Freelance Artist | Smangaliso Ngwenya

Hello,

a bit about me:

Smangaliso Siphesihle Ngwenya is a dancer, performer, writer, director, choreographer, videographer and founder of Isifiso SakaGogo Performance Theatre. The essence of all his craft is rooted in dance and movement.

He acquired his first traces of dance and movement training from First Physical Theatre Dance Company while completing his Bachelor of Journalism at Rhodes University (2013-2016). While at Rhodes University he performed at the National Arts Festival (2015 and 2016) as well as being a cameraman for Mark Freeman’s “dancedance/Revolution”.

After completing his studies in 2016, he began his journey with Vuyani Dance Theatre in
2017 where he started as an aspirant and later progressed, trained and choreographed his path to being a senior dancer in 2019.

Thus far I have choreographed six works: Evelyn (2023), “Mask-your-linearity” (2017), “Dictated Democracy” (2018), Standard Bank Ovation award winning screendance "Fragmented Scribbles" (2020), "Glare" (2020), "Home?’" (2020) and "Descent" (2021) by Jake Natane.

In 2020 I completed a Masters of Arts in Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Witwatersrand. I have had the privilege of being a performer in “Barena... Reimagined” reimagined by David April from Vincent Mantsoe 1998 ''Barena”. I aim to grow my practice through embodied, practice-led research ignited by Choreographed Texts - a blog where I document writings, inward reflections, influences and reactions to artistic offerings.

Photo visually documented by Christo Doherty.