Nadine Mckenzie – Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Unmute Dance Theatre Andile Vellem – Co-Founder, Resident Choreographer and Performer, Unmute Dance Theatre Sasha Fourie - Professional Dancer and the Unmute Dance Theatre Education Manager
UnMute Dance Theatre to premiere new work exploring Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s enduring legacy of compassion, justice and humanity
CAPE TOWN – Cape Town-based Unmute Dance Theatre will take South African inclusive dance to an international stage this September, joining the WOMAD Cape Town 2026 programme with a new collaborative work inspired by the legacy of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The company performs as part of the United 4 Humanity Peace Concert at Artscape Theatre on Saturday, 19 September at 20:00, sharing the bill with South African and international artists as WOMAD marks Archbishop Tutu’s lifelong commitment to peace, equality, justice and human dignity.
For Unmute Dance Theatre, the invitation is a chance to perform at one of the world’s leading festivals, and a moment that places disabled artists and their creative voices within the global cultural conversation.
The company will premiere a 12-minute choreographic work directed and choreographed by Sasha Fourie, performed by Nadine McKenzie, Sasha Fourie and Andile Vellem. The piece is created with Dyskinetic, a UK-based disabled-led arts collective, whose original music forms the soundscape for the performance.
Rather than dramatise Archbishop Tutu’s life, Unmute Dance Theatre’s work explores the ideas and moral questions that shaped his public legacy: what it means for a nation to hold a moral compass, to stand against inequality while keeping its compassion, and to become a symbol of freedom without losing sight of humanity.
“Archbishop Tutu’s legacy is not simply a story from our past. It continues to ask us difficult questions about how we live with one another, how we respond to injustice and what it means to choose compassion,” says Nadine McKenzie, director of Unmute Dance Theatre. “Through movement, we are interested in exploring those questions rather than recreating a person. The work allows the audience to encounter these ideas through the bodies, experiences and perspectives of our performers.”
The partnership with Dyskinetic brings together two inclusive arts organisations, one from South Africa and one from the United Kingdom, in a work that shows how disability, inclusion and artistic excellence cross borders. For a company that has spent over a decade challenging assumptions about who belongs on stage, the collaboration reinforces a simple belief: inclusive art is not a specialist category. It is part of the cultural mainstream.
“Being invited onto a platform such as WOMAD gives us an opportunity to show audiences that artists with disabilities are not simply participants in the arts,” says McKenzie. “We are creators, choreographers, performers and storytellers with an important contribution to make.”
The performance is presented in partnership with the Tutu Legacy Foundation, and Unmute Dance Theatre will share the stage with artists from South Africa and abroad, including performers from the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Estonia, Austria and New Zealand.
For Cape Town, Unmute Dance Theatre’s presence in the WOMAD programme reflects the city’s role as a meeting point for international cultural exchange, where local artists engage directly with global creative practice and audiences experience South African stories told through many artistic forms.
Unmute hopes the collaboration will lead to further international partnerships, touring and creative exchange between inclusive artists and organisations.
For 13 years, Unmute has created professional employment and training opportunities where few existed before, building safe, inclusive spaces where artists with disabilities can develop and strengthen their creative voices on local and international stages. When Remix Dance Company closed, three of its founders stepped forward to establish Unmute, which now stands as South Africa’s only full-time professional inclusive dance company. For Unmute, inclusion is not a project but a standard built into every rehearsal, production and partnership.
Its work has been recognised with the Cultural Affairs Awards 2015/2016 for Best Project Promoting the Involvement of Persons with Disabilities in the Visual, Performing and Literary Arts, the 2015 National Arts Festival Standard Bank Ovation Award, and two 2025 School Enrichment Awards for choreography and dance facilitation.
The company has performed internationally at festivals including KIADA in South Korea, IntegrART in Switzerland, Tanz Kongress in Mainz, No Limits Festival in Berlin, December Dance in Belgium, the Liverpool Biennial and Proteatr in Moscow, alongside major South African stages such as the National Arts Festival, JOMBA, Suidoosterfees and Infecting the City.
Unmute Dance Theatre’s participation comes against a backdrop that gives the work particular weight. According to Statistics South Africa’s 2022 Census, around 3.3 million people in South Africa live with a disability, with prevalence measured at between 3.4% and 15.7% of the population depending on the measure used, and generally higher among older people and women. Despite this, people with disabilities continue to face disproportionate exclusion, poverty and unemployment. Within that context, Unmute Dance Theatre’s work is not only artistic. It is a statement that inclusive performance belongs at the centre of the cultural conversation.
