Complexion is about a girl who grows up in the township facing different challenges at different stages of her life. We see the world through her eyes from the time she is born, we are introduced to the various people in her life who shape and mould the complexities of her complexion.
I developed this play with an interest in telling stories about the world I know and grew up in. Not only did I want to tell a story about a young black girl who grows up in a township, I also wanted to speak back to how the township is a mechanism that informs, consumes and cripples children. Using some of my own personal narratives, observations and investigations I created a 6 minute work which I performed for my 4th year performance exam. I was encouraged to extend and develop the performance text. In the process I have been intrigued by how social systems have been normalized and how these norms have a way of shaping and affecting humans. Do we have the agency to change ourselves and/or our context? TO BE OR NOT TO BE… has been the leading theme of this play; to survive or not to survive? To be oppressed or to not be oppressed? To be …
When an 8 year old girl loses her beloved half brother to a car accident and she is forbidden from attending his burial because of family rivals; that moment changes how the rest of her life unfolds. By sixteen she struggles to relate to her peers and people placed in her path because she is trapped in the past. She begins to communicate with her late brother through letters she writes to him in her diary and through trying to “tap into death”, she writes him stories of how her life has been without him and wonders whether things would be different if he was around. We see her at her happiest when she is in a realm between life and death. The society perceives her as suicidal and a danger to herself but she does not really want to die. In the midst of fighting for her life her biggest wish is that she could somehow run away from life while her brother runs away from death and they could meet each other halfway, to sit at the edge of the world and confide in one another. Everyone has come to a point in their lives where they have questioned whether they would be better off in the spirit realm or if they should fight for just one more day in the physical world – Running is about that very reality.
Growing up in rural area a young man known by his nick name “The Shoe Man” take us through a journey that may change the lives of South African youth today. He is forced to attend high school in a closest town, since he is waiting for the government to build one in his area. Passionate about completing his matric, he struggles to survive through depressions posed by children from his community and settling his fees at his multiracial school. (The play is dedicated to the late Andile “King, Jesus” Mdletshe)
Hans is baie ongelukkig, want sy broers het elkeen ‘n groot erfporsie by hul pa gekry, en hy het vir Kiets gekry. ‘n Kat. Wat doen mens met ‘n kat? Of eerder, wat kan ‘n kat vir jou beteken as jy honger en werkloos is? Maar Kiets laat hom nie onderkry deur Hans se negatiwiteit nie, Hy maak ‘n plan, of drie!
Emperor Loxly’s court is in turmoil, because his designer quit the day before his birthday, and left His Highness without a new show-stopper outfit. That is, however not the only problem. The much bigger issue is Wonty, the unenthusiastic court jester, who stole the emperor’s prized watch, and is planning to take over the kingdom. The emperor’s loyal servant, Wilma, tries to maintain the status quo: keeping Loxly happy and Wonty quiet, but then Wonty is banned, Loxly almost loses his mind, and a stranger makes his appearance. Can the smooth talking, never-heard-of designer called Wontier, save the day?
In the workshop, learners evaluate all the characters in the play, and decide who displayed good leadership skills. They also apply it to their own environment and lives.
A poignant, bunraku-style puppet play for older children and adults based on the life of Sadako Sasaki. At two, Sadako survived the Hiroshima atom bomb but ten years later developed leukemia. A Japanese legend tells: ‘if you fold 1000 origami cranes, your wish will be granted’; Sadako began folding paper.
We leave our children a complicated legacy, growing up in a world where they face the consequences of adults’ actions: war; nuclear power; global warming; HIV. Sadako’s experience transcends culture and period and is able to speak to a contemporary South African or French youth audience. Young people who have shifted from picture books to art galleries; from nursery-rhymes to pop music. They are ready for theatre that can offer them cathartic and transformative experiences; challenge them with profoundly moving and thought provoking ideas. Sadako is real theatre for young people.
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.
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.
An adaptation of Paul Gallico’s classic novella The Snow Goose. Tells the story of storm tossed snow goose who brings together a young girl, Frith, and a reclusive hunchback outcast, Rhayader, together. Set against the second world war and the miracle of Dunkirk. The Snow Goose is a story about bravery and friendship.
Produced by KBT Productions, directed and designed by Jenine Collocott (Sunday Morning, Dirt, A Day in the Desert, High Diving), performed by James Cairns (Dirt, Three Little Pigs) and Taryn Bennett (Kaput!), adapted by the director and the cast.
A Girl Called Owl charts a friendship that starts in the heat of the Overberg summer between two ten-year-old girls, finding them again six years later. Olivia arrives in the town with her Dad; she is the new girl, the quiet girl, the weird girl. Then she meets Kay, the girl with the scar. Horwitz performs over ten characters, from the two young girls and their teenage counterparts to both their fathers and a group of boisterous men. Owl is a story about climbing trees, punching boys and kissing girls, touching sensitively, and not without humour, on issues including: coming of age – identity and choice; teen sexuality; homosexuality; domestic abuse; being/feeling different; friendship; love; violence – physical/implicit; changing relationships with authority figures/parents/teachers. The lead character is a girl so the play may be classed under ‘women’s issues’. However, the way in which she relates to the men in her environment, and they to her, makes this play important for men as well.
Written and directed by Jon Keevy, performed by Briony Horwitz, with staging by Fiona du Plooy and music composed for the show by Brydon Bolton, A Girl Called Owl premiered as Owl in 2012, receiving praise such as ‘Horwitz delivers an enchanting performance. Her versatility as an actress is astonishing…moving and evocative.” (Cape Times); “… beautifully observed…totally delicious …” (Megan’s Head) and four stars from the Cape Argus. Since then it has travelled all over SA and at the 2012 National Arts Festival it was invited to the Brighton and Prague Fringe festivals. At Brighton it gathered more praise, including two 5-star reviews and a nomination by Latest magazine as Best International Performance.