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.
A MURDER, A suicide, a mysterious letter and a court case are the central elements of this intriguing yarn cast in the context of South African violence. Based on a true story which hit the media in 2012, Skink vir my ‘n whisky is a subtly developed Afrikaans-language […]
SOMETHING DEEPLY VISCERAL happens to you when you’re standing in front of one of Chris Soal’s wall pieces on his debut solo, Orbits of Relating. It’s like being in the presence of a field of wheat or a sea anemone that blows this way and that, affecting your […]
IS IT CARVED wood? Or is it burnished clay? Maybe it is made of flesh and blood? Nothing is completely obvious in this biblically loaded exhibition of beasties which you know and others from the annuls of sculptor Michael Teffo’s sense of whimsy. Either way, you will want […]
WHAT DO YOU do when bad news seems to come in a rolling tsunami? From disappointments at work to unexpected secrets from your children, a wife with an addiction issue and a mother-in-law with a leaking toilet and a mouth that doesn’t let up on the overriding commentary […]
A WHITE HIGH school girl lies on her belly on a school bench to read a spot of King Lear as she munches on an apple. There’s a sense of ‘how things should be’ in everything from her school uniform to her engagement with what is obviously homework. […]
Remember Sesame Street and the values it espoused on generations of children? Well, 15 years ago, the makers of Avenue Q worked with its basic puppetting premises and ramped it up to a whole new set of narrative values. Now, in its 15th year, it explodes in a […]
TANTALLON PEGASUS IS the quirky name of what appears to be a pointer. He’s big, he’s bony, he’s got a patent and well-developed sense of humour and he’s entirely vulnerable. Lying this way and that, asleep, with his ears back, his legs spread or curled up in a […]
IT’S EASY TO get emotionally entwined in the harsh finger-pointing that sees the elderly of a community abandoned. It makes for predictable storytelling and indictments on the callousness of the younger generation. What is more difficult is representing the other side of a story that is about rejection […]
ALL SET NIEMAND really ever wanted to be was a pianist who distinguished himself from the pack. But the universe stepped in with a more complicated reward. This nifty science fiction work penned in Afrikaans by Schalk Schoombie is certainly something to cosy up to the wireless for, […]
Remember this story on Lara Lipschitz and her hilarious and poignant series, Chin Up? Well, there’s a season three in the ether, and a thundafund opportunity for you to help. Watch this space: https://www.thundafund.com/project/chinup3
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