KwaMashu School of Dance Theatre performs at Green Corridors’ Green Hub as part of the Global Water Dance Festival 10 June

KwaMashu School of Dance Theatre will perform at the Green Corridors’ Green Hub near Durban’s Blue Lagoon on Saturday 10 June at 2pm as part of the Global Water Dance Festival, during World Oceans Week.

The 150 children from Durban and surrounding areas will perform a work called Waiting for Water as part of a global experience with other communities worldwide who will be participating in the Global Water Dance Festival.

The event is free and audiences are invited to bring their camp chairs or blankets and enjoy a picnic while joining communities in 180 worldwide locations in this international initiative to promote water and environment protection. 

Director of the KwaMashu School of Dance Theatre, Vusi Makhanya elaborates on the event: “The community of Durban is suffering from water cut-offs from time to time due to water loss, we wait for water for hours in long queues. Our work is called “Waiting for water” and is a Site-Specific Performance that highlights water conversation, safe water, and clean water for all.”

“We would love to see Durbanites out in full force,” says Makhanya. “Participants and audiences of all ages are invited to learn some dance choreography that’s being taught around the globe and will feature as our grand finale of the day.”

Green Corridors will have representatives at the event to talk about environmental issues Durban citizens face and how this relates to water, and the urgent need to put interventions in place to preserve and conserve our water resources.

The Dance Theatre is funded by Tänzer ohne Grenzen e.V. (Dancers Without Boarders) in German with partners and collaborators are Global Water Dance Creatives, LABAN/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, LIMS in New York, with endorsements from the Green Corridors and it’s Green Hub and the eThekwini Municipality’s Parks, Recreation & Cemeteries, Arts and Living Cultures and associates are ASSITEJ Theatre for Youth's Social Empowerment Fund Project (SEF).

-ends

Observing United Nations World Water Day (22 March) with Green Corridors

Media Release

Observing United Nations World Water Day (22 March) &

SA National Water Week (15 – 22 March) with Green Corridors

Green Corridors, the Durban-based NPO which co-creates open green spaces within the City for people in communities to live, work and thrive, calls on citizens to use World Water Day, (22 March) as a time to evaluate their relationship with water.

World Water Day, which takes place during South Africa’s National Water Week (15-22 March), is an annual United Nations Observance that focuses on the importance of fresh water in the world, using the theme “valuing water” in 2021.

According to the Worldwater.org website, “while celebrating the life-giving force of water, the day is also used to raise awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water.”

Green Corridors clean-up teams and nature guides, working within communities around Durban, see the ongoing devastation of waterways and environmentally important spaces through both alien invasive plants and the irresponsible disposal of litter that ends up in waterways impacting on water health, as well as surrounding community spaces – its people, plants and animals.

“Many people, including businesses, don’t understand that water from our stormwater drains flows directly into our waterways, and so they often discard their litter and waste in gutters or even down stormwater drains” explains Susan Dlamini, from Green Corridors. “All of this flows into our rivers and the sea, with a huge impact on water quality. If we could just start at being mindful of how we get rid of our litter and waste, it would help so much towards alleviating this.”

“We urge everyone to think about how we as human beings contribute to the health, distribution of- and access to our water,” says Susan. “We encourage people to join the World Water Day conversation on social media, which will help effect some change whether through policy or infrastructure or behaviour, working towards the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 of water and sanitation for all by 2030.”

The World Water Day campaign asks global citizens to discuss how they value water, "(as this) determines how water is managed and shared. The value of water is much more than its price – water has enormous and complex value for our households, culture, health, education, economics, and the integrity of our natural environment. If we overlook any of these values, we risk mismanaging this finite, irreplaceable resource.”

For example, the Green Corridors' footprint across the City includes tourism sites near important water sources where local trained and registered tour guides rely on the health of the water for their and the communities' livelihoods and well-being.

The various Green Corridors Green Spaces teams along with partners such as Adopt-a-River, WESSA, with funders such as RMB, SAPRIPOL and PETCO, and others, such as conservancies, and eThekwini Municipality Cleansing and Solid Waste, Parks Department and Sihlanzimvelo co-ops, focus on environmental hotspots, where clean-up teams remove alien vegetation as well as litter from waterways and their surrounds in their attempts to improve the health of the water. This waste is then channelled to recycling and repurposing projects such as the Green Corridors KwaMashu Materials Beneficiation Centre which is working towards creating products from plastic waste.

“We would love to hear our local voices in this conversation about water and how we can improve water quality and access, so would encourage educators, policy-makers and government officials, civil society, NGO’s and others to join in,” says Susan.

Follow Green Corridors on social media or World Water Day, and tag your post with #water2me and #WorldWaterDay.

-ends