NOW in its 28th year, Durban’s Jomba Contemporary Dance Experience, to be held from August, will showcase three of South Africa’s most influential dance voices – PJ Sabbagha, Mamela Nyamza and Vincent Mantsoe, each of whom brings decades of innovation to the Durban stage.
The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts presents the 13-day celebration of contemporary dance from August 25 to September 6 at the UKZN campus’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. This year’s festival is curated around the theme Choreographies of Activism: Moving Bodies as Disruptive Presencing.
Each year Jomba celebrates a South African artist whose contribution has fundamentally reshaped the country’s dance landscape. The festival opens on Tuesday, August 25, with 2026 Jomba Legacy Artist PJ Sabbagha’s work Noah.
Choreographer, curator and arts activist, founder and artistic director of the Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative, PJ Sabbagha has, for more than three decades, taken dance beyond urban centres and into rural communities, through initiatives including the Ebhudlweni Arts Centre and the internationally respected My Body My Space Rural Public Arts Festival. As part of the Legacy celebration, audiences will experience the concluding chapter of Sabbagha’s acclaimed Noah trilogy – a multimedia dance-theatre work reflecting on climate crisis, loss, memory and survival through the metaphor of the biblical flood.
Past Jomba Legacy Artist Mamela Nyamza returns to the festival after recently receiving the Silver Lion for Dance at the 2026 Venice Biennale, one of the highest honours in international contemporary dance. Nyamza brings her new ensemble work, The Head/Less, to Jomba – described as a visually arresting meditation on community, conformity, vulnerability and survival. Known for her fearless, politically incisive choreographic language, Nyamza’s return confirms her place as one of Africa’s most important contemporary artists.
Internationally celebrated choreographer and performer Vincent Mantsoe joins the Legacy line-up with his new solo, Desert Poems. Mantsoe has long bridged ancestral knowledge with contemporary performance, and this intimate new work offers a meditation on endurance, spirituality and transformation.
All three artists will also lead free public workshops during the festival, giving Durban’s dance community direct access to some of the country’s most significant choreographic minds. Booking for workshops is essential.
The festival hosts talks, panel discussions, workshops, performances and residencies.
For more information got to www.jomba.ukzn.ac.za. Special full festival passes at a discounted rate are available. To book for workshops email: Thobile Maphanga on 2024jomba@gmail.com
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