Assoc Prof Jacki Job

Associate Professor

Choreographer | Academic Researcher | Theatre-Maker | PhD | Associate Professor
Languages: English, Afrikaans (fluent); German, Japanese, French (conversational)

PROFILE

Acclaimed artist-scholar with over 30 years of international experience in dance, choreography and theatre-making. A pioneer of Butoh in Africa and a leading practitioner in crafting decolonial performance strategies and scholarly inquiry. Ongoing research and creative works consider animism, animal-human embodiment, dance as philosophy, indigenous aesthetics, and transformation in their structure and delivery.

EDUCATION

PhD, Dance & Performance Studies – University of Cape Town (2022)

MA, Dance Studies – University of Cape Town (2014)

BA Hons (First Class), Dance Research – University of Cape Town (2013)

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Non-Western choreographic principles and Indigenous Methodologies

Embodied Decoloniality and Dance as Philosophy

Practice-as-Research and the Liminal Body

Personhood, Transformation, and Butoh

SELECTED CREATIVE WORKS

Performed across Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Signature Solo Work: Daai za Lady (1995–present) – Performed in theatres, festivals, museums

Recent Works:

Atlas of Remote Islands, Cape Town Opera (Director, 2025)
And Then… (2018–2024): Solo work presented in theatres, festivals, Zambia, and digital platforms. Ongoing dance series, includes a dance film nominated for a Naledi (2022) Awarded UCT Creative Works Meritorious Prize (2022)
Ai, Irma Stern Museum (2023) Groundbreaking performance: duet with a live horse
Awarded UCT Creative Works Meritorious Prize (2024)
Voete van ‘n Gemsbok, Oppiewater Kunstefees (2022)
Of Dreams & Dragons, ICA Live Art Festival (2017)
African Angels, International opera tour (2013–2016)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

And Then…: Revealing the Teachings of the Praying Mantis, UCT (2024)
Nurturing the Relational Body, OnCurating (2023)
Visceral Migrations, Black Embodiments Studio (2022)
Who do you think you are to speak tyo me like that? (Wits University Press, 2021)
Butoh and the Third Space, OnCurating (2021)
Re-imaging Race through Daai za Lady & Butoh, Brill (2021)
Translate(ral) Bodies through Daai za Lady, South African Theatre Journal (2019)
Forthcoming Monograph (2025): Choreographing Rebellion (Bloomsbury Publishing, UK)