Kaza Kamba

Kaza Kamba Pan African Theatre Festival Returns to The Market for its 2nd iteration

The Market Theatre and mehlo-maya (eye-to-the-sun) have once again partnered for the four-day festival of theatre, music, workshops, film screenings and talks, curated by Bobby Rodwell and Lesego Rampolokeng. This dynamic new festival, which takes place from 06 – 09 November 2025, brings together the arts and the political discourse.

The festival features seven Southern African countries, making it a very critical cross-border initiative aimed at strengthening ties between countries. Again, it gives audiences an opportunity to immerse themselves in the stories of our sub-region.

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Journey of Discovery Concert                                                    

Journey of Discovery Concert

SOUTH AFRICAN AND HONG KONG ARTISTS SET TO SHINE ON THE MARKET THEATRE STAGE IN “JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY” CONCERT

The National Arts Council of South Africa (NAC), in collaboration with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), is excited to present the second instalment of Journey of Discovery, a much-anticipated concert taking place at the renowned Market Theatre in Johannesburg on 24 and 25 October 2025.

This groundbreaking cultural exchange was launched following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the NAC and HKADC on 2 February 2024. It gained momentum at the inaugural Hong Kong Performing Arts Expo (HKPAX) held from 14–18 October 2024, where South African and Hong Kong- based musicians captivated audiences with a unique co-created musical showcase.

As part of this ongoing initiative to promote indigenous music and celebrate cultural identities, the five South African musicians who performed at HKPAX alongside their Hong Kong counterparts will once again share the stage, this time on South African soil.

Creative and Production Team

Music Director: Ng Cheuk-yin
Musicians (South Africa): Ayanda Jiya, Mbuzeni Duncan Mkhize, Natalie Rungan, Sky Dladla, Thandeka Mfinyongo
Musicians (Hong Kong): Ngaiman, Jing Wong, Ma Wai Him

Producer: Kenny Chen

Together with their Hong Kong collaborators, these award-winning musicians will present an innovative, cross-cultural performance that bridges continents through music.

“Journey of Discovery is more than just a concert; it is a celebration of shared humanity, musical dialogue, and creative expression that transcends borders. Through this collaboration, the NAC continues to foster global visibility for South African talent while honouring the importance of cultural diplomacy and creative exchange,” says Mr Lebogang Mogoera, Interim Chief Executive Officer of the NAC.

Ms Pheon Tsang, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, a statutory body established by the government to promote the development of the arts in Hong Kong also shared her enthusiasm:

“I am delighted to witness the fulfilment of this strategic partnership with the South African National Arts Council under the helm of Hong Kong Performing Arts Expo. It marks a meaningful step forward in deepening cultural exchange and mutual understanding through the arts. As we enter the second year of the Journey of Discovery concert series, I am confident it will be even more impactful as we proudly extend our artistic footprint onto the African continent.”

Hosting the concert will be the prestigious Market Theatre Foundation. Ms Tshiamo Mokgadi CEO of Market Theatre Foundation remarked:

“We are honoured to host an event of such calibre at the Market Theatre. This partnership reflects the power of the arts to transcend borders and connect communities. Our team is working to ensure that all preparations are in place to welcome both local and international guests for what promises to be a wonderful musical experience, shared across borders.”

ENDS

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The TX Theatre Hub

The TX Theatre Hub

The TX Theatre Hub x The Market Theatre Collaboration Presents the Soul of Community Storytelling

The Market Theatre has teamed up with The TX Theatre Hub in a groundbreaking collaboration intended to dismantle barriers between mainstream platforms and fringe creations, while amplifying community storytelling. As a result of this partnership, The Market Theatre is a proud host of The TX Theatre Hub @ The Market, a festival of five works running from 24 – 28 September 2025. The festival boldly aims to present new and existing works by emerging and established voices, nurture talent and connect traditional narratives with contemporary expressions for the viewing pleasure of audiences.

For five days, the festival promises five compelling productions, comprising of comedy, drama, and puppetry. The works include Masai Sepuru’s ‘Dark Magic’ and Moruti Abednigo Dlamini’s ‘Stevovo the Puppeteer’,  ‘Madi Phatleng’ by Solly Ramatswi, ‘Chasing Laughter’ by Isaac Sithole, as well as ‘Behind Van Vuuren’s Farm’ by Mxolisi Masilela.

