Witness a day in the life of Norman. Using graphic mime, vocal effects and physical clowning, “Being Norm” is a light-hearted, fun-filled, simple yet bizarre adventure of one man’s humble struggle against the universe which conspires to make his life difficult.
Created and performed by Richard Antrobus.
Mahlatsi Mokgonyana, the winner of Sibikwa Storytelling without Borders Competition 2011 for Bohlale bja Tswene and other stories and the judges included Gcina Mohlophe. It was encouraging to see so many young entrants and the winner is only 18. “This bodes well for the future of storytelling in South Africa,” said Phyllis Klotz, the artistic director of the Sibikwa Arts Centre, which hosted the event.
Bohlale bja Tswene and other stories is a set of African folktales put together giving children and young people half an hour of exciting, energetic and funny African storytelling experience. The stories include life lessons and also help us understands why are things the way they are in this world that we live in. All the stories are told through the use of old age African songs, puppets, and visual arts.
Written by Clinton Marius and directed by Mpume Mthombeni, this is a heartwarming story about a young Zulu herdboy who learns that the little calf he loves is to become a gift for the king. It is about Nguni cattle and their role in African society, growing up, honesty, and doing the right thing.
The production is available in English or isiZulu, as a puppet show, and also as a stand-alone reading.
Hailed as “Wonder-flea entertaining” (The Daily News) and “BIG fun from tiny stars” (The Mercury), The Fantastical Flea Circus is written by Clinton Marius, the creator of the popular radio soapie, Lollipop Lane.
A fun-filled frolic, The Fantastical Flea Circus (Durban Theatre Awards 2011 Best Children’s Production, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress) stars award-winning actors Shika Budhoo and Dhaveshan Govender who appear as the widely-respected Fleaoligist, Dr Dhaveshan, and his companion, the world-renowned singing sensation, the Duchess de Budhoo.
The production’s Small Top antics continue to delight children, from those just out of nappies to those with zimmer frame, as the Duchess and the Doctor put their troupe of performers – Flearoy, Fleanne, Fleadini, Justin Fleaber and Bruce Flea – through their paces.
Come join in the magic and mayhem of this jolly show.
A barman, trapped by the codes of the bar that render him invisible; a flamboyantly macho cowboy, with a flair for the Argentine Tango; and a guarded woman, whose sensuous alter ego is released as she nurses her wine as if it were mother’s milk; all hover at the edge of existence, ever short of bridging the gaps between them. The one minute they’re keeping time to the music, the next they’ve slipped out of the real time of their unfulfilled lives and into the vacuous space of the bar. They flirt, fight, drink and forget, fuelled by the answers they find at the bottom of the glass.
Greig Coetzee directs the latest exciting offering by physical theatre performer Craig Morris.
The story of Gecko, a boy who has an oblique, out-of-sync way of seeing the world, of his childhood among the green hills of Natal and of his jagged school days in the Cape, where the Simonsberg drinks the Blood Orange sun at dusk. James Dean and Wilbur Smith have two-bit parts in this drama that begins with man landing on the moon and ends with Mandela riding a mermaid to freedom. A zany “Catcher in the Rye“! Festival favourite Greig Coetzee is well known to Natal audiences, and has performed extensively here over the last decade. He has recently decided to devote more time to his first love, writing, and less to performance.
Craig Morris was schooled at Port Shepstone High before studying at Rhodes University under Andrew Buckland and Prof. Gary Gordon as a founder member of The First Physical theatre Company. Festinos will remember Craig from Attachments 1-6, and Hero (directed by Andrew) which performed at Hilton last year.
Troy Blacklaws is the author of the original novel Blood Orange. He was born in Pinetown, studied at Rhodes and now teaches and writes in Germany! He recently flew out from Germany to attend the premiere performances of Blood Orange in Grahamstown!
Three very distinctive creative voices have come together to create, in collaboration, what is fast becoming a contemporary Physical Theatre classic!
This performance deals with global warming as a cause of climate change. The presentation is interactive, entertaining, fun-filled and suitable for children, teenagers and adults. It integrates creative dance, song and dramatisation, which seeks to “edutain” and makes information about global warming accessible and easy to understand. Research has shown that using innovative teaching tools, means that learners are more likely to remember and internalise the subject matter.
The presentation explores the causes, effects and solutions or ways of minimising global warming, in order to save our tomorrow. It will educate people about the role they can play in saving our planet. The presentation also shows how each person can help through changing everyday habits which contribute to Global Warming.
The presentation is a clarion call to every individual to save tomorrow.
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.