Jittery Citizens perform Long form Improv in which they create one long story using a series of short scenes based on audience suggestion. This improv format known as “Armando” starts with a storytelling-style monologue, based on an audience suggestion. After the monologue, players play improvised scenes inspired by the monologue, and the monologue may even continue, later on in the performance.
Jittery Citizens Long Form Improv
A story has many feet, but poet, musician and storyteller Gavin Bonner, a Londoner living in South Africa, gives it wings.
Take a memory of being told a tale – your mother reading you a bedtime story or an elder telling you ancient anecdotes around the fire, and refresh that with a new approach.
With the audience forming an arc three rows in front of him, Bonner appeared out of the pitch black Glennie Fest Centre Hall for his last Grahamstown festival show at 10 pm with a drumming ritual.
His first tale was inspired by a Congolese friend and former band member. The next one came from the room. Much as a slam poet or rapper is often tasked with creating verses out of of a word or situation, Bonner asked for random words from the audience and turned them into an improvised tale rich in rhyme.
The improvisation may go all over the place and take many forms, from being funny to poetic, but it always returns to its starting point and essence.
Here, Julius Malema can be a closet guitarist and Mugabe can be dethroned by the double sting of a bumble bee. The novelty is that you are not only a listener but a collaborator too.
When you hear your word settling in its character a warm spread of pride dances in your belly.
The other stories Bonner told are learnt. Some have moral lessons, some are big and others shorter than a minute.
Some are his experiences from his travels around the world. The drumming he uses as interludes has stories of its own. He plays interesting percussion such as the Moroccan drum (Bendir) and the Riq from Egypt which resembles a tambourine.
Now living in Cape Town, Bonner has been telling stories in this way for about nine months and he’s been a musician and poet for most of his life.
He combines, honours and subverts genres and has created a delightful style of his own that connects simply yet deeply.
He is planning a national tour and will be hitting Joburg stages soon with his new brand of art. For more information go to www.gavinbonner.com and check out his Facebook group, Storytelling South Africa, whch includes him and other storytellers.
A new play by Craig Higginson
First commissioned by the National Theatre, London, for the 2012 Connections Festival
Directed by Malcolm Purkey
Production Design Neil Coppen
Little Foot was first commissioned by the National Theatre, London, for the 2012 Connections Festival. Craig Higginson is one of ten writers from around the world participating in this prestigious festival, and Little Foot is to be performed at the National Theatre prior to the 2012 Olympics. The National Theatre has generously agreed to allow the Market Theatre, in association with the Grahamstown Festival, to put together a South African production of their own – a production that will be an extended version of the original play.
This powerful and poetic new South African play is situated on a farm in the Cradle of Humankind, where much of the world’s pre-human remains have been found. It takes the audience down into the vast network of caves where the three-million-year-old hominin Little Foot was discovered. Out of sheer co-incidence, the production will be released at the same time that Little Foot’s remains will finally be freed from the rock. It has taken thirteen years to extract the hominin’s calcified bones, using brushes and dentists’ drills.
In Higginson’s play, we experience the caves through the eyes of a group of young South African university students – who went to school together and are having a reunion on New Year’s Eve, exactly a year since they last saw each other. One of them (Wizard) brings along a new girlfriend from England (Rebecca). He wants her to meet his oldest friends, not suspecting that a terrible trap is being set for him. What starts as a practical joke soon leads to a series of events that appear to have tragic consequences. As the students delve deeper into the caves – and we travel ever deeper into their psyches and their shared histories – a Chorus of ancient hominins steps through the walls of the caves. The play finally dramatises the coming together of our most primal and contemporary identities
Little Foot draws on Greek theatre, Philosophy, Palaeontology and South African mythology to create a powerful portrayal of modern relationships. Not only does the audience come to a deeper understanding of their common ancestry, but the play powerfully illustrates how the best and the worst of us has its roots in the ancient past, and how these two capacities are carried through into our contemporary democracy.
Since we first learned to control fire, light has been used to satisfy our best and our worst impulses as a species. It is what we do with the light handed down to us that we define ourselves. The theatre – which provides a darkened space into which we introduce light for the telling of our stories – is surely the perfect place to explore these themes and concepts.
For this production, writer Craig Higginson and director Malcolm Purkey are collaborating with Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award-winner Neil Coppen to create a multi-media event that will include a composer, videographer, sound designer, sculptor, editor, choreographer, as well as a lighting, costume and set designer. Huge cloths will be used to create different spaces and textured surfaces, as well as being used for surfaces for video projection and shadow puppetry. The Chorus will be created using masks, sculpture and projection. In both content and form, this promises to be a unique piece of storytelling that will redefine the boundaries of contemporary South African theatre.
Previous collaborations between writer Craig Higginson and director Malcolm Purkey include the internationally acclaimed plays Dream of the Dog and The Girl in the Yellow Dress – both originally produced by the Market Theatre.
Performers
- Dylan Nicol Horley
- Jenna Dunster
- Phumzile Sitole
- Khayelihle Dominique Gumede
- Glen Biderman-Pam
- Mlondolozi Bradley Zondi
- Chorus – Kyla Davis, Jaques de Silva, Sibulele Gcilitshana, Peter Langa, Sello Sebotsane
Molalatladi is chosen by his villagers to be the new leader of the village after defeating the Ogres that terrorized and oppressed them for years. He wants to lead his village and create a better life for them but Ogres plant a seed of greed in his head. This leads to his downfall.
