Dance Rejuvenate Society & Afia Collective

This collective is collaboration between Joanna Holewa Chrona from Sweden (founder of Afia) and Sibusiso Mthembu and David Mokale from South Africa (DRS). This trio has worked together since early 2016 and has by the years grown stronger and stronger. Their main focus when working together is to spread the art of isiPantsula. They do workshops and performances on a regular basis. Their strength as a group is the diversity, the ambition and the passion for dance.

Joanna Holewa Chrona, 26 years old, born and raised in Sweden, Stockholm. Working as a professional dancer with teaching, choreographing, competing, on stage and other project. Joanna is the founder of a movement called AFIA and she has through this movement organized an all pantsula-event in Sweden 2 years in a row with “Real Actions Pantsula “as invited guest-teachers. Her strengt within dance is first of all Streetdance but she has a big passion for West-African dance-styles and of course, for isiPantsula. She met Pantsula for the first time in 2012 at a dance camp in Czech Republic where she took class for Real Actions Pantsula.

Lately Joanna has been working around the world, such as in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, China, Czech Republic, Croatia, England, Poland, Holland, Senegal, Cuba, Gabon and South Africa.

Sibusiso Mthembu is a professional dancer, choreographer and facilitator based in South Africa Johannesburg. Dance and music has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. He started dancing at the age of 11 years when he met Sello Modiga the director of “Real Action Pantsula” and he took dance seriously as a career at the age of 18, he is constantly working with different artist for different events/shows including community festivals and also have great experience of traveling locally, provincially, nationally and internationally. His main goal in life is to achieve his full potential and inspire people he meets on his journey. He would like to see Pantsula grow as a part of the dance industry in South Africa and also become something which is more widely known throughout the world. He is doing this throuh is own movement called DRS (Dance Rejuvenate Society) with David Mokale as a co-worker.

David Mokale started dancing in his early teenage years together with with “Real Actions Juniors”  under the umbrella of “Real Actions Pantsula”. They went provincially and nationally and we were one of the groups which were selected to represent Gauteng in a festival called Grahams town National Art Festival.

Today David is one of the lead dancers in “Real Actions Pantsula” and performs, teaches and travels with his dance. David says “We teach through dance and most importantly we tell stories through dance and it is where my passion lies”