Janelle’s Dance Academy in collaboration with the South African State Theatre present Splash and Leap!

Janelle’s Dance Academy returns to the Kucheza Afrika Festival for the second time running with a completely new work – Splash and Leap! The cast of dancers consists of professional dancers as well as dance students from Oakfields College’s and Tshwane University of Technology’s dance faculty.

Splash and Leap! is an expressionistic, contemporary/ballet dance piece incorporating art influenced by the artist, Ashvin Harrison. Imagery and videography used in the piece is edited by the professional dance photographer, Lauge Sorenson. The immaculate lighting design is done by Wilhelm Disbergen. Wilhelm is a prolific theatre designer who regularly works in all major theatres in South Africa. He is a multiple winner at the annual Naledi Theatre Awards, and has also received a Fleur du Cap award for lighting design.

The choreographer and director of the work, Janelle Claassen, drew inspiration from Ashvin’s artwork, Glamorous Gala Dance. She is inspired by how he mostly works with coal and acrylic paint, combining them into drawings that are designed to capture the beauty of everyday encounters, feelings and fantasies.

Janelle explains: “The dancer’s body is a work of art, creating shapes and patterns within a space, just like a visual artist creates a piece of art. I wanted to create a work of art depicting how the choreographer is the artist as well as the paintbrush and the dancers are the paint splattered onto the canvas.”

The first scene in Splash and Leap! features dancers dressed in white with a bare/white cyclorama. The dancers do simplistic, minimalistic movements symbolising a blank canvas.

In the scenes that follow, a video is projected onto the cyclorama of paint being splattered on a canvas. Every time a colour is introduced on the canvas, the lighting changes and maps out the splatterings on the white dance floor. The dancers move under the lights, their movements depicting the manner in which the paint splatters/fall onto the canvas. The colours that appear on the canvas are merlot red, burgundy, bright red and gold shimmer (inspired by Ashvin Harrison’s work Glamorous Gala Dance).

The dancers move on the stage in the same shapes and lines that their paint has created on the canvas. Once all the paint has been splattered on the canvas the image projected on the cyclorama zooms out to reveal a full image of a ballerina doing a leap (firebird) and the paint splatterings form her colourful expressionistic tutu/skirt. All the dancers finish in the same pattern as the colourful tutu and the artwork is now complete.

Janelle Claassen is excited to be directing and choreographing Splash and Leap! for the Kucheza Africa Festival. “I am passionate about contributing to the growth of our South African dance industry. I am truly blessed that my contribution is by doing something that I am passionate about.”

Janelle has been working in our industry as a teacher and professional choreographer for 17 years. She is currently the owner of Janelle’s Dance Academy and the co-owners of Adamo Arts Academy and Wessels Dance Studio. These academies not only create platforms for students but work opportunities for professionals. Her dedication and love for the arts is what makes these academies successful. Together with her colleges the academies have produced professional performers, choreographers and teachers. A positive contribution to the South African performing industry.

Venue: State Theatre ( Drama Theatre)
Dates: 5 – 9 November 2024
Ticket price: R150

NE Mafuyeka
Nkhensani@statetheatre.co.za
079 296 3871
South African State Theatre
http://www.statetheatre.co.za