Recent recipient of the prestigious 2026 Biennale Danza Silver Lion and the Stand Foundation Mohlopi award, Mamela Nyamza, finally brings her two trailblazing productions, Hatched Ensemble and The Herd/Less to Cape Town, at The Baxter for only limited performances each, following their resounding international success.

Hatched Ensemble will be staged on 29 and 30 April 2026 at 20:00 and The Herd/ Less on 2 May at 14:00. Booking for both productions are now open at Webtickets online or at Pick n Pay stores.

Gugulethu-born dancer, choreographer, director and activist, Nyamza is acknowledged by Biennale Danza as an artist who has transformed, evolved and brought new urgency to the language of dance.

Winner of the 2011 Standard Bank Artist of the Year for Dance, she was also recently selected as one of the Top Five Artists around the world for the Salavisa European Dance (SEDA) Award for 2026, which honours and recognises artists for their talent and unique qualities in dance.

Hatched Ensemble is a new work motivated by her highly acclaimed solo work, Hatched, which was created in 2007. It is an autobiographical work which reflects on her life as a mother and an artist and which kick-started her artistic signature of unapologetically demystifying and deconstructing the norms and standards of the ballet classics.

In Hatched Ensemble, 10 ballet-trained dancers from different ethnic backgrounds, convey deeply personal and challenging issues of tradition and their evolving experiences of gender norms within the dance classics, until they ultimately realise their own respective true identities.

Conceptualised, created, choreographed and directed by Mamela in 2023, the thought-provoking work has successfully toured internationally to over 16 countries and festivals which include the UK, Italy, Russia, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Mozambique and the USA. The cast includes opera singer Litho NQqai and African Instrumentalist, Given Mphago.

“Hatched Ensemble speaks to anyone who has felt conflicted about their own identity and where they belong in the status quo,” explains Nyamza. “The ballet shoes worn in this piece represent colonialism, the Western world, confinement – they are like tools of oppression. The white tutus represent marriage and the ballet world in general – how black ballet dancers could not fit in on that ballet stage. I wanted to show that anybody can dance, regardless of the production they want to be a part of.”

The Herd/Less unpacks the dual meaning of the word “herd”. It is described as a collective of people or animal species living, eating and behaving in harmonious environment. However, it can also mean a collective of people or animals being controlled as a group and not as individuals, culturally or physically. It delves into the fallacy of a beautiful world evoking violent realities of continuous vulnerability. The phenomenon of “herd” should be about abundance of beauty; but instead, it is about bounty and brutality of a controlled collective in a specific setting.

This latest production created, choreographed and directed by Mamela, has already generated much interest from various festivals and dance platforms. It has been invited to another season at the 2026 JOMBA! Dance Festival, has been short-listed for the National Arts Festival in Makhanda this year and will make its European debut at the Venice Dance Biennale in Italy in July.

Booking for Hatched Ensemble from 29 to 30 April at 20:00 and The Herd/Less on 2 May 2026 at 14:00, is through Webtickets online or at Pick n Pay stores.

NOTES TO EDITORS

BIOGRAPHY: MAMELA NYAMZA

Gugulethu-born South African dancer, choreographer, director and activist, Mamela Nyamza, is the recent recipient of the prestigious 2026 Biennale Danza Silver Lion is acknowledged as an artist who has transformed, evolved and brought new urgency to the language of dance. She was also recently nominated as one of the Top Five artists worldwide for the prestigious Salavisa European Dance Award (SEDA) 2026. This international accolade recognises exceptional global artists while supporting the creation of new work, affirming Nyamza’s enduring impact on contemporary dance.

From the age of eight, while training at Zama Dance School in Gugulethu, Nyamza understood that her love for movement would shape both the challenges and triumphs of her career. Ridiculed by childhood peers for her athletic, toned physique and later confronted by the rigid aesthetic expectations of classical ballet training at tertiary level, she became deeply attuned to the politics of the body. Undeterred, she graduated with a National Diploma in Ballet from Tshwane University of Technology in 1994.

Determined to radically deconstruct normative ideas of who qualifies as a classical ballerina, Nyamza pursued further training internationally. In 1999, she won a scholarship to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater School in New York, where she co-created and performed The Dying Swan. The work earned her the Dance Umbrella Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer in Contemporary Style in 2000.

By 2007, Nyamza’s bold artistic language had crystallised in Hatched, a seminal solo work that unapologetically demystified and dismantled the norms of classical dance. Her groundbreaking contribution to choreography was further recognised when she received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Dance in 2011. Hatched Ensemble, inspired by the original solo, has been described by The Times (UK) as “a strikingly original piece – an art installation, a dance performance with communal liberation as its chief underlying theme.”

Through her non-profit company, Mamela’s Artistic Movement NPC, Nyamza has created a vital creative home for artists marginalised by body politics. In 2022, she received the Marraines Fiddo Award at the Festival International de Danse de Ouagadougou, further cementing her international standing. Her work continues to position dance as a powerful medium through which to interrogate social justice, gender, identity and embodiment.

An outspoken advocate for social justice and gender awareness, Nyamza will present the world premiere of The Herd/Less at the Baxter Theatre from 1 to 2 May 2026, Hatched Ensemble from 29 to 30 April 2026. The production will then have its European premiere on 19 July 2026 at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance at Teatro Piccolo Arsenale.

THE Herd/Less interrogates the fallacy of a “beautiful world” while exposing violent realities of ongoing vulnerability. Exploring the dual meaning of “the herd” – both collective harmony and enforced conformity – the work continues Nyamza’s fearless engagement with power, control, submission and the resilient politics of the body.

For further media enquiries, interview or pic requests email Fahiem Stellenbom on fahiem.stellenboom@uct.ac.za or call 021 685 7880 OR Shireen Fisher on Shireen.fisher@uct.ac.za or call her on 021 685 7880.

Fahiem Stellenboom
fahiem.stellenboom@uct.ac.za
072 265 6023
Baxter Theatre Centre
http://www.baxter.co.za