Drama Lecturer honoured with Jomba!’s top award

Mdu Mtshali accepts the prestigious Eric Shabalala Dance Champion Award from Lliane Loots.


DUT Drama and Productions Studies lecturer, Mduduzi Mtshali received the prestigious Eric Shabalala Dance Champion Award at the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience recently.
The award honours the memory of a local dancer, choreographer, teacher. Eric Mshengu Shabalala who was one of the founding dancers of the Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre in Durban who died in 2011.

The award is given not only in recognition of performance or choreographic excellence, but more in recognition of dance practitioners who have worked tirelessly to help grow a culture of dance and dance training in Durban – who have supported the growth of dance as an art form at both community and regional level.
Like Shabalala, Mtshali is a dance practitioner and a drama lecturer with a passion for teaching, writing and choreographing.

After completing his studies at the Technikon Natal in 1999, he worked with local dance companies before joining the French dance company Jean Francois Duroure where he got to travel all over Europe and Africa.
In 2002, he was awarded the Rio Tinto/ Richards Bay Minerals/ British Council Dance Scholarship and spent a year at the London Dance School.

Mtshali said he feels honoured to receive the Eric Shabalala Champion Award and the award brings good memories of the late Shabalala and the time they spent together while he was still alive.
“We had a project together in Kwa Mashu  called “Shwibeka Dance Ensemble” in 2000, the first  project that introduced contemporary dance to Kwa Mashu community. Credit must go to Eric ‘Mshengu” Shabalala for grooming me to be what I am today. The spirit of Eric Shabalala is living and continuing in my work that I create for students as I still go beyond the call of duty, often without funding to put KZN dancers on the international map.”
Over the years, Mtshali has presented countless productions locally and internationally. Some of his work include theatre productions such as, Unknown citizens, Umgcagco, Light of Hope, Rejected Angels, Colours of Dreams, and Cosi Cosi.

Past recipients of this award include Jarryd Watson, Sifiso Khumalo, Byron ‘Bizzo’ Tifflin and Preston ‘Kayzo’ Kyd, Jabu Siphika, Julia Wilson and Zinhle Nzama, Ntombi Gasa, Musa Hlatshwayo and S’fiso Magesh Ngcobo.


-NASIPHI GIGABA

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