First Physical Theatre Company was invited to the DETOURS Festival at Witswaterstrand University in May. The festival aims to “tackle and investigate exciting avenues in movement composition”. Specifically, the festival’s purpose is to “detour from the straight and narrow, deter from the banality of the so-called ‘norm’ and re-route to the avant-garde, the brave, the risky, the experimental”. Nomcebisi Moyikwa choreographed a duet called Caught, performed by herself and Maipelo Gabang.
Moyikwa describes Caught as a “physical interplay between two black women who are caught in a half room with a light bulb as their only source of light”. This project, like many of Moyikwa’s previous works is a “chapter of [her] choreographic autobiography as a young black female.” It is seen as a journey that expresses “black females growing into the power of their bodies. It is an expression of the imperfect femininity that is absent from stories about black female subjectivities.” Caught is Moyikwa’s attempt at creating an incredible power of new images for the black female community.
The piece debuted at the DETOURS Festival, and has been invited to two other festivals; GIPCA’s 2ND LIVE ART in Cape Town, as well as the JOMBA! Festival in Durban, both in the second half of the year.