Dance Umbrella announces the opening show of the 2026 festival

London’s leading International dance festival, Dance Umbrella today announces the opening show of the 2026 festival: Mamela Nyamza’s THE HERD/LESS will be presented at Sadler’s Wells East from 8 - 10 October.
 
South African artist Mamela Nyamza is a vital choreographic voice in contemporary performance. Following critical acclaim for HATCHED ENSEMBLE, which opened the 2024 Dance Umbrella Festival, and now the recipient of the 2026 Venice Biennale Silver Lion, she returns to London with a searing new work THE HERD/LESS. Internationally acclaimed for her fearless choreography, Nyamza continues to push at the boundaries of form and convention.
 
THE HERD/LESS draws on the dual meaning of the ‘herd’: a collective moving in harmony and a group controlled, shaped and directed by cultural and physical forces. Power emerges through ritual, repetition and the quiet surrender of the individual to the group. Cloth and cultural sticks – traditional southern African objects associated with masculine authority – become both symbols of position and tools of control.
  
This breath-taking ensemble’s movements generate a live, percussive score, creating a sensory landscape that is as immersive as it is disquieting. Beneath the promise of unity and abundance lies a more violent reality: a collective stripped of agency, bound by systems that sustain both beauty and brutality. Nyamza exposes the fallacy of a beautiful world, revealing the tension between harmony and control that sits just beneath the surface of our day-to-day existence.
 
Born in Gugulethu, Cape Town, Mamela Nyamza is a South African dancer, choreographer, director and activist whose work has redefined the boundaries of dance theatre. Training in ballet from the age of eight, she went on to study at the Alvin Ailey International School in New York before launching a practice built on unapologetically deconstructing the norms of classical dance. Her landmark works include the celebrated HATCHED ENSEMBLE, which opened the 2024 Dance Umbrella Festival to widespread critical acclaim. In 2026 she was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale. She runs non-profit company Mamela’s Artistic Movement.
 
Featuring Dance Artists: Thamsanqa Tshabalala, Hatoentle Tema, Nonofo Olekeng, Mbali Brandt, Thandiwe Mqokeli, Sinazo Bokolo, Thabang Mojapelo, Zandile Constable and Dineo Mapoma. Costumes are designed by Mamela Nyamza, Xolani Mawande and Shiba Sopotela, with set concept and design by Mamela Nyamza (Set Concept) and Karabo Legoabe (Set Designer),  and lighting design by Thabo Pule.
 
Co-Commissioned by Dance Umbrella and presented by Dance Umbrella & Sadler’s Wells.
 
THE HERD/LESS is co-produced by Dance Umbrella UK, Venice Biennale 2026 and Lalanbik La Reunion.
 
Further programming for Dance Umbrella Festival 2026 will be announced soon.