Celebrating the new graduates and enhancing the postgraduate social life on campus through what organisers hope will become an annual fixture.
The postgraduate association (PGA) at Wits university have an upcoming festival on Saturday, April 13, 2024, at Sturrock Park West Campus from 14:00 till 02:00 called ‘No degree, no entry’ as a way of celebrating with newly graduates.
The Chairperson of the PGA, Okuhle Mafrika, said while Wits University’s vision for 2022/23 is postgraduate friendly and research intensive, postgraduate students do not feel that sense of inclusivity.
Mafrika claimed that Wits focuses on undergraduate students, for instance hosting a Freshers party to welcome them but nothing for postgraduate students.
The PGA has taken it upon themselves to instil a sense of belonging and celebrate postgraduate students.
‘No degree, no entry’ is a festival aimed at attracting more postgraduates to the PGA community and motivate undergraduate students.
“The No degree, no entry festival will hopefully be an annual event depending on its success,” he said.
There have been challenges such as securing sponsors and getting approval from the university since this is a new concept.
Mafrika said “there are about 12 000 postgraduates and 24 000 undergraduates” so as the PGA they had to “sell the idea to students and to funders” first. They have chosen to do this with a star studded line-up students will find difficult to resist.
The money generated is for fundraising purposes to assist postgraduate students with accommodation fees, as they hardly qualify for the hardship fund, said Mafrika. The hardship fund is mainly allocated for indebted undergraduate students.
Tickets are on sale for R150 for Wits graduates and R200 for graduates from other universities and Wits undergraduates. Performances by Master KG, Mòrda, Elaine, Langa Mavuso, Kelvin Momo, Shakes and Les, Leemkrazy and many more are to be expected.
The dean of students, Jerome September, said, “There have been initiatives that sought to cater for postgraduate students such as the postgraduate orientation programme and the book club run by the division of student affairs.” Wits is constantly reviewing these and looking at new and further ways to support and create a positive postgraduate student experience.
FEATURED IMAGE: The first of many No, degree, no entry festival. Photo: Wits PGA
The spirit of Hip-Hop was on full display at the Red Bull event, through competitive breakdancing and headlining performances from A-Reece and Priddy Ugly.
The Red Bull BC One competition, which took place on March 23, 2024 at TMF Studios in Braamfontein saw scores of people gather to give the art of breakdancing its flowers.
The competition is a Red Bull initiative, intended to shine a light on South Africa’s breakdancing culture and provide a platform for professional breakdancers (known as B-Boys/Girls) to demonstrate their creativity and talent through competition.
A B-Boy performs before judges. Photo: Kabir Jugram
This was certainly the case for Joony Roc from Johannesburg South, a passionate B-Boy, who has been working on his craft for over 10 years. Speaking to Wits Vuvuzela after performing to the sound of deafening speakers and roaring applause from a jam-packed audience, he said: “Seeing the turnout tonight and some of the faces that are here… I’m happy. It feels like the culture is being sparked again and people are starting to pay attention to breaking because breaking is one of the original elements of Hip-Hop.”
While the event gave exposure to an unsung art form, it also paid homage to an iconic one: Hip-Hop. With the likes of A-Reece and Priddy Ugly headlining the event, hundreds of young artists and hip-hop lovers were seen filling up the stands.
As A-Reece quietly emerged from the crowd to perform, cheers only grew louder the closer he got to the stage. This excitement would soon build into a hysteria of moshing bodies, strained voices and enchanted minds as the crowd was reciting A-Reece’s verses bar for bar throughout his performance.
A-Reece performing to a packed crowd. Footage: Kabir Jugram
The spirit of hip-hop had people enchanted. An up-and-coming artist named ‘OG Wanton’ summed this up neatly, “Without Hip-Hop I’d be lost. It gave me a safe space to create, write and express how I feel… Without that in life, I wouldn’t be who I am right now”. His collaborator ‘Pxzess’ added: “It (Hip-Hop) puts us (the youth) in a position of being something bigger than us as individuals. Hip Hop is a movement, not a genre.”