Mxolisi Masilela, Founder of The TX Theatre Hub described the collaboration between The Market Theatre and the Tembisa-based theatre hub as both “timely and necessary”, elaborating: “It bridges the divide between mainstream and fringe productions, brings fresh energy to the sector, ensuring that stories born in the township reach wider audiences, while affirming their place in the national cultural conversation.”

Dark Magic:

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Stevovo the Puppeteer :

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Madi Phatleng:

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Chasing Laughter:

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Behind van Vuuren’s Farm:

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Masilela added that both theatres stood to benefit from this historic partnership. “The TX Theatre represents the next wave of theatre-making: daring, raw, and rooted in community. It has become a platform for young, independent artists to develop work that speaks to today’s realities, often with limited resources but unlimited creativity. This collaboration matters because each theatre needs the other. Together, they create a powerful pipeline that ensures artistic excellence is not confined by geography or resources.”

In addition to exposing audiences to authentic township stories that rarely enjoy the spotlight, the collaboration between The TX Theatre Hub @ The Market Theatre collaboration is also about sustainability and inclusivity in an increasingly vulnerable arts sector facing shrinking funding  and strong competition from alternative mediums. As they join hands, the two organisations will attempt to reimagine the relationship between mainstream and community-based theatre, and explore future fruitful partnerships.

Complementing the festival’s best-five performances are two interactive talks designed to deepen audience engagement. For the first talk, Mxolisi Masilela will join The Market Theatre Foundation’s Artistic Director, Greg Homann, in discussing the intersection of theatre, history and activism. The second talk will be a reflection session on the dominant themes emerging out of the festival, giving audiences intimate access to the stories. All talks are free of charge.

Greg Homann highlighted the investment made by The Market Theatre Foundation in empowering community-based creatives, a legacy of nearly 50 years.

“The Market Theatre Foundation regards fringe theatre as the future of storytelling. We have chosen to collaborate with The TX Theatre Hub who are doing immensely important work in amplifying the often unheard voices in our communities. This partnership is a continuation of the longstanding investment we have made in developing the next layer of South African theatre, creating new entry level opportunities, empowering young theatre-makers with meaningful creative roles and introducing fresh voices to our loyal audiences. We have done this in the past through initiatives such as the decades-old Zwakala community theatre festival and our recent introduction of Kippies Fringe, which allow us to maintain our legacy as a crucible for fearlessly honest performances,” Homann said.

As The TX Theatre Hub @ The Market  approaches, township stories that are often staged first in small community venues will now stand on the same platform that has propelled many of South Africa’s greatest stage plays. This visibility will go a long way in demonstrating that township-born creativity is central and not tangential to the country’s artistic future, sustainability and relatability.

The TX Theatre Festival is also supported by the National Arts Council (NAC) and the Gauteng Department of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation.

Don’t miss the heart and soul of township storytelling, from 24 – 28 September 2025 at The Market Theatre. Tickets are available on Webtickets for R140 per show, with weekend day passes priced at R200. Buy one get one free special for the first 21 tickets per show applies.

Affordable, safe and secure underground parking is available at the Newtown Junction.

ENDS.

The Market Theatre is a Division of The Market Theatre Foundation, an agency of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.

 For reduced price block bookings (of 10 or more) and school groups, contact Anthony Ezeoke (Audience Development) at AnthonyE@markettheatre.co.za or 083 246 4950.

For media enquiries, contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at the Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.

 

INTSUSA Examines the Impact of SA’s Mining History on Women

INTSUSA Examines the Impact of SA’s Mining History on Women

Aviwe Dasha in Partnership with The Art Cave and The Market Theatre Kippies Fringe present INTSUSA, a bold storytelling production written and performed by Aviwe Dasha.

Running from 4 – 7 September 2025, INTSUSA is a powerful storytelling drama directed by Sinenhlanhla Mgeyi and Tshepo Matlala. The show offers a deeply personal yet universal exploration of memory, womanhood and the generational impact of South Africa’s mining history.

