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Nantea Dance Company (Tanzania)

A Moment – Wakati (40’)

Where:
Eduarda Smiļģa Teātra muzejs, Rīga, E.Smiļģa 37/39

  When:
June 17th 2022, 21:00

Concept, choreography and performance:
Tadhi Alawi and Samwel Japhet
Original Music: Shabani Mugado
Projection film shot and edited: Jimmy Mathias
Production: Nantea Dance Company

A Moment – Wakati is a dance duet performance & film projection that demonstrates the layers of moments and talks about how those moments can change an individual’s attitudes, thoughts, experiences, and life in general. The interpretation of this piece shows the power of courage built up through the events that happened in our lives by surprise and lead us to patience, attentiveness and understanding to face challenges or joys. The dance explores the questions of how moments define our existence. And how
our existence and experiences depend on how we experience the current moments?

Samwel Japhet is a Tanzanian dance-movement artist and uses dance and performance as artistic expression for story-telling. He uses dance for expressing ideas and creating a space for reflection, awareness and discussion. In 2016, He graduated with a Diploma in Contemporary and Tanzanian Traditional dance from the MUDA Africa Dance School in Tanzania. He is a founding member and artistic director of the Nantea Dance Company and co-curator of the Contemporary Dance Night, a platform for upcoming Tanzanian and African contemporary dance artists to perform. This is a biannual event and has happened four times since 2018.

Tadhi Alawi grew up in a strict religious family without any support toward art. In 2008 Tadhi Alawi discovered dancing for himself after watching a tape of Michael Jackson. Soon after the feedback on his ability to dance grew and friends encouraged him to make use of his talent. He started to attend several trainings in contemporary dance, traditional dance and urban dances. Since then Tadhi Alawi participated in numerous workshops and trainings, mostly facilitated by different well-known international directors and choreographers from Africa, the United States, Europe and Asia. The trainings and workshops treated various disciplines of dance and yoga. In 2016 he achieved his Diploma in dance at the MUDA Africa Dance School and 2019 after three years of Yoga teacher training he achieved his certificate of Africa Yoga Academy. Today, Alawi known as Tadhi Alawi is a Tanzanian performing artist, choreographer, yoga-instructor and co-founder – creative director of the Nantea Dance Company and co-managing director of the Contemporary Dance Night event in Dar es Salaam.

Nantea Dance Company is a Tanzanian-based non-profit contemporary dance company composed of Tanzanian freelance dance artists, founded in 2015 by Alawi Saidi Alawi and Samwel Japhet. Company’s mission is to produce new works and activities through dance, promote and develop dance in Tanzania, and inspire youths to become ambassadors of development and social change