Top dance creator lauded
VETERAN IS NAMED AS LEGACY ARTIST Orlin is known for shifting dance boundaries into witty political satire.
Robyn Orlin has been named as the 2024 Jomba! legacy artist. Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, Orlin’s vision of contemporary dance continues to be a kind of aesthetic eclecticism where she draws heavily on her own histories of ballet and modern, and a fascination with film and cinema.
She has shifted the boundaries of what we consider dance to be, often falling into witty and biting political satire.
Her love of kitsch, tutus and yellow plastic ducks has seen her creating iconic images that still haunt a South African dance landscape.
Orlin was trained at the London School of Contemporary Dance (1975-1980), then at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago (1990-1995).
She began her career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher in South Africa, where she was quickly spotted, as much for the singularity of her dancemaking, as for the chaos that reigns in her creations.
Her multiple prize-winning dance piece – Daddy, I have seen this piece six times before and I still don’t know why they’re hurting each other – mocks the difficulties and shortcomings of the young rainbow nation, but also classical ballet as a trajectory of discrimination. It enabled her to
tour in Europe and brought her international recognition.
France has since become a creative territory for her and she has made her first film, Hidden Beauties, Dirty Stories (InaArte, 2004), her first opera, Handel’s L’Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato (Opéra Garnier, Paris, 2007) and her first theatre production, Les Bonnes by Jean Genet (Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris, 2019) in France. She continues to create work in SA.
Artistic director and curator Lliane Loots says: “The Jomba! festival’s 2024 overall curatorial theme and provocation is ‘the memory of home’ and we can think of no South African artist better suited to unpack the simplicity and complexity of this in her work.
“Memories are about history, belonging, sometimes suffocating nostalgia, and maybe also about charting new futures… Orlin’s work is all this and more.
“Her work has not been performed in South Africa for many years and it is with great thanks for the support from Ifas [Institut Français d'Afrique du Sud] that Jomba! welcomes her back to South Africa as our 2024 Jomba! legacy artist.”
Orlin’s new work will feature at Jomba! which takes place at The Sneddon Theatre in Durban from 27 August to 8 September, and The Market Theatre, Johannesburg, from 11 to 14 September.