They grew up together in Soweto, little realising that one day they would both be highly individual, trailblazing artists who would keep their country on the international dance map.

When the teenaged Boyzie Cekwana and Nelisiwe Xaba went to aerobics and yoga classes in their neighbourhood and later attended, then graduated from, the groundbreaking Johannesburg Dance Foundation certificate course, their careers took different paths. Yet as they have matured both, dancer-choreographers have developed a taste for what, in conventional theatre dance terms, can only be called the avant garde.

For the 22nd edition of the FNB Dance Umbrella both South Africans return to the festival where they cut their choreographic teeth. Cekwana, whose Inkomati (Dis)cord collaboration with Mozambique’s Culturarte was one of the talking points of last year’s Dance Umbrella, presents the SA premiere of his Influx Controls: I wanna be wanna be ( Dance Factory: March 11 and 12 at 19h30.)

According to the publicity material, this work, which premiered at the Spektakel Festival in Zurich in August 2009, featuring the choreographer and his fashion designer nephew, ‘explores what it means to be human in a boundaried, bordered, racialised and complex contemporary world... Boyzie Cekwana transforms a startling cry of rage into a remarkable work of art, giving voice to his personhood as he challenges the convenient forgetfulness of recent history.’ This work, which has toured the United States under the Floating Outfit Project banner, was Cekwana’s reaction to visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Read more in the February 2010 issue of CLASSICFEEL