Mamela Nyamza
34-year old multiple award-winning dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, passionate development activist and motivational speaker Mamela Nyamza is the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner for Dance.
"It's such a great feeling to be recognised in your country," said Nyamza after hearing that she had won the award. "Now I can travel the world with confidence, and carry the flag with me everywhere I go. There are no mistakes in life. Dreams are for real. I have dreamt about winning this award, and now it's a reality."
Nyamza matriculated from Fezeka High School in Gugulethu, Cape Town, where she also attended the ZAMA Dance School, under the royal Academy of Dance.
"Growing up in Gugulethu with a huge family did not give me a choice but to love dancing. There is music and sound, all day long, and even in the streets the noise became the music," said Nyamza. "I used my body as the instrument to react to all forms of sound, whether it be playing, crying, or watching all sorts of things that one can imagine happened in Gugulethu in the 80's" she added.
She went on to study a National Diploma in Ballet through the Pretoria Technikon Arts Faculty. In 1998 she completed a one year fellowship at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Centre, and also participated in intensive choreographic workshops at the Vienna International Dance festival. In 2005 she attended African Dance workshops in Soweto with Jamaine Acogny, and in 1997 she had Ballet Training with Martin Schonberg through the Pact Dance Company. Most recently in 2009, she did a major intensive course in dance directing through London's prestigious Sadler's Wells Theatre.
"No one warned me that it would be this difficult to be a dancer in South Africa, and there weren't many black female dancers back in the days who could have advised me on how to make it in this profession," said Nyamza. "So I juggled all of this on my own, not knowing what I was getting myself into. It is by no mistake that I am in the industry, it was meant for me. It actually chose me!" she said.
Since graduating she has been a member of the State Theatre Dance Company, lectured dance at the Pretoria Dance Technikon, The Dance Factory and Jazzart Dance Theatre, and was resident choreographer, teacher and Vice Principal of the Zama Dance School in 2007. From 2002 until 2005 she was also involved with various commercial, modeling and corporate projects, including being part of the Face of Woolworths Campaign in 2004, and her ongoing work with the Free flight Dance Company since 2002. She has also presented dance workshops in Brazil and Mexico.
"I love my art, because we have this powerful tool that speaks to all without a word, and that is powerful," said Nyamza.
Nyamza is currently project coordinator for the University of Stellenbosch's Project Move 1524, to educate and demonstrate through dance movement therapy on issues relating to HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and drug abuse. Her passion for upliftment and youth empowerment is evident through the various community outreach and dance training projects she has been involved in, from teaching ballet in Mamelodi to doing volunteer work at Thembalethu Day School for the Disabled.
"I think doing something with all your soul, you don't think about being drained, although it's all part of the parcel, it's like being a prophet spreading the word of Jesus and not expecting anything in return because you are doing good to the others. At the end of the day you feel so fulfilled that people are listening to your language – body instrument."
"Art has developed me, and opened a totally different book for me to explore the impossible which is now possible," said Nyamza about her passion for community work. "Giving back to the community is helping those that come from where I come from, and showing them that this art is so healing, and it can heal a lot of them that are born out of issues just like myself," she emphasised. She manages all of this outreach work amidst an intense performance schedule.
Nyamza has been part of various original grand-scale musical casts, including The Lion King in Denhaag, Netherlands in 2004 and We Will Rock You in South Africa in 2006.
In 2008 Nyamza choreographed and performed her own piece, HATCH at On Broadway, the Out The Box Festival and Baxter Dance Festival. She also took the piece to the Netherlands, where she performed it in shelters for abused women. She also performed this piece at the World Population Foundation. She did informal studio performances of the work in Brazil and Vienna, as well as at selected schools in the Eastern Cape, Durban and Cape Town and at the South African Domestic Violence conference in Johannesburg. During 2008, she performed in Gugulethu and Khayelitsha for the World's Aids Day, collaborating with Free Flight Dance Company and Dance For All. She was also selected as the South African representative invited to present Afro - fusion in Los Angeles, USA at the Superstars of Dance competition. Her work, Kutheni, was commissioned by FNB.
Other pieces choreographed by Nyamza include Reality Check (1999), Umakoti welixesha (2003), Some Of Us Can Change (2006), The Classroom (2007), If Clothes Could Talk (2008), Our Fear (2008), HATCH (2008), Kutheni (2009), I-Dolls (2009), Hatched (2009) and Shift (2009). She was also a choreographer for the reality TV-programme So You Think You Can Dance in 2008.
In 2009 she performed at the FNB Dance Umbrella and also took HATCH to Mexico for Foro Performatica. She attended the 2009 Young & Bright Artist's Conference in Cape Town, and was a commissioned artist for the Baxter Dance Festival.
Even after many years of experience in the South African performing arts industry, Nyamza is thankful for the opportunities to express her artistic views in the way that she wants to. "I now have my own repertoire, and I am so proud of my own achievements in the industry, thankful for all of those who believed in my art. I am ready to fly with the award, and take it to places where only the sky will stop me," said the dynamic mother, artist and activist.
The Standard Bank Young Artists Award is the latest to a long list of professional recognitions that she has received.
In 1994 she received a scholarship for her three years study at the Pretoria Technikon, and in 1998 she won a scholarship to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance center for a year in New York. In 2000 she won an award for the most outstanding performance by a female dancer in Contemporary style for The Dying Swan. In 2009 she was awarded a scholarship to the Vienna International Dance festival and in 2009 she received the FNB Phillip Stein Choreographers Grant for new work. In 2010 she was of the nominees for Spier Contemporary Art Awards.
"I worked hard to be where I am today. As a mother and as an artist, I am so proud of all my achievements in the industry and will continue doing the work I've been doing," said Nyamza. "I want to continue doing what I've been doing throughout the years, hoping that more doors will open for me. I want to see more light in my path, and use it in a good way," she added.
