Dance prize for Mamela Nyamza

Dance prize for Mamela Nyamza South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza has landed two major international honors within weeks of each other: the Silver Lion at the 2026 Venice Biennale Danza and a place on the finalist list for the 2026 Salavisa European Dance Award. The double recognition marks a rare moment when one artist is being celebrated at both one of Europe’s most prestigious festivals and one of its most ambitious dance prizes. (labiennale.org) The Silver Lion is one of the headline awards of La Biennale di Venezia, the Venice institution founded in 1895 that runs major festivals across art, architecture, film, music, theatre, and dance. For the 2026 dance edition, the Biennale announced that the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement would go to Bangarra Dance Theatre of Australia, while the Silver Lion would go to Nyamza, describing her as a South African dancer, choreographer, director, and activist. (labiennale.org) The award places Nyamza at the center of the 20th International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Venice, which runs from July 17 to August 1, 2026 under the direction of Sir Wayne McGregor. The Biennale’s 2026 program says Nyamza and her company will make their debut in Venice as part of a festival built around new work and artists exploring memory, identity, and time. (labiennale.org) Her second honor comes from the Salavisa European Dance Award, often shortened to SEDA, a prize backed by nine European cultural institutions. The 2026 finalists announced by partner organizations include Chiara Bersani, Dan Daw, Jefta van Dinther, Lukas Avendaño, and Mamela Nyamza, putting her in a field that spans Europe, Australia, Mexico, and South Africa. (dansehallerne.dk) That finalist list matters partly because the prize is not limited to a narrow national scene. The institutions behind it include Sadler’s Wells in the United Kingdom, Maison de la Danse and Biennale de la Danse in France, Dansehallerne in Denmark, KVS in Belgium, Mercat de les Flors in Spain, Tanzquartier Wien in Austria, Joint Adventures in Germany, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Portugal, and Fondazione Fabbrica Europa in Italy. (dansehallerne.dk) Nyamza’s rise to this level has been shaped by a career built in tension with the traditions she was trained in. Her own company profile says she trained across ballet, modern, African dance, jazz, mime, gumboot dance, and Butoh, while outside presenters and biographical notes consistently describe her work as blending traditional and contemporary forms while confronting exclusion inside the Western dance canon. (mamelasartisticmovement.co.za) That friction is central to why programmers and juries keep returning to her work. The Salavisa European Dance Award materials say her choreography operates in a space where dance becomes a vehicle for memory, survival, ritual, identity, and activism, while festival presenters for *Hatched Ensemble* describe her as an artist who has spent nearly two decades decolonizing bodies and dance practices. (gulbenkian.pt) One of the clearest examples is *Hatched*, the autobiographical solo she created in 2007 or 2008, depending on the presenter’s dating, in which she reflected on her life as a mother, lesbian, and artist. Her company describes *Hatched Ensemble*, first presented in 2023, as an expansion of that earlier work into a larger cast and a broader conversation about identity, belonging, and the rules built into ballet and performance. (mamelasartisticmovement.co.za) Nyamza’s biography also helps explain why this moment has resonated so strongly in South Africa. Profiles from her company and arts institutions say she was born and raised in Gugulethu near Cape Town, began ballet training at Zama Dance School at age 8, and later studied at Pretoria Dance Technikon, now part of Tshwane University of Technology. (artonourmind.org.za) Recent coverage has framed the awards not as a distant European success story, but as a homecoming. South African reports and press material say Nyamza has returned to Cape Town with *Hatched Ensemble* and *The Herd/Less* for performances at the Baxter Theatre, with *The Herd/Less* scheduled to premiere there before its European premiere at the Venice Biennale Danza. (litnet.co.za) The local dimension goes beyond performances. News coverage around the Baxter run says Nyamza has tied the homecoming to outreach through workshops in Gugulethu, Nyanga, and Khayelitsha, as well as scholarships and student rehearsals linked to her “Hatch the Future” initiative. (news24.com) Taken together, the Silver Lion and the Salavisa finalist slot show how far Nyamza’s work has traveled without softening its edge. The same artist who built a career interrogating race, gender, class, and the inherited codes of ballet is now being recognized by institutions at the center of the international dance world, while still returning that recognition to the communities and stages that shaped her. (labiennale.org)