Rapper and headliner artist, Priddy Ugly told Wits Vuvuzela that hip-hop played a pivotal role in his life and development: “Hip-hop culture raised me. I wouldn’t be here without it. Hip-hop taught me to believe in myself, taught me confidence… it taught me my language!”
Priddy Ugly headlined the Red Bull One Event on Saturday. Photo: Kabir Jugram
In an age where Amapiano has become a global phenomenon and artists like Tyla and Black Coffee have achieved global acclaim, hip-hop has fallen by the wayside in terms of its mainstream appeal. However, it is events such as this that remind us that while the culture has been neglected in recent times, it has certainly not lost its relevance or importance.
The event united people around their common love for a genre that grew them, moulded their identities and taught them self-expression. Not only was this event an exhibition of a growing breakdance culture, but it also served as a timely reminder of the importance of hip-hop to the lives of many South African youths.
FEATURED IMAGE: A-Reece engages the crowd at the Red Bull One event. Photo: Kabir Jugram.
“You can take away Kitchener’s and you’re literally taking away Braam,” said DJ, Billy Meliodas of the bar’s closure.
Shockwaves have been sent throughout the street life culture this week, as Kitchener’s Carvery Bar announced their closure due to ‘economic circumstances’.
Kitchener’s Carvery Bar in Braamfontein. Photo: Siyanda Mthethwa.
The pub has been situated in the heart of Braamfontein since the early 1900s and more recently has been an iconic cornerstone of the creative hub of the city. The blue exterior with white pillars draws people in visually, but the music and electric energy are what lure people in and make them loyal patrons. Wits Vuvuzela student journalist, Ruby Delahunt, describes the venue as a “welcoming environment” that “allowed a lot of new DJs to test the waters and start out”.
Kitchener’s truly stands out because of its authenticity and its pursuit of keeping its unique identity. Eddie, a bartender at Kitchener’s said, “Nights where there’s just two customers here, we never said ‘Oh no, maybe we should change our music, maybe we should change business. We never compromised as so many trends came and went’”. He further went on to explain that “it’s always been a huge part of street culture in Braamfontein” and that it’s “given a platform to so many people” including creatives and musicians who were able to express themselves without shame.
Local DJ, Billy Meliodas, went into depth about the impact that Kitchener’s had on his life and Braamfontein as a whole. “The owner of Kitchener’s [Andrew Clement] took me from the street, and he looked after me. Everyone in Kitchener’s is happy…it’s not a place where you can come and find conflict”. He continued, “They’re closing the true heart of Braam…this place is a home to everybody.”
Kitchener’s is one of the last remaining authentic pubs which prioritizes community as Billy and the staffers explained, people could go to the bar on their own with a guarantee that they would walk out having made a friend or two. A final hoorah will be held this long weekend.
Thank you, Kitchener’s for being a home to many. Thank you, Kitchener’s for being a safe space and encouraging people to chase their dreams and just have fun. After March 31, 2024, it will no longer be open, but it will forever be in our minds and hearts. We hope that the energy and symbol that it represented stays with us and the future of Braamfontein.
A 20-year-old Wits medical student compiled a poetry album to share the lived experience of a black South African woman that is tired of shrinking herself to be palatable.
The Rainbow Nation is Black by Nonhlanhla Siwela is a poetry anthology which has also been released as a 19-track deluxe album which interrogates identity, race and gender.
The deluxe version was released on September 1, 2023 after the initial release of the 12-track album on September 25, 2021. The deluxe album is an extended version of the first and includes more poems while exploring three themes from the original book.
The first theme – white – includes the poems Our Boys and Cry, Black men, Cry which encourages black men to express themselves in a way that is not guided by patriarchy and social expectations. Siwela articulates this well in Our Boys, “When will somebody tell the elders that our boys are underage, that our boys are exactly that, just boys,” she writes.
