Mamela Nyamza’s body has for years been contested ground: too athletic for classical ballet, the “wrong” hair, training received in Gugulethu deemed “minor.” From that rejection a choreographic language was born that Biennale Danza 2026 now honours with the Leone d’Argento, awarded by Wayne McGregor for a way of thinking through the body that is rooted in collective memory and runs through the currents of history, gender, society, and politics. Alongside the Leone d’Oro to Bangarra Dance Theatre, the first fully Aboriginal company to receive it, the award to Nyamza opens this Biennale’s horizons to increasingly less Eurocentric perspectives. In her latest work, THE HERD/LESS – having its European premiere on 19 and 21 July at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale – the body of her mother, a victim of femicide, and the humble objects of the corrugated-iron shacks of her native country become stage matter, as she herself recounts in this interview.

You grew up in Gugulethu, learned to dance barefoot wearing a swimsuit instead of a leotard, were the only Black student among white peers in Pretoria, created your choreographies in your living room and garage. Today you have received the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale. What does this mean to you – and what would you like it to mean for the young artists who come after you?
Firstly, I am truly grateful for the Venice Biennale for acknowledging my work. It means a lot to me, and it also means that I am in the right direction despite facing a lot of challenges in the process of my early creative life. Notwithstanding, my challenges were never in Gugulethu, where I started my ballet lessons at the age of 8 in the Church building and with a swim suit instead of leotard. I had the best experiences and memories when I was a young ballet student in Gugulethu. The problems started when I was 18 years of age, when I wanted to do an advanced academic qualification in Ballet as a main subject. My body type was rebuked, my hair texture was frowned upon, and indeed my earlier training in Ballet acquired in Gugulethu was rejected as inferior. But, instead of giving up, I decided to protest and challenge the status quo through my discourse of body politics. For the young people in the Arts, I believe that we older and more experienced artists should strive to mentor inclusively, the young artists to be in the forefront of inspiration, innovation, discipline and endurance. Young artists should not be shy to push the boundaries.

You trained in classical ballet and received a scholarship to the Alvin Ailey school in New York, yet your practice is built on dismantling the conventions of formal dance. What does it mean to deconstruct a language from the inside – and what have you kept? Is there something of the technique you grew up with that still lives in your body, even when you are dancing against it?
Yes, I did train in classical Ballet and further studied at Alvin Ailey, and indeed it is at Alvin Ailey where I got further inspired in creating my own work. The dismantling must not be interpreted or understood as destroying or disrespecting Ballet. All I was starting to do and still doing is to protest against those classical conventions/norms used to discriminate against body types. So, for example, those aspiring Black ballet dancers must see themselves as belonging and not conforming. Casting a black ballet dancer as a Principal dancer must be seen as enhancing and not as altering the harmony of the piece for instance. I will be the first one to admit that the training and technique I got in Ballet has enabled me to create the language to protest against some of the prejudices within the same Ballet. My work HATCHED ENSEMBLE especially celebrates the creative capacity that we have, aiming always to subvert and transform the instruments of oppression and denigration into expressions of innovation and vision.

Your work returns repeatedly to the violence inflicted on women’s bodies – and particularly on the bodies of Black South African women: corrective rape, domestic violence, murder. THE HERD/LESS speaks of bodies controlled as a herd. How much of this violence is still systemic, invisible, normalised – in South Africa and beyond?
My creative language remains the same just like having a mother tongue that does not change. However, themes do change in my work as experiences are not hegemonic. So, no, I do not repeatedly return to the same theme, but I always have the same message of protesting against prejudice and injustices at all levels of the society. For instance, THE HERD/LESS is one of the very abstract works I have created, with many subtle themes within, so it is a very layered work. There is both beauty and brutality in this work but not in a so obvious way/literal way, as our lives can never be straight forward, it can never be a black-and-white thing. In THE HERD/LESS you will see beautiful clothed performers on stage, yet being led by a subtle violent man with a sharp sword. So, the beautiful things can easily be seen, however, there is both visible and invisible violence against humans and humanity, be it against a woman or a man, or against a country or a society.

One of your most personal works, Isingqala, was born from the murder of your mother, a victim of gender violence. You have spoken of incorporating her movements into your performances – the way she smoked a cigarette, the way she drank. How do you carry a beloved body inside your own? And what happens to that body when you step onto the stage?
My mother is always embedded in my messaging and all my choreography, not only because she is my mother, but also because of who she was and her life experiences as a person and a mother. So, in THE HERD/LESS you will see that the main prop is tins, and this is a direct personal experience I had when my mother became a victim of both gender-based violence (femicide) when she was killed by her boyfriend in their home made of zinc. During the fight, the same home became a shackle that she couldn’t easily run out from, trapped by both the inferior infrastructure and the violence born out of patriarchy and misogyny. The home shack is both a fascinating and a horrifying image and experience for me, and I have thus used this time, experience and space I had with my late mother in my own daily outlook and creation of my work, to address matters of patriarchy and women issues.

THE HERD/LESS uses objects from southern African tradition – sticks, cloths, instruments associated with power – and the dancers themselves generate the live sonic score through their movement. How did this scenic language come about?
As indicated above, my creative language never changes, what only changes is the themes of each work. So, the theme revolving THE HERD/LESS is three-fold: patronage, patriarchy and politics. THE HERD/LESS thus draws on the dual meaning of the ‘herd’: a collective moving in harmony and a group controlled, shaped and directed by cultural and physical forces. Power emerges through ritual, repetition and the quiet surrender of the individual to the group. Cultural sticks of all types (traditional southern African sticks associated with masculine authority) and cloth become both symbols of authority and tools of control. So, the movements in the work generate a live, percussive score, creating a sensory landscape that is as immersive as it is disquieting. Beneath the promise of unity and abundance lies a more violent reality: a collective stripped of agency, bound by systems that sustain both beauty and brutality. The work exposes the fallacy of a beautiful world, revealing the tension between harmony and control that sits just beneath the surface of our day-to-day existence.

Biennale Danza 2026 takes as its theme Time Does Not Exist. Your work is deeply rooted in history – personal, collective, political. How do you relate to the idea that past and present coexist simultaneously, that time is not linear?
The birth of THE HERD/LESS depicts that my practice of art deeply values my continuous experience at all levels (personal, public, and professional) in my society. My experiences continue to shape my creative outlook and help me find spaces and themes to create that might have been overlooked as non-important or primitive to the daily lives of people. For instance, the main use of tins as part of the main costume I use is a clear example of this personal, public and professional experience.
So, what might have been labelled medieval or primitive, can actually indicate infinite life and real situations or experiences.

Featured image: Mamela Nyamza – Photo Esa Alexander