Durban dancer, choreographer selected for prestigious ‘Atelier for Young Festival Managers’ in Canada

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A young Durban dancer and choreographer from Claremont Township, west of the city, has been selected to participate in the prestigious “Atelier for Young Festival Managers” in Canada.

Thobile Maphanga made the final 35 out of 90 applicants worldwide. The programme trains practitioners in various aspects of festival management with renowned directors from outstanding international festivals and arts centres from around the world.

The Atelier for Young Festival Managers is a seven-day training programme for young artistic festival managers or those, who are ambitious to become involved in programming or related departments within a festival.

Maphanga, currently a mentor and choreographer for the Jomba festival, says this is a great opportunity to learn from various artists around the world.

“It’s just a great opportunity for me to learn. I’m very passionate about art as a mode to negotiate our lives, so to be able to learn from people to be able to bring that back home. I’m very passionate about KZN. I’m very passionate about the arts industry in KZN. It deeply saddens me that a lot of people from KZN have to leave in order to be successful in our industry, so to be able to bring something back home something that might charge us or a new us but also to share with the world who we are and how we do things and why we do things.”

Maphanga to represent South Africa in prestigious festival in Canada:

Maphanga has launched a crowd-funding campaign to help her get to Canada.

“Money has already gone out, the total of budget in terms of getting myself there is R70 000 is our target and I have started a back a buddy crowdfunding which is basically open to anybody, who is interested and willing to support and no amount is too small. When I checked this morning we were just under R25 000 and people have already started supporting and they have been quite generous and I’m deeply grateful.”

Jomba artistic director, Dr Lliane Loots says COVID-19 has affected the arts industry worldwide — and this opportunity will help artists share ideas on how to deal and work around the changes they face.

“So the opportunity to go to an international space and to go and meet like-minded people, who are dealing with the same challenges of dealing with a world that has changed and shifted and what does that mean for the arts. Because although in South Africa we’re finding that our community has been decimated, the work that artists are able to get has also been terribly compromised but it’s not just us it’s the rest of the world as well. So some of the struggles we’re facing are also struggles faced by festivals in South America, festivals in India, so when Thobi goes along she’s going to be meeting people in another context it’s going to be like opening another world again.”

The Atelier for Young Festival Managers runs from the first to the seventh of June.  -Reporting by Nonhlakanipho Magwaza