A black woman’s trauma in a gender-based violence (GBV)-ridden South Africa was a topic explored in the second theme – grey. Using poems like: Bring Back Our Girls/Uyinene Is Not Dead; Only Love and My Biggest Fear as a guide, Siwela shared how a black woman’s life in South Africa belongs to anybody but herself. She went as far as saying that her biggest fear “is to die because somebody’s son thinks he is God”.
Through a poem titled I Wish, Siwela confronts her blackness as a South African woman. This is the last theme – black. Without wishing to be a part of any other race, she speaks of a blackness as a burden to her existence. As someone that went to St. Johns school for girls, she did not enjoy having to introduce herself by a nickname so it can be easily pronounced, yet children from other races never had to shorten or simplify their names for anyone.
A Young Poets Mind – as she refers to herself, started writing when she was 15 in 2017 at St. Johns Diocesan School for Girls in Pietermaritzburg. As a scholarship learner from grade eight till grade ten, she recalls how her mother would constantly remind her how grateful she had to be for that opportunity and “not be too Zulu [at St. Johns]”.
To her, this was a moment of realisation. “All this time I have had to make myself more palatable to the white system, even at my school. It felt like [the school] was doing me a favour,” she told Wits Vuvuzela. This is when the writing of I Wish began.
When Uyinene Mrwetyana was murdered, she started organising silent protests at her school and wrote a lot of poetry around it, including Uyinene Is Not Dead. “[The poem] was [recited] in assemblies at different schools in KZN, that is how much I saw my poetry impacting people,” Siwela said.
Friend and third year medical student, Paballo Mofokeng (21) described Siwela’s poetry as her introduction to a whole new world of the arts and culture. “I always associated the arts with classical music and all of that stuff, I didn’t think it could apply to modern kids and modern people, until Nonhlanhla,” said Mofokeng. “Also, the poetry that we did in school was not directed to black kids, [it] was not directed to black girls,” she said.
The deluxe album is available on all digital streaming platforms and serves as a multimedia companion to the text.
FEATURED IMAGE: Nonhlanhla Siwela enjoying a page from her poetry anthology, The Rainbow Nation is Black. Photo: Otsile Swaratlhe
The entertainment industry greats paid tribute to one of South Africans great actors, John Kani at his birthday celebration.
Award winning actor, director, playwright, and Wits honorary doctorate receiver John Kani celebrated his 80th birthday in a packed theatre. The celebration took place in his namesake, the John Kani theatre, in the Market Theatre laboratory on August 30.
The event was opened with a performance by the South African jazz musician Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse, followed by an address by Atandwa Kani, his son and an actor in his own right. “We all here to celebrate this big man’s birthday on behalf of the family, I just want to say tata, happy birthday Mlotshane,” he said.
Atandwa Kani performing The Island. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
The Van Toeka Af living legends recognition series is an initiative by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture’s which recognises living legends and the work they have done. Dr Kani’s 60 year career in the dramatic arts played out on stage.
The celebration included different snippets of theatre work that Kani had worked on and won accolades for, among these performances was the infamous Sizwe Banzi is Dead, performed by Atandwa and Nathienal Ramabulana on the night. The play co-written by Athol Fugard, Winston Ntshona and Kani, explored the themes of identity, self-worth, racism, and suppression.
This is the play that won the Tony Award for the best play in 1975. It premiered in October of 1972 and ran 52 times in New York, winning the award three years later.
Kodwa spoke fondly about Kani and the work he has done for art and how he has used art to inspire change through his work during the apartheid and post-apartheid era. “He is the living testament to the power of art, to inspire change, to transcend boundaries and to foster unity,” he said.
Another outstanding theatre performance of Shakespeare’s Othello was performed by Atandwa, Kate Liquorish and Michael Richard. In 1987, Kani’s role as Othello, in particular the infamous kiss shared with Desdemona (a white woman) in the play, faced backlash. The kiss came just two years after laws prohibiting interracial marriages and sex were repealed by the Apartheid government. But segregation was still so ingrained, that many audience members walked out during performances reported the Chicago Tribune at the time.