Through intimate storytelling, song and physical theatre,  INTSUSA journeys into how the lives of forefathers who worked in the mines left lasting scars that continue to shape generations of men today. At the same time, it shines a light on the resilience, pain and healing carried by women across time. The production is a searing confrontation of the past and a moving act of hope—an invitation to imagine healing in the present.

First performed at the HerStory Festival (Soweto Theatre, 2022) and later at the Yes Let’s Experimental Festival (2023), INTSUSA has evolved into a landmark work of South African storytelling. It blends theatrical poetry with spiritual elements, asking urgent questions about trauma, memory and community renewal.

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Aviwe Dasha is a graduate of The Market Theatre Laboratory’s prestigious full-time performance programme, where she refined her craft in theatre and the performing arts. During her training, she collaborated with celebrated theatre practitioners such as Mongiwekhaya (SkullKandy) and Nondumiso Msimanga (Theatre Think Tank), gaining invaluable experience in diverse creative processes.

A dynamic and versatile performer, Aviwe’s talents span both acting and movement. Her passion lies in pushing the boundaries of storytelling and creating bold, innovative work through international collaborations.

Most recently, from January to March 2025, she directed Threads as part of the National Children’s Theatre’s Young Director’s Festival, further establishing her as an artist with both performance and directorial vision.

ENDS.

Kippies Fringe is an initiative of The Market Theatre, curated by Art Cave.

The Market Theatre is a Division of The Market Theatre Foundation, an agency of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.

For media enquiries, please contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at The Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.

IsiWula                                                     

IsiWula

Following its powerful debut as a 12-minute isiZulu piece at the 12/12 Live Festival by POPArt, isiWula returns as a full-length theatrical experience that confronts love, betrayal, and survival in rural KwaZulu Natal. Written by Samukelisiwe Khuzwayo and directed by the award winning Aalliyah Zama Matintela, this intimate two hander stars Mncedisi Hadebe and Nolwazi Qwabe in a searing exploration of fractured dreams and buried truths.

Set in a modest village home lit by oil lamps and shadowed by unspoken truths, the play unfolds over a single night. A married couple, once tethered by love, now navigate the fragile terrain between truth and illusion. As the hours stretch, so do the fault lines,  loyalty is tested, betrayal lingers in the air like smoke, and the lies they’ve lived with begin to unravel.

isiWula does not shout its themes, it whispers them, drawing the audience into a world where the most intimate wounds are inflicted not by violence, but by absence. It’s a meditation on what remains unsaid, and what it costs to finally speak.

Show Dates

Performances will take place at the Market Theatre’s Kippies Fringe on the following dates and times:

25 September at 19:30

26 September at 19:30

27 September at 15:30 and 19:30

28 September at 15:30

Audiences can expect a raw, poetic exploration of fractured intimacy, set against the backdrop of a dimly lit village home. With its blend of physical theatre, satire, and protest driven storytelling, isiWula offers a gripping reflection on gender politics, abandonment, and the fragile hope of reconciliation.

 Creative Team

  • Writer: Samukelisiwe Khuzwayo – A rising voice in South African theatre, blending script development experience savvy with raw emotional storytelling
  • Director: Aalliyah Zama Matintela – Known for her protest driven, satirical style and award winning productions like Currently (G)Old! and Marose
  • Performers: Mncedisi Hadebe – A dynamic actor/director with credits across Brazil, Germany, and South Africa, including Naledi nominated works and Nolwazi Qwabe – A versatile performer and voice artist, celebrated for her work in Mehlala and iNtombi’nto.

Why isiWula Matters

“isiWula is not just a story it’s a mirror. It reflects the quiet violence of abandonment, the resilience of women, and the fragile hope that love might still survive the wreckage,” says director Aalliyah Zama Matintela.

With its poetic dialogue, haunting silences, and moments of unexpected tenderness, isiWula invites audiences to sit in the discomfort and beauty of what it means to truly come home.

