The exceptional childlike fusion of art forms enabled the audience to have encounters with our material conditions through art.
Created by the renowned Jade Bowers (director), Lebo Mashile, Tina Redman (performers) and Yogen Sullaphen (musician), the site-staged work took to Nugget Street outside the Windybrow Arts Centre in Hillbrow from April 20 till April 22, 2023. The theatre work was produced by the University of Johannesburg Arts and Culture division and the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), and aimed at young audiences although with a broader appeal to people of all ages.
Bowers, Mashile, Redman and UJ Arts and Culture students created childhood experiences of living in Johannesburg with all their innocence, naivety and boundless play.
In a press release, UJ Arts and Culture said that Breaths of Joburg was part of a “larger research project that considered creative writing and site-specific theatre as tools for engaging urban publics in dialogue about every day, ground-up, place-making in city spaces”.
Lead researcher Alex Halligey told Wits Vuvuzela that a “smaller model of the research project asks the questions of how we use creative arts, how you can see something in the city and write a poem about it”.
The Windybrow Arts Centre mostly draws in young people coming from school who use the centre as a place of play and diversion from the stresses of living in the city. Promoting access to art for everyone, Breaths of Joburg enabled the audience to have encounters with our material conditions through art.
The performances, which were outside the arts centre, attracted children coming from school, students and adults, who lined the wall fence, settled on the pavement and on the theatre’s steps that lead to the street to resemble a theatre in the round.
Using short and immersive acts, the actors took the audience to a Johannesburg familiar to me – from late night encounters to the vibrant economy of the city run by street vendors, hairdressers and taxi drivers who can take you almost anywhere in the city.
This Johannesburg is Sindi’s and Babes’ world, two little girls played by Mashile and Redman respectively. The production used plastic beer crates as props and the performers’ creativity to create this world and the characters’ transition from childhood to adulthood.
Babes (Tina Redman) and Sindi (Lebo Mashile) perform for an audience of schoolchildren at Windybrow Arts Centre. Photo: Mbalenhle Dlamini
“The show is about them (Sindi and Babes) travelling through the city. They want to learn how to make money, and we are those adults,” Redman told Wits Vuvuzela.
The actors had tough conversations with the audience as they explored themes that could be deemed complicated for young children to digest such as crime, death and sex work. However, Redman and Mashile and the student actors gained the young children’s attention with animated singing, dancing and hand-clapping games.
Mashile captured the audience with her spirited spoken-word performance while the rest of the cast huddled quietly around her, moving in ways that symbolised air and a flowing river. She spoke about how Johannesburg was land that had rivers and fed its people before “they” (colonialists) “discovered” gold. It was an effortless transition of the child into the world of adults that they were trying to convey.
After the three-day run at the Windybrow Arts Centre, Halligey said, “We are looking for funding to do Breaths of Joburg again and opportunities to do projects that are similar to what we did with Breaths of Joburg.”
Vuvu rating: 9/10
FEATURED IMAGE: Babes plays a monster chasing Sindi around the streets of Joburg. Photo: Mbalenhle Dlamini
Jazz musician dazzles music lovers with an acoustic concert
Multifaceted South African musician, Gabi Motuba debuted her new project, The Sabbath in a concert held at Wits Chris Seabrooke music hall on Saturday, May 6.
Motuba is a Johannesburg-based vocalist, composer and music facilitator whose music is centred around world politics, black studies, religion and genre studies. She released her first album, Sanctum Sanctorium in 2016 and Tefiti Goddess of Creation in 2019.
In the project, released on June 28, 2022, Motuba shifted her focus to talk about her experience with grief; as her father lost his battle against Covid-19, during the pandemic. As a result, the project consists of five lamentation songs that would leave any listener in a state of melancholy. Motuba told Wits Vuvuzela that: “The project is largely a very reflective work for me in terms of moving from trauma into grief and into the pursuit of restoration”.
Wits music alumni, Tembinkosi Mavimbela, who played double bass during the performance said that in The Sabbath, Motuba showed immense vulnerability. He described her performance as a form of supplication to a higher power. “Her performance was a prayer indeed; it takes courage to be vulnerable on stage and we shouldn’t look at a Sabbath in one direction because we approach prayer in different ways.”
Thembinkosi Mavimbela interacting with friends and fans after the concert. Photo: Sfundo Parakozov
What added to her performance was the concert took place at the state-of-the-art music hall . The venue is the only space in the city that is exclusively designed to optimize live musical sound with modern acoustic design. This added to Motuba’s exceptional vocal range.