Atandwa Kani and Kate Liquorish performing Othello. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
Kani wrapped up the evening with a performance of a play he wrote called “Nothing but the Truth” which looked at the relationship complexities between the black people that stayed in South Africa and the ones that went into exile.
After his performance he made a speech on the importance of sustainability in the arts. “We have to industrialise the arts, it cannot be a side job because we don’t want to do a BSc [Bachelor of Sciences], it has to be a business, an industry that I can tell my children yes because you’re going to survive, make money and be rich.”
FEATURED IMAGE: John Kani sits down to have an interview with Wits Vuvuzela. Photo: Nonhlanhla Mathebula
The Wits Origin Center is hosting Bev Butkow’s Re-weaving Mother exhibit, which showcases a collection of artworks that explores the question of how humans exist in this world and what they leave behind.
South African artist, Bev Butkow, who has showcased her work worldwide has brought her new project on display in her second solo exhibit at the Wits Origin Centre on August 20, 2023.
The exhibition titled, Re-Weaving Mother shows a body of abstract, woven, stitched, painted, and mixed media sculptures, artworks on canvases and fabric that draped over concrete pillars. The exhibit managed to take a dark and gloomy centre and turned it into a beautiful spectacle of colour and life.
As art lovers walked through the entrance, they were ushered in by draping elaborate fabrics – it was like entering a material jungle and artworks were waiting to be discovered. There were different lights filling each space in the room and each piece was made of different textures and colours.
An artwork linked to Surface Play by Bev Butkow, showcased in the ‘Re-Weaving Mother‘ exhibit opening on August 20, 2023. Photo: Georgia Cartwright
Butkow holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Wits University and made a bold move from a successful corporate career in finance to become an artist. She said her current work is inspired by learning a new and different way to exist in the world.
She described her art as “nurturing” and “caring,” harboring different elements of the human body and art mixed into one. She added that her work represented, “the value of women’s labour [and] the traces we leave and the impact we make”.
Butkow told Wits Vuvuzela that she believes, “creativity is the new intellectual frontier,” and added that art creates “new possibilities around how we engage in the world and how we exist together in community.”
Many people came to view the new exhibit, this included art lover Meaghan Pogue who said the artworks made her feel a sense of “comfort” because the material used on the hanging sculptures were made from a soft and “recognizable” fabric. You can almost feel a sense of home with some of the pieces as if they are woven from memory.
Each person may experience the exhibition differently but from interaction with the artwork in form of sight and touch, Butkow seemingly showcased new ways of being and engaging with the world through her art.
The Re-Weaving Mother exhibit will be showcased at the Origin Center until September 30, 2023. There will be creative gatherings on the:
Body and Art: August 30
A Material Uprising: September 06
The value of Women’s Labour: September 12
Traces We Leave Upon the Earth: September 14
Writer and Arts Journalist David Mann admiring Echoes of Process by Bev Butkow at the ‘Re-Weaving Mother‘ exhibit. Photo: Georgia Cartwright
FEATURED IMAGE:Ley Linesand other Networks of Care by Bev Butkow in her exhibit “Re-Weaving Mother” on August 20, 2023. Photo: Georgia Cartwright
Fourth-year Wits fine arts student uses Afro-futurism to engage issues of migration and feelings of displacement in an award-winning mixed media installation
Rumbo Mercy was named this year’s winner of the Wits Young Artist Awards, for her work titled, platform Omega: awaiting the twilight train — which uses mixed media in an afro-futuristic installation of a space traveler, looking to belong.
In the exhibition, the space traveler, named Space Kid is suspended in the air, with a green suit and an astronaut’s helmet, floating about with fish moving all around her. It looks like she is floating in a fishbowl. There is a pair of shackles beneath her feet and in front of her, there is an old suitcase with her belongings.
