danceGATHERING – This is the end: The future is black
South Africa & Mozambique >> Nigeria
danceGATHERING is an annual gathering for creatives from diverse backgrounds, an anti-disciplinary lab, which operates as a collaborative with complete freedom of experiment. Now in its fourth year, the gathering will bring together artistes, thinkers and non-classifiable creatives who are all radically shifting the boundaries of knowledge in their various fields and localities, to connect by philosophies and practically collaborate together on ideas that don’t necessarily fit into one discipline.
QDance Centre, who organise danceGATHERING, describe it as “a body-mind-spirit workspace, where we collectively experience the bliss of total surrender to the creative process, where we inquire into what it means to elevate our thinking and culture as creatives, as thinkers and doers, by simply being open to others and learning from all kinds of inspiring people from around the world. It is a gathering where we are invited to plan together for a paradigm shift, where people are curated and not the things they make; here nothing is laid out but deeply felt.”
This year’s theme, This is the end: The future is black, looks beyond the question of race to a blank page through which to collectively rewrite the past and the future with new conceptual frameworks that do not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, instead drawing upon multiple theories, styles, cultures and ideas to gain contemporary insights.
On the final weekend, danceGATHERING transforms Broad Street (the Main Street in the Lagos Business District), into an arena for an elaborate performance, where all the collaborations, the findings and outcomes are shared in public to a large Lagos and international audience.
This year dancer/choreographers Gregory Vuyani Maqoma from South Africa and Idio Chichava from Mozambique have been invited to take part, supported by ANT Mobility grants.
BIOGRAPHIES
Gregory Vuyani Maqoma started his formal dance training in 1990 at Moving Into Dance, where in 2002 he became associate artistic director. Gregory has established himself as an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, teacher and director. He founded Vuyani Dance Theatre in 1999, and has been recognised with several accolades including the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Usiba Award from the South African Department of Arts & Culture.
Idio Chichava is the artistic director of the converge + dance company, where he develops multidisciplinary collaborative projects that encourage participation and freedom of expression. He has worked at Culturarte, Mozambique’s first contemporary dance company, and collaborated with many prominent choreographers from the region. Idio has taught dance workshops for all social classes in many countries around the world.
