| ACDC Dance Intersect 2025 When: October 2-4, 2025 – four performances Performance times: October 2 and 3 at 7.30pm, October 4 at 2.30pm, October 5 at 7.30pm Where: Artscape, Cape Town Tickets R150-R400 Booking: Via Webtickets or via Artscape Dial-A-Seat on 021 421 7695 |
There is much anticipation for ACDC’s Dance Intersect 2025 which is on in Cape Town at Artscape from October 2-4 (four performances). The producers are Elvis Sibeko and Anderson Carvalho Dance & Choreography (ACDC). Choreographer Anderson Carvalho gives insights into the stunning programme which features ACDC’s Fragmented Landscape, the Greek National Opera Ballet’s Les Nuits d’été, a contemporary showcase by Cape Town’s New World Dance Theatre and a new work by guest choreographers Chesney Stanfield and Emile Petersen:
TheCapeRobyn: Insights please into Fragmented Landscape – concept and design. Have you worked as before – a collaboration between you and the dancers – with input from them? List of the dancers, please, and countries of origin.
Anderson Carvalho: Fragmented Landscape is a co-created work. The dancers were active collaborators, contributing not only movement but also their personal life stories. For example, the “Blueprint” section re-creates the architecture of their childhood homes, with recorded voices woven into the score.
The design pushes ballet tradition into an avant-garde form, lines and discipline remain, but phrasing and structure resist predictability. The result is both intimate and expansive, grounded in autobiographical storytelling yet visually striking.
List of dancers and origins:
- Rhulani Neo Moloi (South Africa, Johannesburg)
- Somer February (South Africa, Johannesburg)
- Mbongeni Moyake (South Africa, Cape Town)
- Sofie van Doorn (Netherlands)
- Oscar Magnusson (Sweden)
- Jeanne Hensigner (Switzerland)
- Patrick Wiel (Germany)
TCR: Is there live music in the piece – as there was at the 2024 Dance Intersect with Adam Claussen on sax?
AC: No live musician is featured on stage this year. Instead, the soundscape includes recorded voices of the dancers interwoven into the score, making it a deeply autobiographical and atmospheric sound design rather than a live instrumental presence. Instead of having only Adam Claussen, there are now three musicians’ part of the score, each bringing in their own creativity and uniqueness, and all brilliantly brought into one music score by Adam Claussen. The other musicians are Elena Sergeeva and Philip Bergwerf.
TCR: Fragmented Landscape was staged in Utrecht and Kigali. It is the first time in South Africa? Has it shifted and been developed since its first staging?
AC: Yes, it premiered in Utrecht and then toured to Kigali, before arriving in South Africa. The work has further evolved in a two-month process in Cape Town with an expanded cast. Having the time for the piece to gestate and develop has been invaluable, dancers’ contributions have deepened, sections like “Blueprint” grew richer, and the avant-garde ballet vocabulary sharpened in its clarity. The work now feels both mature and layered compared to its first outing.
TCR: Can you talk about the rest of the programme and what we can expect?
AC: The Greek National Opera Ballet is known for versatility and discipline. Under Konstantinos Rigos, the company blends classical ballet with contemporary experimentation. His choreography is striking, theatrical, and abstract, offering South African audiences a glimpse of ballet’s evolution.
The Greek National Opera Ballet are bringing the work – Les Nuits d’été. The cycle is one of Hector Berlioz’ most popular works. The leading French composer writes these six songs for voice and piano, to poetry by Théophile Gautier, striving to musically render, through his delicate melodies, love in its most idealised form.
Based on the song cycle of the same title, Konstantinos Rigos creates together with the GNO Ballet a work about love, loneliness, the quest, the journey. Gestures and shapes create a kaleidoscope of our individual inner summer. “Les Nuits d’été is a work that makes us reminisce of all those nights we love, fall in love, dream, live…. It talks about the fluidity of relationships and how everything can evolve under the moonlight. With references to Romanticism and the classical dance technique, the work’s dancers dive into the black waters of the sea and the black colour of senses and delusions”, notes Konstantinos Rigos.
Cape Town’s New World Dance Theatre. They are bringing a powerful contemporary showcase, rooted in South African stories and movement vocabularies. Their work emphasizes local identity within global contemporary frameworks.
Guest choreographers are Chesney Stanfield and Emile Petersen. They bring unique voices, contributing works that expand the conversation of Dance Intersect 2025. They foreground South African creativity and diversity of style, complementing the international collaborations.
TCR: Is Elvis Sibeko producer, involved in the dance?
AC: Yes, Elvis is the producer of Dance Intersect 2025. He is not performing as a dancer. His role has been crucial in building infrastructure for the festival in South Africa—securing partners, translating artistic vision into strategy, and anchoring the production through his company, Elvis Sibeko Studios.There is much anticipation for
✳ Anderson Carvalho Dance & Choreography (ACDC) is presenting the South African premiere of its work, Fragmented Landscape which features dancers from South Africa and abraod. This interview has been marginally edited for length and clarity. Featured image supplied: Marko de Beer.