Part of Rumbo Mercy’s art installation is this old briefcase carrying Space Kid’s belongings. Photo: Moronga Masebe.
The show also used video and narration to tell the story of Space Kid waiting at a train station, on her way to a planet of outcasts, leaving behind Alcyone, a star on which she never really felt at home.
In the exhibition the narrator explains that Space Kid was born with the inability to be held down by gravity, in a world where belonging is legitimised by being weighted. However, Space Kid had to wear metallic chains around her ankles that added humiliation to the pain of not being weighted – like others.
On why it looks like she is floating in a fishbowl, Mercy said that because fish live in water, they are probably unaware of the water, like we are not aware of the air we breathe. But if we were to flip that around, fish will start grasping for air which will make them aware of their surroundings.
The work was inspired by Mercy’s background of being a daughter of Malawian parents, who came to South Africa, for greener pastures, before she was born. “I have always felt disconnected from South African cultures because I don’t know them, but also, I didn’t know my Malawian side because we didn’t live there”, she said.
She refers to this as being in a state of “liminality,” which is a psychology term that describes the feeling of being in between two states but not quite belonging to either.
Mercy’s work grapples with ideas and feelings of displacement, migration and belonging in an imaginative way, without the usual political connotations that sometimes muddle the conversation.
However, Mercy recognises that her choice of topics is not easy to tell in ways that does not trigger xenophobic sentiments; and she is using her art, to express her experiences in a way that lends itself to more objective interpretations.
Reshma Chhiba, the curator of the exhibition at The Point of Order – an art gallery that is part of the Wits fine art department told Wits Vuvuzela that Mercy’s art installation was picked from a list of 10 finalists at a ceremony held at the gallery.
“It did come down to Rumbo in a very clear manner,” she said, while explaining that her work plays on a “African futurism that allows for a fictionalization and imagination,” which was exciting to see.
She said that this year, they had 113 students who submitted their work, and the selector, Same Mdluli, who is the curator and manager of the Standard Bank Gallery, shortlisted the ten finalists, and 3 independent adjudicators named Mercy’s installation as this year’s winner on July 20, 2023.
Chhiba said that the purpose of the Wits Young Artist Awards is to “recognise artistic excellence within the undergrad cohort…open [only] to third and fourth-year undergraduates of the fine art programme.”
Space Kid’s story is being exhibited online, via the WYAA website.
FEATURED IMAGE: Rumbo Mercy, winner of the Wits Young Artist Awards 2023, looking up at her Space Kid sculpture. Photo: Morongoa Masebe
Performance enthusiasts from all walks of life came from across the globe for the first performance studies international conference held in Africa, hosted at Wits University.
Wits University theatre and performance and Drama for Life departments took delegates and attendees on a journey around Johannesburg when they hosted the first Performance Studies International Conference, with theatre performances, panel discussions and presentations in line with the theme, Uhambo luyazilawula.
Kamogelo Molobye welcomes the audience to another session at Market Theatre. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
The conference was hosted between August 2 –5, 2023, with performances across several cultural sites in Johannesburg including but not limited to the Wits Theatre Complex, Soweto Theatre and Constitution Hill.
Performance Studies International was founded in 1997 to create communication and exchange among thinkers, artists, researchers, and activists working in the field of performance.
“We themed the whole conference around ‘Uhambo Luyazilawula: Embodied wandering practices’ and we located uhambo both as a practice and as a way of thinking about performance studies, looking at the ways in which journeying and collaboration and community function as fundamental ways in which artists and scholars within the African continent position and locate performance studies” said Kamogelo Molobye , the co-organiser of the PSI conference.
Wits Vuvuzela attended a presentation session called Ekhaya which translates as home from Isizulu and IsiXhosa in which music lecturer, Mbuti Moloi presented a paper on the significance of cultural diversity in higher education and what uhambo luyazilawula meant for traditional/African music.
One of the primary challenges he spoke to was bias. Moloi’s views of the bias towards African music comes from the challenges of the past in which African music was modernised.
