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 THE UNIVERSE presents a possibility in your life that is unequivocally wrong, but still, it’s there, what do you do? A chance encounter with a literary letter when she was down and out and had no where to turn, represented an important turning point for American writer, […]
WHAT ARE THE basic parameters that inform a festival of contemporary dance? Should there be a gatekeeper who assesses wannabe shows on the gig and plays god, in his or her ability to give a hopeful group of applicants the ‘yay’ or ‘nay’? And who is that gatekeeper? […]
WHEN YOU HAVE enough passion for something that is important to you, often the universe casts a fond eye in your direction and throws something your way to encourage you, even more. This was something that inveterate film-watcher Johann Botha (67), a semi-retired Pretoria resident experienced on February […]
THERE’S NO SLEIGHT of hand or conceptual tricks in Corlie Schoeman’s considerable body of pottery exhibited in the Pretoria Arts Association ‘Potter of the Month’ slot for March. She refers to the technique she uses here as ‘cleilap’. And you can easily understand why. These objects, big and […]
SOUTH AFRICAN PERFORMER Lara Lipschitz very rapidly dispossesses you of stereotypical beliefs that women comedians need to be unbeautiful, fat and self-deprecating in order to be funny. Okay, hold that self-deprecating angle a little: in her third season of her self-designed, -directed and -written web series, Chin Up!, […]
WHAT IS THE best way of celebrating a grand old dame of hospitality in this city? Should it out-lavish its already rather lavish self, and appeal only to the very wealthy, with exclusive shiny deals? Should it publish a glossy book about all the guests who have stayed […]
FOR SO MANY years, South African film has suffered from what easily can be considered a kind of collective lack of self-esteem. Our film makers yearned to be American in their stories, their accents, their tricks of the medium. But for the past several years, there’s a thread […]
WHAT DO YOU do when the proverbial gift horse looks your way, and makes you an offer you can’t refuse? Earl Stone (Clint Eastwood) is an ordinary kind of 90-year-old divorced guy, who loves to garden much more than he likes family responsibilities. He won’t say no to […]
DO YOU REMEMBER atlases and the unfathomability of the fold up road map? In the pre-GPS days of our world and our sense of geography, the atlas was a subtle and beautiful reminder of how small we are on this planet. Without all the loudness of internet-based hyperbole […]
WOULD YOU VOTE for a simple duck to be your national leader? This bizarre little question comes under the eyeglass in the National Children’s Theatre’s first production of the year. And it’s apt to get many a giggle and a squeal of delight. Duck for President, directed by […]
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