Every year a stork migrates from the lush Dutch landscape to the deep warm South of Africa. He knows lots of stories. One of which is the true story about Nongqawuse, a 15 year old Xhosa girl that radically changed the history of the Xhosa people. One day Nongqawuse comes back from the river. She tells that the ancestors appeared to her with the prophecy that the dead will arise, the white people and unbelievers will be driven into the sea and the once powerful Xhosa people will be as strong as before. To make this happen they have to kill all their cattle and burn all their grain. This prophecy brings hope to the people. They are tormented by colonial wars and mysterious cattle diseases. But it also brings discord among the Xhosa people, manipulation and betrayal and in the end a terrible famine. Everyone points at Nongqawuse. But was she really the cause of the disaster that ensued? Maybe this mystery can never be unravelled. Everyone has his interpretation of the facts. Will a bird with homes in both hemispheres ever be able to understand?
Red Earth is a co-production with Speeltheater Holland and premiered in Grahamstown 2006 and was later performed in the Netherlands more than 200 times. In 2013 Red Earth will be on tour in South Africa.
The Magic Shell is set in ancient times on the Wild Coast, before people knew how to tell stories. Manzandaba and Zenzele, a married couple, are two of the first people. They go on an adventure in search of stories that lead to magical creatures under the ocean…
African stories and languages don’t get enough attention with entertainment flooded by Western culture. However, our rich heritage of folktales offer life lessons through the portrayal of human/animal characters. Children have an intuitive connection with wild animals and different languages. Their imaginations are ready to make the connections between wild life and human characteristics. These heart connections are fostered by this portrayal of a folktale.
In The Magic Shell the theatrical representations draw young children into a world where animals and humans are connected. Their imaginations become rooted in culture and nature. They are prepared to make the folktale their own. They become ready to tell this original story in their own words and in their mother tongue.
The Magic Shell is 45 minutes in duration and suitable for children aged 4 and up (grades R to 3).
An accompanying workshop is also available.
The Magic Shell (formerly How Stories Began) made its debut at the Masque Theatre during the July school holidays in 2015 and was performed at the Cape Town Fringe Festival; RASA and the Storievertelfees during September. More recently, The Magic Shell was performed as part of the Muizenberg Festival in 2017.
Moya is a young rising soccer star, his goal scoring record has made him a hero in his township. He has an asthma attack during training and ends up in hospital, where Moya has a nightmare about a Death Monster who feeds on smoke and pollution. Unable to play soccer, Moya is dropped from his team and loses the affections of his bling-bling girlfriend. Determined to find out the causes of his misfortune, Moya embarks on a journey of discovery into the causes of air pollution and the threat of climate change. He finds ways to heal himself and his environment and destroys the Death Monster.
Moya meets different characters who give him advice and information. He confronts industrial giants and meets the municipal air quality management team and finds out about local by-laws. With a new outlook on life he finds a new sustainable lifestyle.
Moya – The Air We Breathe is 45 minutes in duration and is suitable for Grades 8-12. An accompanying drama skills workshop of 45 minutes is also available. It was developed for a high school audience for the City of Cape Town’s Environmental Resource Management Department and was performed at 10 high schools for Air Quality Week in February 2008. Provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning commissioned a reduced version for their 2 Precious 2 Pollute Campaign in 2010.
Currently starring: Unathi Speelman, Nelson Chileshe Musonda, Mfundo Hashe and Ntombifuthi Mkhasibe.
The Magic Water is a tale of greed, jealousy, love and forgiveness. The central character is a cantankerous, yet lovable old woman, the mother of Brave, the village chief. She dotes on her son Brave and has enjoyed many years of his undivided attention. Her perfectly balanced life topples when Brave meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Joy. They marry and soon she discovers that Brave no longer has time for her, he is otherwise engaged! Filled with disappointment she plots an evil plan to disrupt the happy couple’s married bliss.
Every morning Joy prepares a marvelous meal that she leaves to slowly stew over the coals for the day, and every day, Brave’s mother sneaks into their hut once they have gone to work in the fields, and scoffs all the food! Brave begins to wonder whether Joy is in fact cooking for them at all and decides to investigate. Needless to say, he is horrified to discover that it is his very own flesh and blood doing the dirty deed. In his fury Brave banishes his mother from the village and tells her that she can only return when she has found the Magic Water.
The legend of the Magic Water tells of an enchanted pool where no animals dwell – no fish, no frogs, no animal of any kind. As the old woman sets out to search the plains of southern Africa she has no inkling of what an adventure lies ahead of her…
Brave’s mother’s journey of self-discovery introduces us to the creatures and plants that live and survive in and around the countless waterholes of southern Africa. Finally, on her last legs she finds not only the magic water but also through the painful process, her own and many others redemption. The tale concludes with her return to the village and her son’s forgiveness.
The Magic Water is full of crazy characters, songs and dance This classic tale weaves a quality children’s theatre experience of sheer magic.