Thamsanqa Majela

Thamsanqa Majela is an artist, dancer and teacher from South Africa.He studied dance and composition at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. He later completed his training at the renowned P.A.R.T.S in Brussels, Belgium.Between 2011 and 2014 Majela was a member of “The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative“. From 2014 to 2019, he toured as an ensemble member of Dance Factory with the acclaimed works of Dada Masilo, including “Giselle“, “Carmen“ and “Swan Lake“.
In 2017, he collaborated with artists from Vienna on the short film “A Last One in Color“. Two years later, in 2019, he was invited as a guest artist to the “Center for the Less Good Idea“, curated by William Kentridge and Phala Ookeditse Phala.
Thamsanqa Majela has been working as an independent choreographer and dancer since 2021. During this time, he has realized international and local collaborations such as “Don't Let the Sun Set on You Here“, “Ditoro“ (Tanzania) and “POP“ (a French collaboration). In 2022 he was an invited artist at the Artist Talk at Kampnagel in Germany. In 2023, he mentored young artists for a month as part of a mentoring program at Muda Africa in Tanzania.
In 2022, Thamsanqa Majela was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award in the dance category for his artistic work.

Thamsanqa Majela is a scholarship holder of the “Fokus International“ program, which was launched in cooperation with the Austrian Ministry of Culture (BMWKMS) in 2023. Young cultural workers from Kosovo (2023 - 2025) and South Africa (2025 - 2027) are invited to Austria to complete two-month internships at selected Viennese art institutions, thereby gaining work experience and enriching the host institution through their collaboration.During his residency at MQ, he will complete a two-month internship at ImPulsTanz where he will be working at the Public Moves event. Public Moves is a program that offers daily free dance classes to the public. The program includes more than 190 international and local teaching artists. Majelas tasks will include accompanying and assisting the artistic director of workshops and research department to internal and external workshops, planning workshops for the festival, administrative activities and the online archiving of the workshop's teachers.