Fragmented

Cape Town
Co-director / Poet / Choreographer: Khanyisile Mbongwa
Co-director / Camera / editor: James Tayler
Performers: Zenande Mankayi, Nicole Olsen
4'53’’
2009

In Cape Town, a city divided along race and class lines, two women can't quite meet and can't quite let go. One gay, one straight, one black, one coloured, the spaces they inhabit connect them, and yet become the thing that separates them from each other. "Fragmented" is a dance poem about the physical and psychological identity of women in the city. They dance in urban spaces marked by masculine architecture that denies the organic curves of their bodies. They venture into marginal areas in which they are subject to intimidation or violation, areas marked by gang graffitti where only men walk safely. Their silhouettes become windows into the cityscape, in a film that dreams of a place where, in a line from the hushed internal monologue of the poem, "I forget your sex and your skin colour".

waitless

Cape Town
Choreographer / director: Ananda Fuchs
4’40’’
2009

Three women sit in an empty suburban swimming pool: one who speaks the other’s mind, one who translates into her lover’s language and one whose mind is being spoken. They are all suspended in waiting. The film uses the words from the Leonard Cohen poem, “Dance Me to the End of Love”, as the women’s bodies remember the rhythm of love and of loss and are swept up in the dance, switching ultimately to a lovers’ tango on the beach – a memory or fantasy?

Karohano

Johannesburg
Choreographer / director: Jeanette Ginslov
4'30''
2009

Karohano, meaning pieces in Sesotho, is a collaborative dance video representing three male dancers from Madagascar and South Africa. It is a fusion of video technology and urban dance energy, revealing aspects of African male identity, political satire and ironic gestures. Nominated for Jury Short Award Cinedans, Netherlands, 2008.

Jeanette Ginslov. slip. screen dance.

An early screen dance by the South African multimedia choreographer.