IN A SACRED circle painted on the grass of the Hilton College campus, real magic takes place in the hands of Andile Vilakazi and Sbusiso Mhlongo. It’s the kind of magic that will not only affect your thinking about the pecking order of the gods that rule this […]
WHEN YOU HOLD a match to something flammable, you will get an explosion. But it need not be a destructive one: Pantsula dancer Ayanda Nondlwana aka “Fire Starter” or “Ace” was that kind of flammable, in the dance sphere. All the people who touched his life enabled him […]
WHEN YOU LOOK at – or remember – footage of Lindiwe Ndlovu, be it in the context of the terrifying ‘Sharon’ in the prison series Lockdown, ‘Sponono’, an ex-convict with her convictions close to her heart in Zabalaza, the inimitable ‘Patjutju’ in Uzalo among other characters, you see […]
ALONGSIDE AN ALL-ABIDING fear of social interaction on every conceivable level, the coronavirus pandemic has brought us – particularly us in the arts industries – dire concerns about the very income that keeps body and soul together. On 15 January 2021, South Africa’s current minister of sports, arts […]
PICTURE THE SCENARIO. We’re in the Johannesburg suburb of Bertrams with all its broken dreams, building repair sites and street-based hawkers. It’s Septemberish in 2016. The air is hazy with pollen, but complicated with the excitement of a new entity. And a bunch of people, some of whom […]
TRIBUTE TO LAVONA DE BRUYN BY OLGA-LOUISE LEMMER. SHE WAS A woman with an epic level of complete enthusiasm for life: An artist and a social activist, a theatre practitioner and a teacher who touched so many lives and gave them direction, this was Lavona de Bruyn, who […]
SOMETIMES IT SEEMS as though the preciousness of opera has been hardwired into an understanding of the genre. But in truth, it’s not all fancy velvet ball gowns, polished European language and nebulous love tales told with an utter sense of privilege and moment. The history of opera […]
WHEN A MAN comes on stage just before a heavily touted show starts, to announce his great respect for all the people performing here because no one is earning money for doing so, is this a thing you’re meant to clap about? There is a huge problem in […]
CONTEMPORARY POLISH COMPOSER Krzysztof Penderecki is known for, amongst other things, the bravery – or madness — to allow performers freedom of diverse expression within a defined rubric. So, in works of his which deal with issues such as witch hunts and nuclear bombs, for instance, you get […]
AN UNDERSTANDING OF the contribution of South African theatre-maker Gibson Kente (1932-2004) to local stage history cannot but be an important addition to the reading list of any SA theatre lover. And accordingly, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh’s book A Contended Space tries hard to be everything to every reader […]
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