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FATHERHOOD

Fatherhood

31st Zwakala Festival Winner Gears Up for a Debut at The Market Theatre

The Market Theatre is pleased  to present ‘Fatherhood’, a production that won the 31st iteration of one of the most significant and longest running community theatre festivals, the Zwakala Festival. Originally created through The Alex Theatre Company and Academy, the play will have a run from 9 – 19 October 2025 in the Barney Simon Theatre, a performance space named after the visionary behind Zwakala.

‘Fatherhood’ features a young cast that poignantly bares the crisis of absent fathers for our collective reckoning. It is written by Mike Dzova and directed by Archie Oupa Matsetela, under the mentorship of award-winning playwright and director, Ntshieng Mokgoro. The script presents a fresh take at this complex societal issue, calling for a moment of reflection on the kind of world we’re creating for younger generations. Gearing up for its run as a developed production at The Market Theatre under Mokgoro’s mentorship, it promises to captivate audiences with its dynamic blend of acapella with saxophone, slick movement and text.

Matsetela describes ‘Fatherhood’ as a work that is as much urgent as it is edgy, innovative in how it confronts the emotional impact of fatherlessness and intergenerational conflict on families. 

He continues, “The play follows the struggles of four boys, most of whom raised by single mothers, who try to comprehend the void left by their absent fathers—and the fathers they thought they had. The text comes from a place of childhood innocence, and is therefore carried out with brutal honesty, humour and emotiveness. As the friends reflect on growing up in broken homes, they hold a mirror for audiences to witness the emotional turmoil caused by fatherlessness.”

While the piece depicts the ills of absent fatherhood, it equally shines the spotlight on mothers who have had to stand in the gap for runaway fathers. In exposing the emptiness children without present fathers often contend with, it further highlights the resilience it takes to run single-parent households. According to the 2024 State of South African Fathers report, only 35.6% of South African children live with their biological fathers, while 24% stay in households without any man. The impact of absent fathers on children, especially boys, is widely documented.

The Market Theatre’s artistic focus over the next few months centres, in part, on issues relating to fathers. ‘Fatherhood’ will sit alongside the beautifully crafted Naledi-nominated dance-theatre piece, ‘Father & I’, as well as ‘Gabo Legwala’: an autobiographical piece by Modise Sekgothe that blends poetry, music and storytelling to highlight the scourge of fatherlessness.

Greg Homann, Artistic Director at The Market Theatre Foundation, praised ‘Fatherhood’ for its boldness in tackling this important and deeply triggering subject for many people. Homann added that through programmes such as Zwakala Festival, The Market Theatre Foundation lives up to its brand story of guiding artistic talent from cradle to great. “It’s our mission as an organisation to break down barriers to entry for community theatre makers, shaping the next generation of South African storytellers. We aim to go beyond unearthing authentic stories from communities, and commit to also develop and introduce them to our mainstream stage.”

Don’t miss ‘Fatherhood’ at The Market Theatre from 9 – 19 October 2025. Get your tickets today on Webtickets, and become part of scripting the future of live entertainment. Full price tickets are R150, with special discounts for the preview performance and Wednesdays at half-price.

Affordable, safe and secure underground parking is available at the Newtown Junction.

                                                                                                                                              ENDS.

The Market Theatre is a Division of The Market Theatre Foundation, an agency of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.

 For reduced price block bookings (of 10 or more) and school groups, contact Anthony Ezeoke (Audience Development) at AnthonyE@markettheatre.co.za or 083 246 4950.

For media enquiries, please contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at the Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.

 

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A Great Day in Newtown: Historic Photoshoot for Kippie Moeketsi’s 100

A Great Day in Newtown: Historic Photoshoot for Kippie Moeketsi's 100

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but on Saturday, 20 September 2025, in the historic Market Theatre Precinct in Newtown, a picture will frame more than a thousand notes. Around a hundred of South Africa’s jazz players, veterans and youngsters, will gather for a photoshoot and jam session in memorial tribute to pioneering modern jazzman, Kippie “Morolong” Moeketsi.

The saxophonist was born in George Goch, Johannesburg 100 years ago, on 27 July 1925. He passed away on 27 April 1983. His career stretched from early kwela music, through historic bands like the Harlem Swingsters, participation in South Africa’s first LP by Black musicians, Jazz Epistles Verse One, the King Kong musical, work with Abdullah Ibrahim and, in total, more than 50 recordings. Kippie is hailed by generations of South African players as helping to shape the country’s modern jazz sound, and as a mentor and teacher.

