The double invoice premieres at Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees, then continues a riveting Cape City season at Artscape Theatre.
What do our our bodies bear in mind, and what modifications once we grow to be totally awake to the lives we live? Jazzart Dance Theatre explores these questions in Our Our bodies Bear in mind, a brand new double invoice created by rising choreographic leaders Lihle Mfene and Chesney Stanfield, with Jazzart alumnus Emile Petersen.
The manufacturing will likely be offered on the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees on 9 and 11 October 2026, adopted by an Artscape Theatre season in Cape City from 15 to 17 October 2026.
On the centre of the season is the concept that the physique carries tales, histories, relationships, wounds and potentialities, usually lengthy after the thoughts has moved on. Historic Souls and Unveil strategy that concept from completely different instructions, creating a night of up to date dance about reminiscence, awakening and the braveness to grow to be.
TWO WORKS, ONE QUESTION
Historic Souls, choreographed by Lihle Mfene, imagines a timeless realm between life and demise. Souls formed by many lifetimes collect to share reminiscences, feelings and truths. As they replicate and heal, the work asks what we supply ahead, what connects us and what it means to rediscover a deeper sense of self.
Unveil, choreographed by Chesney Stanfield with Emile Petersen, turns inward. The work considers the inertia that may settle over on a regular basis life and the metaphorical veil that retains us from seeing ourselves clearly. Via moments of revelation and confrontation, the dancers face a alternative: stay beneath the veil or step into aware turning into.
Collectively, the works ask audiences to contemplate who they’ve been, who they’re and who they might but grow to be. Additionally they present how modern dance can maintain on a regular basis human tales, transferring between the private, the non secular and the social with out dropping the expressive pressure that has outlined Jazzart for greater than 5 many years.
FROM DEVELOPMENT PATHWAY TO ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP
Our Our bodies Bear in mind is the fruits of Jazzart’s 2026 Creative Residency programme, which helps artists as they transfer from efficiency into inventive management. The residency develops not solely choreographic voice, but additionally the sensible tasks of main skilled dancers, planning and scheduling rehearsals, facilitating expertise improvement and managing a artistic course of.
Each Mfene and Stanfield have progressed via Jazzart’s improvement pathway. Mfene, from Zolani close to Ashton within the Western Cape, skilled with Dancescape SA and graduated from the Cape Academy of Performing Arts in 2020. His multidisciplinary observe spans modern dance, ballet, jazz, hip-hop, African dance, theatre and choreography, with expertise in South Africa, Germany, the US and the UK.
Stanfield, initially from the US and raised in South Africa, skilled full-time with Jazzart from 2019 to 2022 earlier than becoming a member of the skilled firm. Her observe attracts on modern dance, hip-hop, heels and flooring work, and she or he has carried out and toured in South Africa, Rwanda, Pakistan and the UK.
Petersen, born and raised in Cape City, skilled in hip-hop earlier than becoming a member of Jazzart’s three-year skilled coaching programme in 2019. A dancer, choreographer, trainer, videographer and Jazzart alumnus, he brings a multidisciplinary perspective to Unveil and continues his artistic collaboration with Stanfield via Achieve Collective.
As Stanfield displays: “In case you’re in an establishment that allows you to stretch past what you assume you are able to do each day, it actually does put together you to enter into this world and this area, whether or not bodily or by way of your mindset.”
For Jazzart, the residency connects new inventive voices with new audiences whereas investing in the way forward for South African modern dance. Our Our bodies Bear in mind makes that funding seen on stage.
