Jenna Hendry and Matilda Bilberg were invited by Dans Sans Frontières to hold a two weeks workshop LAB at Centro Cultural Franco Moçambicano in collaboration with local dancers / artists in Maputo, Mozambique. The workshop LAB concluded in a sharing at the garden of CCFM in the frame of KINANI Festival.
The research trip was supported by Pro Helvetia Johannesburg and also allowed Jenna to view the performances hosted at the African Dance Biennale 2023, which was hosted in Maputo.

“The workshop LAB in Maputo was our first experience of transmitting our common work to others in such an extensive format. Dealing with different backgrounds and languages, we learnt so much about the wording of our work – it is a learning process that will keep us busy for a while. The participants of the workshop LAB received our work with a lot of curiosity and openness! We were grateful they followed proposals that maybe seemed strange at first – and it was beautiful to witness that usually they were positively surprised by those experiences! Sometimes work cannot be understood through the intellect, however through the body we’ll understand. We were reminded how much the context you are working within shapes the work you are making.

The collaboration with the dancers we met in Maputo was rich and heartwarming. It’s fascinating to experience how dance can bring people together, no matter where in the world you are from. We could all spin off and feed on each other’s different perspectives and knowledges. It made us so happy that the workshop LAB dancers took the initiative to keep going with the work and find other places to perform what we had originally put together for a sharing in the garden of CCFM!”

Matilda Bilberg & Jenna Hendry