Now, to honour this legacy in the year of Kippie’s centenary, internationally acclaimed, award-winning photographer, Siphiwe Mhlambi, is convening a gathering of players at the Market Precinct, around Kippie’s statue, for a historic photoshoot and jam session. Music director will be saxophonist and composer, Khaya Mahlangu. The team for the event also includes broadcaster Nothemba Madumo who hosts a jazz show on Radio702 and CapeTalk and whose company 4everJazz has been creating content and events that promote jazz music, culture and preserving its legacy.

The Market Theatre Foundation, which is the custodian of the building that once housed the famous Kippies Jazz Club in Newtown, has been generous to partner with the team to celebrate Kippie Moeketsi’s centenary and make the event possible.

Mhlambi says, “In 1958, American photographer Art Kane assembled more than 50 jazz musicians in Harlem for an iconic image, usually called ‘A Great Day in Harlem’, that captured the American jazz community of that era: everybody from Dizzy Gillespie to Thelonius Monk. I hope our photoshoot for Kippie won’t only be a fitting tribute to a towering musical presence, but will create a similarly iconic image of our jazz landscape today—the seasoned veterans and the youngsters, men and women, who are shaping the unique sounds of today’s South African jazz.”

To preserve the legacy of Kippie Moeketsi and the significance of the iconic photograph, the team intends to produce merchandise for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Johnny Mekoa School of Music for the benefit of music students with instruments and tutors.

The photoshoot will take place from midday until mid-afternoon, followed by a jam session at The Market Theatre from 3pm until 5pm, focusing on Kippie’s compositions and repertoire.  Come and enjoy the free jam session; register for your free ticket at Webtickets.

WHEN: Saturday, 20 September 2025

WHERE: Market Theatre Precinct, Newtown, Johannesburg

TIME: Jam Session starts at 3pm

MEDIA ENQUIRIES:

Helga Klizanie

helga@khanyapr.co.za

0844003003

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iPhupho L’ka Biko Presents (Vuleka Mbobo, Mbobo Vuleka!)                                                      

iPhupho L’ka Biko Presents

Vuleka Mbombo, Mbombo Vuleka! [est 2015]

A Sonic Remembrance of the Fallist Movement – 10 Years On

iPhupho L’ka Biko presents ‘Vuleka Mbobo, Mbobo Vuleka! [est 2015]’, a one night only sonic remembrance of the Fallist Movement 10 years on. The show will take place on 27 September 2025 at The Market Theatre, starting from 7pm. The offering adds an interdisciplinary flair to The Market Theatre’s curatorial commemoration of the #FeesMustFall Movement, which started with theatre productions, ‘The Fall’ and ‘The Good White’. iPhupho L’ka Biko, itself a musical offspring of the historic student revolt, returns to mark a decade of its establishment, while honouring the bold bodies that stood between state violence and the dream inherited from Biko.

  1. A generation of young people rise across the country. The streets ignite with voices demanding what many deemed as the‘impossible’: a decolonised, decommodified, and truly liberatory education. But this call did not begin in 2015. For years before, students in historically Black universities had resisted financial exclusions, sounding alarms against a system designed to keep them out. Their protests laid the groundwork for the eruption to come.

 

When #FeesMustFall and #OutsourcingMustFall broke open, they did so in the searing light of #RhodesMustFall, an earlier uprising that tore down colonial statues and demanded a deeper reckoning with knowledge, power, and history. Together, these movements shook the foundations of South African universities and forced the nation to confront its unfinished struggle with freedom. Mental breakdowns. Criminal records. Permanent university expulsions. Lives lost.

Yet the story is layered. These uprisings, as fierce and necessary as they were, carried their own exclusions. They centred those who had gained access to higher learning, while leaving behind the vast majority of South Africa’s youth locked out of university gates. Their struggles, shaped by class, gender, sexuality, different abilities and geography, remained outside the corridors of academia. The Fallist moment, for all its radical clarity, bore within it the valid critiques of a revolution still wrestling with intersectionality and inclusivity.

