Mamela Nyamza (South Africa)
“A formally rigorous and deeply beautiful piece of dance… both direct and subtle, cleverly wrought and deeply felt, absolutely stunning to see” (The Guardian).
In its US premiere, Hatched Ensemble is an autobiographical work reflecting on South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza’s life as a mother, lesbian and artist. Nyamza’s earlier work, Hatched (2008) launched her artistic signature of unapologetically demystifying, deconstructing, and trampling on the norms and standards of the classics.
In Hatched Ensemble, the work is extended to include ten classically-trained ballet dancers from different ethnic backgrounds. The dancers confront the deeply personal and challenging issues of tradition, sexual evolution, and racial and gender norms within the dance classics. Says Nyamza, “Hatched Ensemble speaks to anyone who has felt conflicted about their own identity and where they belong in the status quo.”
Accompanied by an opera singer and a traditional African multi-instrumentalist, the piece juxtaposes disparate movement vocabularies, referencing traditional African vocal scores, classical Western music, ballet, and beyond.
With subtle gestures and enormous sensitivity, Hatched Ensemble opens up a whole universe, one that dance history would never have suspected to exist, overflowing with urgency and subtle virtuosity.
“Panoramic, poetic and visually arresting work…her work is imbued with delicacy, scope and a strong authentic intelligence” (The Times, London)
Please note: this performance contains partial nudity.
All performances in our covered, open-air Pavilion Theater are rain-or-shine. We urge audience members to dress according to their comfort for the projected temperature.
PS21 members are invited to join us for an exciting season-opening weekend!
Friday, May 30th: Meet new PS21 Artistic & Executive Director Vallejo Gantner over complimentary drinks at the season-opening member party in the PS21 orchards on 6:30pm, before Hatched Ensemble. All members are invited, and Champion members ($500) and above receive free locally-sourced dinner courtesy of Hudson Meal Company (otherwise available for purchase). Meals must be reserved by May 27th.
Saturday, May 31st: After the performance, all members are invited to the The People’s Pub for an afterparty featuring a performance Hatched Ensemble’s multi-instrumentalist Azah Mphago at 10:00pm. Open to all, and members receive complimentary drinks.
Already a member? RSVP for either party (or both!) by emailing zack@ps21chatham.org.
Not a member yet?
On Friday, please stay after the performance for a discussion between Mamela Nyamza and Gambian-born Hudson Valley photographer Diana Blain Fine. Fine’s work fuses photography and sociology to explore the politics of gender, identity, and conformity, examining the evolution of norms in the media and the marketplace and how they relate to women in post-colonial Africa and the west.
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY: MAMELA NYAMZA
Ms. Mamela Nyamza was born and bred in Gugulethu township, near Cape Town in South Africa on 22nd September 1976. From a tender age of 8 years whilst learning Ballet at the Zama Dance School in Gugulethu, Ms Nyamza, knew from the onset that, her love of body movement will eventually bring both prejudice and prestige to her career as a dance-theatre performing artist. Consistently ridiculed by her childhood peers for her athletic built toned body, to the ultimate rebuke and rejection of her natural body structure by her classical Ballet Teachers at tertiary level, Nyamza inevitably was drawn to the POLITICS OF THE BODY.
In the midst of adversity, Nyamza boldly proceeded to graduate from the Tshwane University of Technology with a National Diploma in Ballet in 1994. After acquiring her Diploma in Ballet, Nyamza was awarded a working contract at the State Theatre, in Pretoria. It is during this tenure that Nyamza started to think of radically deconstructing the normative expectations of who qualifies to be a classical Ballerina. In this process, she duly won an audition in 1999 for a prestigious scholarship to study further at the Alvin Ailey International School for Dance in New York, Unites States of America. This is where she co-created and performed a piece: “The Dying Swan” in 1999, which subsequently won her the Dance Umbrella Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer in Contemporary Style in 2000. A vastly accumulated experience in the field of dance, became a solid foundation for Nyamza’s distinction in creation, choreography and directing extra-ordinary fresh innovative works.
By 2007, Nyamza’s fresh innovations had taken shape which led to the creation of the highly acclaimed “HATCHED”, her first work to kick-start her art programme of unapologetically demystifying, deconstructing and trampling on the norms and standards of the dance/classics. Nyamza decisively won the Standard Bank National Young Artist for the Dance in 2011, due to her refreshingly innovative choreography and performance in the art of dance.
Her newest work, “HATCHED ENSEMBLE”, inspired by her solo work “HATCHED”, has already been labelled as a “strikingly original piece, an art installation, a dance performance with communal liberation its chief underlying theme” (The Times, 10 October 2024, United Kingdom); and “Insightful and thought-provoking production, powerfully conveys challenging issues of tradition” (Daily Dispatch, 28 June 2023, South Africa).
All the works of Nyamza, are work-pieces that deal with important socio-political issues of today’s South Africa, and, also do align with both the African continent’s grappling of similar issues, and that of the globe. Nyamza’s main goal is to propel DANCE into the ultimate theatric and genre of the performance art that conveys body politics on all social issues, and not to just entertain, but to edutain. Indeed, Nyamza’s fierce critics allege that she is a “non-dancing conceptual” dancer. In her own words, Nyamza counters: “one cannot separate concept from creation and choreography – they all must go hand-in-hand to yield to a complete performing artist”. Nyamza’s ultimate vision is to create, choregraph and direct more work that would reach the most remote areas of South Africa to unearth young, raw talent in the art of Dance in particular and performance arts in general.
Through her newly formed non-profit company MAMELAS ARTISTIC MOVEMENT, Nyamza has proceeded to fulfill her long held wish to provide a creative home for those unemployed dance artists who have been marginalized due to body politics. Nyamza has also started with grass-roots work by providing mentorship workshop sessions. With this outreach work, Nyamza has already been recognized by being awarded a Marraines Fiddo Award from Burkina Faso Festival International de Danse de Ouagadougou in 2022. With her newly established Non-Profit Company, Nyamza’s vision is to make DANCE, as the genre of the performance art, to convey body politics on all social issues.
Cast and Crew Members of HATCHED ENSEMBLE
Concept, Choreographer & Director: MAMELA NYAMZA
Rehearsal Manager: KIRSTY NDAWO
Technical Manager: BUNTU TYALI
Costume Designer: MAMELA NYAMZA
Publicist: KHAYA NDLOVU
Performers:
Opera Singer: LITHO NQAI
African Traditional Multi-Instrumentalist: GIVEN “Azah” MPHAGO
Ten Dancer Artists:
Kirsty Ndawo (Rehearsal Manager)
Kearabetswe Mogotsi
Khaya Ndlovu
Thamsanqa Tshabalala
Dineo Mapoma
Itumeleng Chiloane
Noluyanda Mqulwana
Zandile Constable
Pavishen Paideya
Thimna Sitokisi
HATCHED ENSEMBLE was created with the funding from National Arts Council of South Africa (NAC) and Makhanda National Arts Festival of South Africa (NAF)
