Vintani Nafassi

I am Vintani Afonso Nafassi and most of my life I have been a professional dancer and percussionist. I did contemporary, jazz and modern dance; and my main focus was African traditional dance. I worked in the Zimbabwe College of Music, the Zimbabwe Dance Foundation Course and the Zimbabwe Association of Music Educators as a music and dance teacher in 2010 and 2011. I was a professional dancer and musician for 10 years in the National Dance and Song Company of Mozambique.
Nowadays I work mostly as choreographer, musician, song writer and composer. I teach traditional songs, drums and dance at the African Music Department in the College of Music of the University of Cape Town, where I am currently finishing my Post-Graduation Diploma in African Music and Performance. I am also involved in UCT outreach program, where I am teaching traditional dance, traditional songs, and how to play mbira, djembes, percussions and traditional drums. Beyond Mozambique, where I lived most of my life, and Cape Town (South Africa) where I’m living now; I have thought music and dance in workshops as well as performed live in different places such as Harare (Zimbabwe), Manzini (Swaziland), Campinas and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Macau (China) and Saint Dennis (Reunion Island).