When speaking to the solutions to some of the primary challenges presented, Moloi said: “There is one solution, we need to get back to ourselves as African people. We need to use higher [education] learning to get back to ourselves.”
In a different session Kwanele Thusi, a casting director presented his paper ‘I dance in my Mother’s language’ in which his argument was exploring the boundary between the body and its surroundings are blurred, all while the decolonisation of African Studies.
“The drivers of language still create and maintain cultural power so there is cultural order, this is seen through systematic foundations set in media, politics and sport…,” he said.
The audience watching a performance at Market Theatre. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
Thusi posits that an everyday example of this is job interviews, most black people struggle to express themselves well in English, which is the barometer of intelligence in those settings. As a byproduct, opportunities for employment and wealth creation remain limited.
“Growing up in KZN and moving to Johannesburg to find a job, I realised how much I struggled and when I spoke to my friends who were black, they also struggled the same way and I wanted to understand why it was so hard for a black person to be sufficient and happy”
“An attendee in both sessions Sihle Makaluza, a student from University of Johannesburg said, “The papers were thought provoking and have left me asking myself questions on what I am doing to get to my true African self.”
The conference was wrapped up at Constitution Hill where they focused on installations and panel discussions and the attendees and delegates were invited to a closing party.
FEATURED IMAGE: Bruce Barnes performs ‘These bones they walk” piece. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
Powerful African rhythms and poignant reflections on post-apartheid complexities.
Bokani Dyer performing one of Vuma Levin’s movements titled, Chaphela. Photo by: Ayanda Mgwenya
Renowned jazz artists, Vuma Levin and Benjamin Jephta, took to the Chris Seabrooke Music Hall stage, on July 29, 2023, for a combined album launch called The Narratives.
Jephta is a bassist and composer and has performed with prominent international artists like Dianne Reeves and Terri-lyne Carrington.
Levin is a jazz studies lecturer while Jephta lectures in both jazz and film music.
Renowned jazz maestros, such as Sisionke Xonti (saxophonist), Bokani Dyer (pianist), Tlale Makhene (percussionist), and Jonno Sweetman (drummer), performed alongside the two during the launch.
The evening was divided into two sets. Levin kicked off the night with tracks from his fifth album, The Past is Unpredictable, Only the Future is Certain, performing 2/3 parts of the album: The first one titled The Past is Unpredictable with movements Gijima and Chaphela and the second one titled Prayers Made From Grass with Homily and Rites.
Led by Tlale’s poetic chants and Xonti’s melodious sounds, an African rhythmic experience was created. The inclusion of African instruments like the udu ceramic drum, cymbals, chimes, ankle rattles, and triangles added a distinct African essence.
Levin said, “The album blends indigenous and western musical instruments, making it a unique and special representation of Pan Africanism in music.”
Following a short intermission, the spotlight shifted to Jephta’s set, performing hisBorn Coloured, not Born-Free album, Jephta’s compositions delve into the complexities of race in South Africa. The music encapsulated his personal experiences as a coloured male in post-Apartheid South Africa.
Jephta’s set featured soulful tracks like An Incomplete Transition and Gadija (part 1), a heartfelt tribute to his grandmother. The bass-driven Ben-Dhlamini Stomp earned him a standing ovation. Closing the show, Jephta’s last two movements, Acceptance/metamorphosis and Resurgence, delighted the crowd with its infectious rhythm and captivating melody, leaving them singing and bobbing along.
Speaking about the two musicians, Wits Music lecturer, Dr Peter Cartwright said, “They are both new in the permanent staff… so it’s a way to welcome them, you know, with their first public concert.”
Elliot Rogers, third year music student said, “Benjamin Jephta is my lecturer for ensemble, and I do guitar [classes] with Vuma Levin; and seeing this concert where their music is coming together is a beautiful sight, looking at it from a [scholastic] lens.”
The Narratives concert got the audience singing and clapping throughout, the multiple standing ovations received on the night spoke to the pair’s expansive talents.
