{"id":17480,"date":"2023-10-30T10:00:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T08:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getitmagazine.co.za\/joburg-north\/?p=17480"},"modified":"2023-10-27T13:27:59","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T11:27:59","slug":"creative-calling-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getitmagazine.co.za\/joburg-north\/blog\/2023\/10\/30\/creative-calling-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative calling"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the link between arabesque and acrylics, percussion and paper? Ask artist Tamara Osso. She\u2019s on a quest to meld art and dance into something dynamic, distinctive and totally irresistible.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Tamara\u2019s take on performance art might sound fresh and exciting but, in truth, it\u2019s simply a continuation of the journey she\u2019s been following for years. \u201cIn my childhood, it was all about dance,\u201d she explains. \u201cI got through school by looking forward to my ballet classes. All I wanted was to be on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her dream came true, albeit after following a somewhat roundabout path. After finding herself broke in London, she returned to South Africa to study music and dance, then changed her focus to contemporary dance after joining the FreeFlight Dance Company. This was followed by a stint touring the world with grand musicals like Phantom of the Opera, which was every inch as thrilling as she imagined. But, increasingly, she found herself sitting backstage between breaks with a pencil in her hand, sketching the performers around her. \u201cI realised that drawing was my way of processing my feelings, making sense of my day \u2013 but I didn\u2019t know that\u2019s what I was doing until the images came out. That\u2019s when I came to understand that although my life had always been about dance, I now wanted to focus on art.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was back to South Africa, this time to complete her degree in Fine Art at WITS. She never lost her love of dance, though: \u201cIn a sense, both disciplines are about embodiment \u2013 finding your space in your body, and manipulating a medium. In art, it\u2019s your canvas; in dance, it\u2019s the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only when she started doing her Masters that she began to explore the commonalities she experienced, concentrating on Performing Mediums. But, she explains, her focus got slightly side tracked after the birth of her second son, whose epilepsy came to wield a significant influence over her works. Once again, art became about making sense of the world around her … this time, to help her understand how his disorder affected him and how she could find a way to help him. Her world had changed drastically, as her primary concern was finding a way to end his seizures – which she did, flying to the UK for a surgery to treat his condition and spending six months there to complete rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

The family had only recently returned to South Africa when lockdown was declared \u2013 but what was for some an ordeal was, in Tamara\u2019s experience, \u201cglorious. For the first time in four years, we were living without anxiety around my son\u2019s epilepsy,\u201d she says. Once again, her feelings found their way into her art, which she describes as a celebration of life and her son\u2019s recovery, \u201call jewel colours – like confetti or a party popper that had just been released\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also became a time of learning. Although Tamara was relishing her new equilibrium, she was also keenly aware of the constraints on her movement \u2013 and since movement is an intrinsic part of her life, she was starting to struggle. \u201cI came to see how where I am and how I move influence the work I produce. I had a yearning to engage, connect, play.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so Tamara found herself back in a dance studio as soon as she was able – this time, at Moving Into Dance. This time, her intention wasn\u2019t only to move, but consider how other people move, too, and to think about why and how we move together. In return for teaching ballet and body conditioning, she spent time with the studio\u2019s Afro-fusion dancers, recording their movements in charcoal, but not in the usual way – rather than drawing the dancers, she laid down paper for them to dance on so that every stamp of a foot, every swish of a toe, created its own mark.<\/p>\n

The resulting works culminated in a series of \u2018performance drawings\u2019 recently displayed at David Krut Projects. She is particularly proud of the exhibition, she says, because it wasn\u2019t just about her – rather, the art was created in community, and is a real representation of the chaos and beauty that is Joburg.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also given rise to some exciting developments. Through her work with Moving into Dance, Tamara conducted on a series of interviews with the company\u2019s founder, Sylvia Glasser, and is considering using her learnings to embark on a PhD focused on the use of art as a therapeutic tool, as well as a vehicle that can activate communities. She has also become affiliated with Lefika La Phodosi a counselling community centre that offers art therapy for children from\u00a0 the inner city.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, her work with Moving into Dance earned Tamara a scholarship in Italy from the European Cultural Academy, to develop new ideas for her community project. Here, she was struck by a new inspiration. \u201cBeing confronted by my Italian heritage, I created a performance piece based on my memory of making gnocchi with my grandmother,\u201d she relates. She has since been invited to perform the piece, titled Soffritto, at the European Cultural Centre next year, and is currently fundraising to make this dream come true.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, she keeps searching for those vital connections \u2013 both in her work, and between the people she works with. \u201cI think we have something really special in South Africa. We are tolerant of each other in a way that\u2019s quite rare elsewhere in the world, and we have a cross-cultural dynamic you simply won\u2019t find anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Details: osso.co.za, follow @tamaraosso on social media<\/em><\/p>\n

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Tamara\u2019s top tips for awakening your creative spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n