Wits art student, Rethabile Zilila said that she was surprised at how audible everything was but appreciated the spacious nature of the hall.
Motuba explained that as a composure, mostly working with string instruments, she chose the venue because she knew the acoustics of the room will produce a beautiful sound.
The attendees’ sight senses were also activated. While Motuba was performing, there was a background theme inspired by nature on display.
Wits Fine Arts lecturer, Zen Marie, who was in charge of the displays said he sets up the landscape in response to the music.
This was evident as he displayed dark clouds as she was performing a track titled, Nabu Lobosuku , which means here’s the night. This exuded a dimmer and sombre atmosphere with the mood in the room quietening down as everybody was enthralled by her voice.
The final part of the performance had a much lighter and brighter landscape, consisting of clear skies, which was an important moment showing the transition from grief to freedom. One could clearly feel the biblical reference as she sang the last track on the album, Amen, meaning the end.
The hour-long concert was attended by the likes of Thandiswa Mazwai and former head of the Wits School of Arts Professor Brett Pyper.
Rethabile Zilila and Thandiswa Mazwai posing for a picture. Photo: Sfundo Parakozov
FEATURED IMAGE:Gabi Motuba thanking her audiences after her performance. Photo: Sfundo Parakozov
This project takes the reader on a journey across lands to explore the complex nature of memory; leaving them wanting to explore their own.
Uncovering Memory is a powerful book which unpacks a research project aimed at working through personal, familial and societal memories by using film to locate oneself in the current day.
Living in post-colonial and apartheid South Africa, the book recognises that South Africans live in a society that is filled with imagery from the past, and it wants to unearth how these images affect people’s sub-conscious minds.
Written by Wits film and television professor, Tanja Sakota and published by the Wits University Press in March this year, the book is compilation of understandable and practical examples of the power of practice-based research, film and autobiographical style of academic writing that draws on and analyses the author’s own lived experiences.
For example, the book seeks to answer the question of how a student in the 21st century can look at a statue of Cecil John Rhodes during #RhodesMustFall in 2015, and be so emotionally charged to throw feces on a statue of Rhodes. In an interview with Wits Vuvuzela, Sakota describes spaces and places around us as, “deeply entrenched with the memory of the past”.
Using the camera as the primary research tool, Sakota and fellow participants walk through chosen areas which represent something historically important to that researcher, and later, they narrate and critically unpack the impact these spaces had on them. In doing so, they seek to “uncover memory through space and place” to try and “make the invisible, visible through a camera.” Sakota does this in her book as well as in a series of short-film projects under the same name as the book.
Wits Professor Tanja Sakota is all smiles when showing her newly published book Uncovering Memory on April 28, in front of the Wits theatre. Photo: Seth Thorne
In these films, released and explained in tandem with the book, participants explore their own historical trauma. Specifically, and most memorably, Sakota explores her parents own personal trauma through walking along the train-tracks in Poland which once transported millions to their death during the Holocaust in her own short film titled, Shattered Reflection. The topics that Sakota uncovers of her own are at times heart-breaking memories of both past and present, through these spaces.
The book is separated into three main parts: research with students, then colleagues, and finally the authors. The research focused on locations such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Berlin.
As much as each part of the book provides well thought out ideas of the subject matter, the work becomes more powerful for the reader as the book progresses. This is due to the increasingly personal style of writing, where Sakota eventually finds herself central to the research, where she is the filmmaker and researcher unpacking both her own personal and family trauma.
The book challenges the concept of research being separate from oneself, serving as a key reference for students and researchers (particularly filmmakers) interested in undertaking a similar journey of uncovering their own memories, in attempts to locate who they are in a postcolonial space.
The book does not have a conclusive ending, but rather serves as a starting point for its readers to use.
An immortalisation of how the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu inspired South Africa to be a society where peace could prevail.
In her documentary, A Tree Has Fallen – Remembering Desmond Tutu, Swedish journalist Marika Griehsel shows the religious stance of the late Anglican archbishop on a politically-fragmented apartheid South Africa.
A compilation of archive material and interviews, this documentary is not only focused on the apartheid past but also includes present-day footage of children being asked to identify the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Its focus is on comparing the type of South Africa he imagined at the dawn of democracy to what the citizens are currently experiencing.
Tutu is famously known for the quote, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” from a speech given at Stanford University on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1986. In the documentary he is introduced to the viewer as a liberal Christian – he applied the teachings of the religion based on social needs rather than what is traditionally taught, such as staying strong in one’s faith and prayer while waiting for a miracle from God.
