June 3, 2021
Take 5 minutes to meet choreographer and movement poet Mafa Makhubalo!
Mafa is a participant in the Coaching for Dance Artists program, which began as a partnership between Ontario Presents and La danse sur les routes du Québec. The program is designed to support the promotion of dance artists from Indigenous and racialized communities through coaching, facilitating communications, and organizing meetings between the artists and presenters in Ontario and Québec.
Starting at a young age, Mafa Makhubalo is no stranger to dance which has been deeply interwoven throughout his life and practice. His naturally gifted talents and passion led his successful artistic journey to be the founder and artistic director of Mafa Dance Village. Born in Sasolburg, South Africa, Mafa trained professionally in movement poetry, with practices in folk forms from the regions of African tradition, African contemporary, and West-Contemporary.
His piece Lentswe la Sejhaba (Voice of the Nation), is a 67-minute exploration of dance and music as important ways in which people maintain a sense of self-expression and self-acceptance, to find a way through complex times.
Mafa is currently working on Dialogue with DNA, a new work in the percussive gumboot dance style which emerged as a form of communication among workers in the inhumane mines of South Africa where they were forbidden to speak.
You can find out more about his work at www.mafadancevillage.ca.