The arts at large by Robyn Sassen and other writers
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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 LIVE in an overtly political context, wherever in the world you are, the issue of having babies is coloured by The Struggle. Why? Is it because it’s another sensibility to march on your side? Another voice to sing to your tune? Perhaps. This is the focus […]
IT’S BEEN DEEMED one of Netflix’s most watched productions, and has been followed by a slew of vehement critical opinions, both for and against, but does this mean it’s a good film? Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up is an engaging satire about the imminent end of the world […]
FROM THE FIRST extrapolation of ‘Gorgeous!’ in the mouth of Celeste, the whole of the American Midwest is evoked, with all its texture and brashness, enthusiasm and disappointment, history and perspectives. Played by Kim Tatum, episode 17 of The End of the Line takes the complexity of sexuality […]
THE ABILITY TO cast a beautiful yarn in plain language is a very special skill. It’s about cutting the fat that words can spew if they’re not restrained, as it is about the luxury of being able to form characters with your pen and insights, impeccably. Like writers […]
WHEN YOU KNOW, from the first few phrases of a book, that you are in good and powerful storytelling hands, the rest of the text sings beyond the confines of its pages. This is the kind of experience you can anticipate in Catherine Cole’s foray into South African […]
TELLING STORIES IS complicated. Telling personal stories that you have lived through even more so. And telling them perfectly, is extremely rare. Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Hand of God, is one of these unique feats of collaborative creative skills that yield a product that will lift your mood […]
IF YOU TAKE a step back from what your granny might want for your life, and what you may want for it, it’s merely a question of timing. Chinara, in episode 16 of The End of the Line, a series of British fictional monologues on podcast, skirts this […]
IF CHRONOLOGY AND history magically got turned on its ear, who would British novelist Jane Austen be in the tweens of the 21st century? And how would she craft and position her characters? While seasoned English academic and magnificently skilled writer Helen Moffett doesn’t quite contemplate this idea […]
WHEN IT COMES to skop, skiet en donder films, you know the drill, if you’ve been watching films for a year or two. It’s clear who the baddies are. And the goodies. And you know that when the felon, deemed guilty by the system, goes to jail, they […]
IT ISN’T EVERY day that you get to see a film which has the gravitas of the bible, the sinister undertones and dark wit of Quentin Tarantino’s work and the timelessness and devastating subtlety of a classic of the ilk of work by Ernest Hemingway. In Jane Campion’s […]
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