Theresa Smith
OUT THE Box will present five puppetry productions and workshops at the first ever Cape Town Fringe Festival from the end of this week.
The CT Fringe Festival takes place around the city from September 25 to October 5, and several productions incorporate puppetry or maskwork, but there are five productions which are curated by Janni Younge and Aja Marneweck, who originally organised Out the Box. In addition to the three children and two adult productions, there will be two Puppetry Workshops and the Giant Puppets will pop up on the V&A Waterfront on Wednesday.
Writer/actor/puppet theatre practitioner Jason Potgieter will present Hidden Life, an investigation into the kinetic potential of neutral materials as a means of exploring the fundamental principles of puppetry on October 4 and 5. Rodger Titley will present Blink, a workshop on eye making for puppets, also on October 4 and 5. There are only 15 spaces available for each workshop, so contact the UNIMA office on 021 801 1909 to book your space.
If you are more interested in watching the puppets, catch Qhawe, which is aimed at the whole family, while Bokele and the Sun and Jabulani and the Book are more child-oriented.
Adult audiences will be intrigued by Elnora & Nirvana, performed by Nieke Lombard and award-winning performance artist Mamela Nyamza (pictured) is incorporating puppetry into her work for the first time. She first presented Wena Mamela in Berlin as part of a residency programme, and Capetonians will be able to catch a glimpse of this evolving work at this year’s CT Fringe Festival.
Mamela is using a life-sized puppet which she dons and has been working with Janni Young on the concept.
“I was thinking, how do I talk about my experience as a woman born under the apartheid system, and educated under it. So, with all of this ... I felt like I was a puppet, being under, behind, and never getting the big roles. It goes to my grandparents as well, especially my grandmother and my mother who grew up under this system,” said Mamela from the United States of America.
She is presenting workshops and networking to foster South Africa’s relationships with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts as well as The African Contemporary Arts Consortium and other programmers in the US. This work in progress will premiere as a full production in the Africtions as Pioneers Festival in Berlin and Denmark later this year.
The Assitej Family and Schools Platform will showcase theatre for young people at the CT Fringe Festival. They have curated 11 productions which have been carefully designed to stimulate cognitive development, independent thought and social transformation throug the joy of experiencing live theatre.
Joanna Evans’ Patchwork, which features live music from Pedro the Music Man, is aimed at children aged one to four, while her evocative coming-of-age story The Year of the Bicycle is aimed at teenagers, though adults will find much to recommend the Silver Ovation Award winning production.
Narrative Dreams, written by Lereko Mfono, and Foursight, by Kate Liquorish, invite teenagers to identify with the main characters. They deal with loneliness in the context of single-parents families (Narrative Dreams) and the damaging effect of bullying, ineffectual role models, the influence of the media and the irrational violence this combination can provoke (Foursight).
Nkosinathi Gaar uses a variety of theatrical techniques in Macbeth (and he also performs in the spoken-word show HOTT which is about the ups and downs of love won and lost).
Physical theatre stalwart Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi looks at the relationships between man and environment in Memory while Jon Keevy’s Get Kraken is a fast-paced adventure story told by four actors through the medium of comic-book story telling.
With Being Norm, Richard Antrobus uses elements of classical mime and clowning to create a bizarre and comedic take on what it means to be human.
Both Daniel Buckland’s Lake and Jungle Theatre’s !Kai – A Little Death make use of shadow puppetry, masks and live acting.
Assitej South Africa is working closely with the arts community to develop local theatre-makers in the field of theatre for young audiences ahead of the 2017 Assitej World Congress and Performing Arts Festival which will be held in South Africa in 2017 – for the first time on African soil since its inception in 1966. The Assitej productions appearing at the Cape Town Fringe Festival are part of their Assitej Congress Incubation and a glimpse into the magic that can be expected on our stages in 2017.
Check www.capetownfringe.co.za for the full programme and scheduling details.