Robyn Sassen
A freelance arts writer since 1998, I fell in love with the theatre as a toddler, proved rubbish as a ballerina: my starring role was as Mrs Pussy in Noddy as a seven-year-old, and earned my stripes as an academic in Fine Arts and Art History, in subsequent years. I write for a range of online and print publications, including the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian and artslink.co.za and was formerly the arts editor of the SA Jewish Report, a weekly newspaper with which I was associated for 16 years. I am currently a Research Associate at Wits University. This blog promises you new stories every week, be they reviews, profiles, news stories or features.
When you watch a production of the calibre of Searching for Somebody, you appreciate that perfection is not about choreographed steps in time or smooth delivery. It is about balancing persona with crude realities. It is about a performer standing on stage and reaching directly into your chest […]
She stands with a smile of beatitude on her face as she sips her masala tea in tandem with the audience. She stands amid a circle of lit candles amongst a veil of aroma, from burning imphemphe and incense. And as she stands, she grasps at and holds […]
More than anything, this monologue celebrating Bram Fischer, arguably one of South Africa’s more curious and interesting characters, is a love story. The unabashed love between Bram and Molly Fischer is the aperture in this tight bricks and mortar tale of the apartheid regime’s cruel spite and malice […]
You might remember Dean Simon’s intense photorealistic pencil drawings of Litvak Jewry, marketed in calendars in the 1980s. This Johannesburg artist who became one of South Africa’s few military artists whilst in the army recently explained to My View what he’s been up to. Considering the progress of […]
Dancing is the finest shortcut to happiness. So says ballet dancer Yolandi Olckers, who headlines this year’s Dance for a Cure – the annual cervical cancer awareness show. It’s billed this year as ‘Let’s do it for the boys’ as part of an initiative to highlight awareness of […]
This play is about cosmology and bee hives; it’s also about life, loss, love and death; taking chances and letting go. It is about the games people play. But above all else, it is about celebrating the veteran directing chops of Alan Swerdlow, revealing him at his most […]
You don’t frequently come across a theatrical work so elegant and uneasy in its entirety that it makes you remember why you go to theatre. And why it exists as a discipline, altogether. Bash, by Neil LaBute, a play which debuted in 1999, was not awarded a Gold […]
It’s a completely astonishing privilege to watch both Gregory Maqoma and Roberto Olivan perform. They gyrate like whirligigs, they contort and jetee as though they have quicksilver in their veins and fire instead of bones. They are mesmerising in their beauty, in collaboration and individually. The work’s title […]
The thrilling thing about Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ draughtsmanship is its sense of utter luminosity. In looking at the work of this Neo-Classical painter, you can feel the texture of the skin with your eyes. His line work is so succinct yet tender that there’s nothing superfluous. It is like […]
There’s a certain kind of magic that comes of nostalgia onstage; it needs to be nipped in the bud before it sinks into maudlin silliness or utter irrelevance. When grownup nostalgia is mixed with child audiences, the dangers are obvious: you could lose their attention in a slippery […]
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