Mozambique's first contemporary dance company, Cultu-arte is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a tour of South Africa, Madagascar and Mozambique. The leading dance institution was recently in Johannesburg presenting The Marrabenta Solos. CGTN's Julie Scheier has more.

A solo choreography bearing into Mozambique's complex past. Time and Space: The Marrabenta Solos, explores a crisis of identity. Choreographer Panaibra Canda presents a post-colonial body, which has assimilated the historical ideas of nationalism, modernity and socialism.

PANAIBRA GABRIEL CANDA CULTUARTE DANCE COMPANY "What we share today is the performance time and space of Marrabenta solos which is a work around the issues of identity, like me being born in a certain period and in my own reality where there was kind of a transformation of my own country but also transformation of the people, the behaviour of people that had to deal with another form of system that have different kinds of demands or rules."

Accompanied by guitarist Jorge Domingos, Canda dances to Marrabenta music, a musical form born in the 1950s from a mix of local and European influences.

JORGE DOMINGOS GUITARIST "The music is like traditional. We mix marrabenta, the traditional music of Mozambique. We mix it a bit because it is like a story you know. Everywhere we play, thank god we have had a nice welcoming which is good, gives us confidence when performing it."

This tour forms part of The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia's Winter Programme celebrating 20 years in South Africa.

JOSEPH GAYLARD HEAD, SWISS ARTS COUNCIL "One of the things we have done as a funder is to support the ability of artists within the region to move their work within the region to build a stronger fabric of connection in the cultural community within Southern Africa. So we do that both by supporting collaboration between artists but also through enabling the touring of this kind of works, so it's an opportunity for a South African audience to see work that is actually just down the road, but is normally more likely to be seen in a European capital than in a Southern African one."

The best of Mozambican dance has wrapped up their South African tour, but Time and Space, The Marrabenta Solos can still be seen in the Mozambican capital, Maputo. JS, CGTN, JHB, SA.