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.
PREMISED IN THE kind of sing-song voice that you might attribute to the retelling of a bible story, The Season of Glass is a fictional vessel for messianic prophecy, focusing on the birth of twins. But it’s not that simple. As you plunge into this complicated tale of […]
RESPECT. YOU RECOGNISE it as you look at the children, the dispossessed, the poor, the street-friendly, the felons in Jodi Bieber’s photographs. It derives from the photographer. It’s a source of nutrition infused in how the subject exists in her frame. Curated by Reney Warrington, Rosebank’s Foto.Za gallery […]
IT IS NEVER the story itself; it’s how you tell it that makes a tale sing. Damien Chazelle’s film First Man, which celebrates the story of Neil Armstrong – the world’s first man on the moon – fits this bill perfectly. It’s the tale of not only a […]
THERE’S STILL TIME to change your plans today and go and see what is arguably the finest piece of dance that has graced Johannesburg’s stages in a long while. Dark Cell, choreographed by Themba Mbuli and Fana Tshabalala is a contemplation on the horror of political incarceration. Focused […]
ARGUABLY THE CHILDREN’S classic with the most, Le Petit Prince was penned and illustrated in 1943 by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It was one of the last gestures he made to the world before he disappeared in what is presumed a war incident. Now, 75 years later, this tender, […]
RAISING IS CHILD is a complicated exercise. More so if you’re firmly entrenched in your own sense of how things should be, if you have the old Afrikaner’s perspective on apartheid, hunting and violence as a backdrop and if the ostensible position of everyone in your life seems […]
HE WAS MORE than just a dancer, choreographer and artistic director. Lucky Kele was an interpreter of dance dreams, a man with a real passion for making things happen in the dance fraternity, and for pushing dance boundaries. Known by so many as ‘King’, Kele tragically passed away […]
“THE MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember is to be ready to give up what you are for what you might become”, the timeless words of American civil rights activist WEB du Bois were close to the heart and value system of Shoki Mokgapa. An actress, theatre activist and […]
WHEN YOU FIRST ‘meet’ Busi (Petronella Tshuma), the lead in Jerome Pikwane’s local horror film The Tokoloshe, you are grabbed by her sense of excruciating vulnerability faintly covered with a veneer of bravado. She’s young, she’s desperate and she cannot turn down this security job because she’s really […]
WHEN AN ARTIST – of whatever stripe – steps up to the proverbial mic and loses all sense of the audience in front of her, with just the song on her lips or fingers, something unforgettable happens. Ask any performer – be they a pianist or a drag […]
ansunecilliers
beckkglass
Chester Miggels
Gillian Rennie
elizhanduvenhage
erinventer02
Geoff Sifrin
godukazinobulali
henricopg
huibrechtdehart
isabeausophiajoubert
jessicajoubert
Kapisha Ramraj
kaylamullerr
matthewvanderwalt
meereieliefde
olgalouiselemmer
Palesa Moore
Peta Kaplan
Robyn Sassen
Saleemah Shaik
saleemahsketches
shanelschoombee
thembanhlapoart
Willem Pieter
zainabchoonara
Recent Comments