So you think you can dance?

After 45 years, Jazzart Dance Theatre has honoured its vision of being a sustainable African contemporary dance theatre company, challenging the dance status quo and social stereotypes. “We have achieved this through training and performances that celebrate the uniqueness of our bodies as creative instruments that give voice to our untold stories,” says Artistic Director Sifiso Kweyama.

Sifiso elaborates: “Alfred Hinkel already started developing the uniquely fused technique that had become Jazzart’s signature movement language by the time he sat in the company’s director’s chair in ’85. This technique was born in OKiep, Namaqualand, out of a realisation that classical techniques such as classical ballet and modern jazz were developed on particular body types that did not include the curves and crevices of our African bodies.”