Moving into Dance brings dancers to professional stage 2026

Enable through Dance, free performance, 11:00, Thursday 18 September 2026, Keorapetse William Kgositsile Theatre, UJ Arts Centre, Kingsway Campus, hosted by UJ Arts & Culture

For ten years, Moving into Dance has been teaching dance in Johannesburg schools, serving learners with disabilities, week after week, in the same classrooms. On 18 September, the young people at the centre of that work step onto a professional stage. Moving into Dance presents its Enable through Dance project at 11:00 at the Keorapetse William Kgositsile Theatre at the UJ Arts Centre on Kingsway Campus, hosted by UJ Arts & Culture. Entrance is free, and the performance runs for approximately 70 minutes.

Established in 2016, the project works with seven special needs schools and organisations from Eldorado Park to Hillbrow, reaching over 160 young people each week. It uses dance and movement as a medium for creative expression among young people who are, more often than not, defined by what they are told they cannot do. The participating schools are Don Materra School, Johannesburg Hospital School for Autism, Phiri Special School, Thembalethu Foundation, Winnie Madikeleza Mandela School, Johannesburg Society for the Blind and Philile Foundation Pre-School.

The project aims to build a sense of belonging and recognise the lived experience of disability, restoring confidence and self-esteem through artistic exploration and movement. It ends where school programmes rarely do: with the participants performing in a professional theatre, to a live audience, under stage lights.

Sunnyboy Mandla Motau, Artistic Director of Moving into Dance, says:

“When Moving into Dance launched Enable through Dance ten years ago, we knew it was an important initiative for dance and for dancers. We are grateful to funders such as the City of Johannesburg’s Directorate of Arts and Culture for supporting the teaching in these schools. But the moment that matters is this one. Working in special needs schools and then giving young people the chance to perform in a professional theatre, to feel the excitement of a live dance production, is nothing short of amazing.”

UJ Arts & Culture hosts this edition of Enable through Dance as part of its long-standing and mutually beneficial partnership with Moving into Dance. The programme is a powerful example of meaningful societal impact, widening access to the arts, creating opportunities for young people, and demonstrating the role of artistic practice in advancing social and cultural transformation within diverse communities. By providing a professional performance platform for this work, UJ Arts & Culture supports the community-based practice of Moving into Dance while contributing to the development of dancers and of the broader dance sector in a meaningful and sustained way.