I had just started my junior year in college; my first (and only) semester as a resident assistant. I became an RA mostly because they get their own rooms, but I think, in hindsight, I also genuinely wanted to support people. 

When a plane struck the World Trade Center, I was in the computer lab at Barat College, a tiny liberal arts school in Lake Forest, IL. I was checking my email because the dial-up connection was too slow in my room. Another student burst into the lab and told us classes were cancelled because the White House was on fire.

“She Poems,” a project by Aïda Colmenero Dïaz, takes the poems and texts of African women to inspire and create dance short films. A handful were shown virtually as the final platform of the 23rd JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival. The films are based widely geographically, in Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal and Togo, among several other African countries.

Yaseen Manuel, a Cape Town dance artist and the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s 2021 Mellon Foundation Artist in Residence, premiered two dance films for the 23rd JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience: “Al-Kitab” and “UNHINGED.” Both films, brought to life by filmmaker Kieshia Solomon, shifted JOMBA!’s curatorial provocation of “Border Crossings” to the terrain of the self: in mind and matter.

“Al-Kitab” looks at Manuel’s life as a contemporary South African Islamic dancer, as he traverses realms between his religion and his art in search of common ground.

Directed by Andy Hines and choreographed by Rauf “Rubberlegz” Yasit, the dance film “Same Sky” is a tender display of vulnerability, filled with close-ups and lingering shots that meditate on simple moments exploring the hopeful spark of connection. Part of Jacob Jonas The Company’s Films.Dance series, this piece was created as one of 15 short films designed to facilitate diverse interdisciplinary dance collaborations shot during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearing the end of week two of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival, Hannahmadance (Luxemburg, Germany) performs a research-based work surrounding “the relationship of humans and nature against the background of anthropocentrism.” The work, choreographed by Hannah Ma in artistic collaboration with Sebastian M. Purfürst, explores the multi-dimensional concept of waves. Waves are naturally occurring in many facets of the world, whether it be water, air, sound or within the human body.

From the beginning, things were more than they seemed. A white wave crashed down in roiling high definition over three theater-high screens. Wrought with the speed and energy of a waterfall, this wave also maintained the luxurious quality of a rich pool of milk. Thus began “ONDA - into the unknown.”

The 2021 JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience crossed European and American borders through collaboration with Cullberg, a Swedish contemporary dance company that strives to co-create universally relevant performances. Borders between the personal and the universal, the dancer and the audience, and fiction and reality are crossed in Jefta van Dinther’s “On Earth I’m Done: Mountains,” created with and performed by Suelem de Oliveira da Silva.