The internationally acclaimed Hominal / Xaba is a bold, arresting, and genre-defying choreographic work by Swiss choreographer Marie-Caroline Hominal and South African performing artist Nelisiwe Xaba. This powerful production will be staged at the Wits Theatre on 10 and 11 December 2025. Here’s what you need to know.
Two artistic voices come together in Hominal / Xaba
This internationally heralded production brings two powerful artistic voices into dialogue in a meeting that is as playful as it is profound.
Having first premiered in 2019 and since been performed across Switzerland, France, Belgium, South Africa, and Canada, Hominal / Xaba explores themes of cultural appropriation, authorship, identity, embodied knowledge, and the digital age with sharp wit and visual poetry.
On stage, audiences encounter a vivid landscape of threads, textiles, and labyrinthine colour that unravels and re-weaves as the work unfolds.
Behind the production
Hominal / Xaba forms part of the larger HOMINAL / XXX series, initiated in 2015 by Marie-Caroline Hominal as a research project into authorship and unexpected artistic pairings. The series examines transformation, appropriation, and the generative friction between artistic identities. Hominal and Xaba’s long-standing professional intersection culminated in this collaboration, first presented at Geneva’s La Bâtie Festival, and now considered a signature work in both artists’ repertoires.
Hominal and Xaba co-create the choreography, performance, set design, and costumes, weaving movement and materiality into a singular visual language. The work features music by Vincent Bertholet, with technical direction by Jean-Pierre Potvliege and touring technician Solly Thaane.
The project is supported by Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council, and by the Embassy of Switzerland to South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia.
About the artists
Marie-Caroline Hominal, based in Geneva, is one of Switzerland’s most celebrated contemporary choreographers, with a multidisciplinary practice spanning dance, theatre, performance art, and visual art. Her works have toured extensively across Europe, China, and the Americas and have earned her accolades including the 2019 Swiss Dance Award (“Outstanding female dancer”) and the 2024 Prix culturel arts vivants, Fondation Vaudoise pour la Culture.
Nelisiwe Xaba is a pioneering South African choreographer and performer based in Joburg whose works interrogate power, feminism, representation, and embodied politics. Xaba has performed at the Venice Biennale, Berliner Festspiele, Goodman Gallery, and numerous international festivals. She is the recipient of the FNB Art Prize (2013), and she completed a Villa Albertine residency at The Met Museum, New York in 2023.
The duo’s artistic paths first crossed as students at London’s Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, and in this production, they draw from their decades of connection, collaboration, and global touring.
How to book
Cost: R75pp to R150pp, book via Webtickets
When: Wednesday and Thursday, 10 and 11 December 2025. From 7pm nightly
Where: Wits Theatre Complex in the University of the Witwatersrand, 24 Station St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
Website: mariecarolinehominal.com
Instagram: @mch333555777999 (Marie) | @xabanelisiwe
Facebook: @mariecarolinehominal
