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Tag: Lusanda Zokufa

Bring back our heroes

THEATRE REVIEW: RETURN OF THE ANCESTORS WITH A POTENT nod in the direction of the 1981 classic South African play, Woza Albert!, Mike van Graan’s Return of the Ancestors is a provocative essay on what has become of the world in which we exist. It offers a premise […]

Pour me another

ROUGH AND WISE words constructed around a complex and nuanced narrative and cast within the folds of metaphors and figures of speech, wickedly flipping languages up against one another, can never get old. Particularly if they are performed with a guttural perfection that is peppered with physical theatre […]

Blemished church, broken lesbians

THE NAUSEATING CLASH of religious dogmaticism and sexualities which contradict hetero-norms is not something new. If you look at the issue of sexuality more broadly and infuse it with an historical glance at the culture and persecution of so-called witches, it simmers and seethes there too. Young playwright […]

Comeuppance, richly deserved

WHERE THERE IS smoke in a story involving powerful figures, there is always fire. And the story that wriggles its way out into the public forum is often a cover from one much more sordid and filthy than the public should be allowed to know or can stomach. […]

Stripping Nina’s legacy down

SHE WAS ONE of black America’s iconic figures during the turbulent 1960s. And her songs were grist for the protest mill. But that wasn’t all. You think Nina Simone (1933-2003) – born Eunice Waymon – and you think of the wealth of beauty and subtlety, nuance and fire […]

In limbo with this Little Prince

BOOM! ONTO THE rudimentary set dominated with brown paper explodes a young man in a war helmet (Mathews Rantsoma), manning a paper aeroplane. He’s making sums that no doubt involve geography, mathematics, aviation and pilotry. Matters of consequence, you understand. The theatrical opening of the version of The […]

Accused, incarcerated, unbroken

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 […]