BODIES THAT REFUSE TO OBEY: Mamela Nyamza ignites the Baxter stage
By Sitha Maliwa:
There are performances you watch, and then there are performances that confront you. This April, Mamela Nyamza does not simply return to the stage - she storms it, bringing with her two searing, unflinching works: HATCHED ENSEMBLE and THE HERD/LESS, set to take over the Baxter Theatre from 29 April to 2 May.
Fresh from a sold-out Paris run and echoing across international stages, these productions arrive in Cape Town not as performances, but as provocations.
HATCHED ENSEMBLE is not reborn - it erupts. Once a solitary voice in 2007, it now expands into a collective force of ten dancers, each body carrying its own history, discipline and defiance. Ballet’s rigid spine collides with the pulse of African movement, and from that collision, s...