FEATUREDIMAGE: Benjamin Jephta performing his bass-driven composition, Ben-Dhlamini Stomp, at the Chris Seabrooke Music Hall. Photo by: Ayanda Mgwenya
Exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to experience what it is like to have schizophrenia.
The Wits Origins Centre Museum’s latest exhibition Shadow Voices seeks to raise awareness about schizophrenia.
Shadow Voices was a week-long sound installation (July 31 to August 5) crafted by MMus (Master in Music Student) student Annemie Du Plessis, music psychotherapist Karin Meyer, and poet Dan Hoeweler. It explored the profound experiences of those living with the mental disorder.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that is characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behaviour that impairs daily functioning and can be disabling.
The exhibition uses sound that people can listen to through headphones to allow them to experience what it is like to have “voices in your head”. It mimics one of the realities of a person living with schizophrenia.
Du Plessis told Wits Vuvuzela that “given the stigma often associated, we wanted to do a sound installation that would help create awareness about schizophrenia symptomatology” [the set of symptoms that are associated with a medical condition].
“Sound installations can be a powerful medium to allow for immersive experiences, it supports the narratives of music therapy as part of a treatment and support for people living with schizophrenia,” said Du Plessis.
A black canvas with a drawing of a person being attacked by a monster. Photo: Sbongile MolamboPoetry by Dan Hoeweler forms part of the exhibition. Photo: Sbongile Molambo
According to a 2022 report by the WHO, schizophrenia affects approximately 24 million people, or one in 300 people (0.32%) worldwide. This rate is one in 222 people (0.45%) among adults.
According to Dr Mvuyiso Talatala of the South African Society of Psychiatrists (Sasop), in an article published by the Daily Maverick in July 2023, schizophrenia affects only about 1% of the population of the South African population. He said, “schizophrenia is a disease of young people, with about 90% of people with the disease first showing signs before the age of 25.”
The Origins Centre Museum’s curator Tammy Hodgskiss Reynard told Wits Vuvuzela that what makes Shadow Voices different is that “exhibitions are often visually focused and this one forces you to listen and use other senses.”
Music psychotherapist Meyer believes that music therapy can be very effective in treating mental health concerns. Music therapy is the practice in which a therapist uses clinical and evidence-based music interventions to accomplish unique and individualised goals within a therapeutic relationship.
She said, “Music can naturally lift our moods and, when used intentionally it becomes a tool for processing emotional difficulties.” She adds that “research has shown the benefits of music therapy for depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, et cetera.”
It is believed that music therapy can be used as an aid in the treatment process of different forms of mental illness.
FEATURED IMAGE: Visitor and student, Aphelele Mbokotho listening to the sound installation which mimicks having voices in your head. Photo: Sbongile Molambo
Witsies showcase their play on the highly coveted virtual National Arts Festival’s stage
Tea for Two is a deeply personal interrogation of the complexities of understanding your identity as a young adult.
Zion and the Voice embracing one another after they had worked through the mind maze. Photo: Supplied
The surrealist play, which was created by two Wits graduates, Nqobile Natasia and Reatlilwe Maroga was performed at the virtual National Arts Festival at the end of July.
“As passionate creators, we have poured our hearts and souls into this production,” said Maroga, as she was explaining their feeling of elation on being accepted into the biggest annual celebration of the arts on the African continent.
Meanwhile, Natasie, who is now feeling a lot more confident in their work said, “It was a tough journey [to get in], but extremely exciting”.
The 35-minute play follows the protagonist, Zion – played by final year dramatic art student Mmangaliso Ngobese. She is a young professional, who finds comfort in their strict routines and self-imposed rigidity. However, Zion falls asleep one day, only to wake up in a deliberately confusing dream world – their own mind.
Here, they encounter a character known as The Voice – played by second-year dramatic arts student Sazikazi Bula – who seemingly looks like Zion. Together, they navigate through and make sense of this confusing “messy mind maze,” by confronting Zion’s deepest thoughts, emotions, and identities, said Natasia.
