a fresh angle.
"I was taught ballet and I know how to perform ballet. But this is the time to deconstruct the past and look at the present with regard to dance style," Mamela said.
The choreographer said though it was important that one received the kind of "textbook perfect" earlier lessons in ballet, now was the right time to interrogate those traditional dance techniques.
Mamela's work essentially considers the engendered body, and the contemporary definition of dance through her experimentation around themes of men and (mostly) women's roles and issues.
She asks how the body can be used as an instrument outside of conventional expectations - using dance to gain access to the deepest parts of the body, emotions, lightness and fears, and to elicit higher demands of ourselves.
Practically, her interest lies in the deep exploration of experimental forms of natural movement, and the simplicity of choreographing without using dance steps that are typical and conventional - often through the juxtaposition of movement of untrained and trained dancers.
Her project will scrutinise our contemporary understanding and experience of time - and human movement in it.
"I am now going into an institution to say, 'Well, I have in the past been taught certain dance techniques and that is all fine and well. But for now, let me share with the university community the Mamela experiences and definition of dance'.
"We need to chart the dance map of the future - in the same way a lot of things have changed since the 1980s.
"I mean, we as a society were used to communicate by writing letters to each other. Now we use modern tools such as Facebook and e-mail. Dance must do the same - move with the times," she said.
Mamela and other fellows will commence their fellowship from February next year.
"The good thing about this fellowship is that it will allow me to do university work as well as have time for my own individual projects. It is very flexible," she said.
The artist is considered to be one of the busiest on the international dance scene. A week ago, she returned from an extensive tour that took her to the UK as well as the US.
"And next week I am going to Slovenia," she said.
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