Among those students were members of iPhupho L’ka Biko, then 6-piece band, and now 12-piece ensemble founded in the same year by the visionary Nhlanhla Ngqaqu. Immersed in the protests, the band carried the spirit of the struggle into their music, creating a sonic archive of memory, resistance, and hope.

  1. Ten years later. We return.

Not just a musical. Not just a show.
A gathering. A remembrance. A call.
An offering to the spirits of those who rose, who fought, who dreamed.
A reckoning with what was, what is, and what still must become.

“This work is a chant to the unfinished project of liberation,” says Ngqaqu, adding, “We gather to remember, to (re)think, to (re)imagine, to reflect, to love, to heal and to resist.”

A Rite of Memory in Many Tongues

This is not sound alone, it is a weaving of “disciplines”, a liturgy of art.

  • On stage, voices embodied: Actors, Abongile Maurice Matyutyu, Sinenhlanhla Mgeyi, Nandi Zulu, Sibusiso Mkhize and Pulane Mafatshe move between silence and cry, laughter and defiance, summoning the contradictions of youth in a world half-transformed.
  • Light as language: On lighting, Hlomohang ‘Spider’ Mothetho bends shadow and blaze into testimony, carrying memory in the flicker of lamps.
  • The prop as a signifier: Set designer Lindani Nxumalo sculpts the ground we walk, the space where spirits and the living embrace.
  • The stage and cloth as memory: Sinenhlanhla Zwane and Happy Gladness Simelane clothe bodies in the unfinished struggle, garments that whisper lineage and longing.
  • Word as blade, as balm: Poets Makhafula Vilakazi & Thapelo Tharaga, cutting through the air, chanting prophecy, spilling meditation, stoking remembrance.
  • The Black Body in motion: Moeketsi Kgotle bends, breaks, and remakes space through movement, channeling rhythm into remembrance, and silence into resistance.
  • Image as witness: Tshepo Bopape, Khotso Motsoeneng and Levy Pooe stitch ghosts into living canvases, mapping struggle and painting memory as future.
  • Sound reimagined: Simangaliso Dlamini (Livebug), recreates an ambience of revolution, defiance and joyful militancy, through engineering the ensemble’s sound.
  • Artwork: Slovo Mamphaga

And at the heart and driving the narrative, iPhupho L’ka Biko, a twelve-piece strong sound becomes archive, horn and drum become resistance, a remembrance that refuses forgetting, a sonic uprising toward the complete liberation of Africa.

Vuleka Mbobo, Mbobo Vuleka! directed by Nhlanhla Ngqaqu is a chant, a convocation, a dream retold. It is how we return. It is how we continue to identify and strive for the opening of iimbobo.

Event Details

Date: 27 September 2025
Time: 7:00PM
Venue: The Market Theatre, Johannesburg

Entrance: R200 early bird | R275 general

Tickets: ONE NIGHT ONLY. Seats are limited. Secure yours here: Webtickets

More on iPhupho L’ka Biko: https://linktr.ee/iphupholkabiko

 

Enquiries:
Nhlanhla Ngqaqu
iphupholkabiko@gmail.com

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Vuleka Mbobo, Mbobo Vuleka! (iPhupho L’ka Biko Presents ) 

Bold and Provocative Work Spotlights Queer Love

Unheard and often suppressed Queer voices are set for their moment of truth, as Vuyelwa Maluleke presents her bold, visceral poem-in-chorus – ‘The Blue Album’ – at The Market Theatre Kippies Fringe. Written and performed by Vuyelwa Maluleke, the show will run at Kippies for a total of five performances, from 21 – 24 August 2025.

 ‘The Blue Album’ fuses poetry, monologue, movement and choral voice to stage an intimate portrait of Queer life and love in the township of Makaleng. It traces the homecoming of Khumo, a young Lesbian woman, as she confronts the afterlife of a traumatic incident and the piercing silence of her community.

Maluleke navigates the complex terrain of public erasures and private reckonings, offering a story that is as lyrically tender as it is politically defiant, disrupting societal norms of love and who deserves it. The work further reimagines the meaning of love, reclaiming it from the often commercialised romance and relocating it in community.