According to Forum Theatre, surrealism is a style of performance “characterised by its use of unexpected, often illogical, scenarios or images to create a dream-like atmosphere on stage.”
Natasia said that they chose to use surrealism because it allowed them to visually put the audience in the protagonist’s head space; with much of the open-endedness left on the viewers to make their own conclusions. The most positive feedback I got from people is they resonate with the play, explained Natasia.
The themes of the play are self-introspection and identity, focusing on the complex and often confusing journey of self-discovery in your own chaotic minds.
Natasia said that everything on stage was “modelled after my brain – with all the chaos and absurdity.”
The set, which represented Zion’s mind showed this chaos. There was a yellow bench in the front of the set, signs reading “Messy Mind Maze” and “Teens” with tin cans scattered on the floor. Most notably were the red threads intertwined, which Maroga said they were symbolising the brain; and like the mind, “everything is connected”.
“This play tells us that we are not alone…as messy as (our) minds can be, we can work through it” continued Maroga.
The lead actor, Ngobese said: “You realise that (like most of us) [Zion] is someone who suffocates themself in their mind all the time… as humans we bottle things up for ourselves and we are unaware of the damage we do to ourselves”.
Overall, it is a powerful play which leaves the audience wondering how they have dealt and will deal with their own struggles with identity as they resonate with the piece.
An overview of the set as Sizikazi Bula and Mmangaliso Ngobese deliver their lines. Photo: Supplied
The characters, Zion and the VOice, working through Zion’s thoughts on stage for the virtual National Arts Festival. Photo: Supplied.
FEATURED IMAGE: The poster of Tea for Two advertising their appearance on the virtual National Arts Festival. Image: Supplied
Newly Wits PhD graduate uses art to explore the toxicity of fragile masculinity
Nicola Genovese has thrust the issues of fragile masculinity back in the public arena with his exhibition, Sad Boy — which looks at the weight men carry as they are expected to perform being masculine.
Genovese is an Italian/Swiss born artist that recently graduated with his PhD in Fine Arts at Wits. His work is mostly focused on videos, sculptural works, and performances in which he explores issues of masculinity, identity politics and power dynamics in relationships.
The exhibition at the Wits Art Museum, which took place on August 1 was opened with a two-part performance. The first part of it was a reading of an excerpt from his research thesis on the working-class masculinity in the Northern parts of Italy, followed by a poem about the male body and erectile dysfunction. While the performance was taking place, audiences were surrounded by sculptures that attempted to showcase this fragility.
Genovese reading his text on fragility and erectile dysfunction. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
One of the sculptures was placed on Genovese arm, which represented a male’s genital. He had his t-shirt tucked in and his belly sticking out, while flapping the object up and down as he spoke about the function of male genitals.
Genovese told Wits Vuvuzela that the first part of his showcase focused on the representation of the “emo punk attitude from the 90s kids” where being sad and depressed looked cool; and the second one looked at the shame men carry when faced with genitals that are not working as they should.
“We are talking about a part of the body that has to work…This was a way to show the ambivalence that it’s massive but also fragile and soft through the use of the metal sheet material that is metallic but also extremely soft that I used in the arm” Genovese said, when he was talking about what the arm represented in his performance.
Title of the exhibition at the entrance of the WAM. Photo: Aphelele MbokothoOne of Genove’s art pieces on display. Photo: Aphelele MbokothoA sculptural piece spelling out the title.Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
Christo Doherty, the supervisor of Genovese for his PhD thesis said that “It’s been quite a trip [working with him] because he is a very challenging artist that is working in the gender, sexuality area… he’s been exploring and critiquing masculinity but as a straight white male”.
BA General student Hope Nesengane who was attending, said, “I appreciate how well rounded it was, the multimedia, the video element and sculptural pieces made the diversity of it interesting, and I thought the performance was also great.”
FEATURED IMAGE: Genovese performing his text piece for the audience.Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
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