 

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As this new piece dares to centre Black Queer love and survival in spaces where it is often unwelcome, it arrives at the key question: What is left behind when home becomes the mouth of a man? With profound urgency and agency, the piece navigates  the borders of love and danger, memory and survival. Weaving intimate monologues with the public silences of township life, Maluleke exposes with aching precision the slow violence’s Black Queer Women endure.

“This piece is an attempt to make visible the revolutionary remedies of Black Queer love. I wanted to write something that would not only testify to Khumo’s survival, but sing of its sweetness and cast back the light of all of us. This is a ritual. A return. A resistance,” explains Maluleke.

Maluleke is an actor, lecturer and writer with an MA in Creative Writing (with distinction) from Rhodes University, and a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Witwatersrand. A runner-up for the 5th Gerald Kraak Prize, Maluleke was also shortlisted for the Kelsey Street Press QTBIPOC Prize for the manuscript ‘Falling Toward the Centre’ (2021) as well as The Sillerman First Book Prize for ‘The Blue Album’ manuscript (2021).

Again, she was a semi-finalist in the Boston Annual Poetry Contest (2020), and has worked with directors such as Sylvaine Strike, James Ngcobo and Jo Bonney. Her most notable performances are from the television production of ‘Shreds and Dreams 2’ and national touring theatre productions of ‘Tartuffe’ and ‘Emotional Creature: it’s a girl thing’.

ENDS.

Kippies Fringe is an initiative of The Market Theatre, curated by Art Cave.

The Market Theatre is a Division of The Market Theatre Foundation, an agency of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.

For media enquiries, please contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at The Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.

For reduced price block bookings of 10 or more and school groups, contact Anthony Ezeoke (Audience Development Specialist at The Market Theatre Foundation) at anthonye@markettheatre.co.za or 083 246 4950.

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Theatre Think Tank

Theatre Think Tank

Speaking on the upcoming Theatre Think Tank, curator Mathabo Tlali says: “If art is a mirror, this conversation turns it toward the audience and asks: What do you see—and what do you wish we’d notice? This is an invitation to those who mould women through their craft to sit, assess and reflect on the sociological and psychological implications of our creative work.”

Mathabo is the founder of Zazi Creative, a production and creative strategy studio. Her work sits at the intersection of performance, audience, corporate and civil society, where she uses storytelling to advocate for a connected and thriving African creative industry. Whether through her travelling podcast You Need Art & Art Needs You, her stage performances, or creative campaigns, she brings people and purpose together through art.

According to Cherae Halley, Head of The Market Theatre Laboratory, the upcoming Theatre Think Tank promises to be a bold examination of whether theatre has succeeded in holding a mirror for women in ways that truly represent them. “It shifts the focus from the theatre practitioner towards the theatre consumer, specifically the female consumer. It asks: How do women see themselves reflected in theatre and popular culture? What is echoed back to them, what is celebrated, loved, erased and embraced?  And as artists, can we match our desire to reflect womanhood with a willingness to embrace the complex impact of our portrayals of it?” Halley explains.

“The Market Lab’s Theatre Think Tanks,” she continues, “serve as an invaluable exploration and reflection on the wealth of knowledge enacted, embodied and performed by practitioners in the arts, culture and heritage field. The specific aim is to gather, organise and ultimately draw on the knowledge of local communities, making this accessible to the greater community.”

If you are engaged in the arts, as a maker and consumer, or are just curious, don’t miss the Her Lens: Provocations from the Female Audience Theatre Think Tank. Join in on the discussion to commemorate Women’s Month within a cultural landscape that celebrates the power of voice and visibility, indulging in beauty, complexity, tension and truth, through Her Lens.

The event is free, but audiences must book their tickets on Webtickets as space is limited.

                                                                                                                                                         ENDS

The Market Theatre Laboratory is a Division of The Market Theatre Foundation, an agency of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.

 

For information on reservations and further enquiries, contact The Market Theatre Laboratory on 011 838 7498 or contact Thandeka Nheke on thandeka@marketlab.co.za.

 

For media enquiries, contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at The Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.

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