In A Tree Has Fallen, Tutu describes himself as someone who became a leader by default because the political leaders at the time were in exile. Griehsel does a good job reflecting this statement in reality by showing the viewer Tutu’s transition from standing in front of a pulpit at church to standing at a podium at political rallies, yet still in his Anglican church attire.
Through Tutu’s statements such as, “No human being is beyond the love of God,” Griehsel shows the viewer how the imagination of a “rainbow nation” – coined by Tutu for the post-apartheid multiracial South Africa – began as not only a call to unite all races but also Africans in their diversity.
In an apartheid society where Africans in South Africa were divided along tribal lines and by political affiliation, Tutu is shown emerging as a non-political, pro-peace preacher to the people of South Africa. This is coupled with some parts of an interview by the same producer of this documentary, Griehsel, done on behalf of the Nobel Foundation.
Students and staff watch A Tree Has Fallen – Remembering Desmond Tutu at the Wits school of arts cinema. Photo: Michael Jaspan
On Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at the Wits school of arts cinema, students and staff members had an exclusive chance to see the documentary before its unknown release. Griehsel told Wits Vuvuzela, “I think he is one of our times’ most inspiring leaders, like Nelson Mandela.”
Griehsel does well in visualising the close friendship between Tutu and the former president in the documentary. The use of close-up shots on footage of them holding hands after Mandela was released from prison; footage of their meeting during their pension years and multiple clips that have Tutu referring to Mandela are used as great indicators to the type of friendship they had. In one of the clips, Tutu is caught on camera referring to Mandela in a humorous way: “…he has a poor taste in shirts.”
In the Wits Vuvuzela interview, Griehsel continued to say, “I am very grateful that I was allowed to screen the film [at Wits] and I hope that it will inspire young people and those who have seen [the film] to ask themselves: ‘What can I do?’ ‘What is my role?’”
According to Griehsel, the compilation and production of the documentary began in 2001. With the help of a South African editor and principal photographer, Michael Jaspan, it screened for the first time at the September 2022 Göteborg Book Fair in Sweden.
Vuvu rating: 8/10
FEATURED IMAGE: Pictured at the screening of the Tutu documentary, on the second row, left, Minister Counsellor of the Embassy of Sweden in Pretoria, Christian Fogelstrom, and in front, the producer of the documentary, Marika Griehsel. Photo: Michael Jaspan
Johannesburg Mexican food-lovers go loco over new restaurant.
The first of its kind in Braamfontein, Loco is a Mexican restaurant and tequila bar that opened for business on April 1.
Churros for dessert served with chocolate and caramel dip. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
Located on 73 Juta street, the six-week-old spot is situated under The Playground Market and next door to Uncle Faouzi, both local crowd pullers. The pink walls and black and white ceilings are aesthetically pleasing. One can take great pictures inside because of the good lighting. To top off the beauty of the interior design is the student friendly prices and atmosphere.
Between the groovy Latin-American music and the cacti dotted all over the restaurant, one is instantly transported from the streets of Braam to the streets of Cancun.
Loco manager, Bulelwa Mbonambi explained their choice of colours, “Pink is a happy, soft, luxurious colour and green is a nature colour, we want our customers to feel like they are living a soft life when they enter our space.”
The restaurant has 12 square standalone tables that can be combined for group settings. Two of the tables have couches as additional seating options. They have a small outside area that is facing the Bannister Hotel and Kitcheners.
The menu has two sides to it, the first side with a service window between 9am to 5pm, offering breakfast and brunch options such as the breakfast burrito and corn fritters. The second side is reserved for lunch and dinner meals served from noon onwards.
The prices are a student’s dream, ranging from R65 to R145 for food and drinks from R20. One could eat a decent meal for just R200.
Wits Vuvuzela put the waiter’s recommendations of a chicken and beef taco to the test. The beef taco was new on the menu, and they were assessing to see how customers would find it. While the chicken taco, is their best seller. The waiting period was around 15 minutes to 20 minutes, and this was not bad for lunchtime as there was a bit of traffic. Laid out on a medium sized plate, the chicken taco had diced tomatoes, roasted sweet corn, avocado, pressed red cabbage and that was sealed together with chipotle vinegar which gave a bit of sweetness to it.
When it came to the taste test, the beef taco proved more flavourful than the chicken taco. From the first bite one tastes the green pepper, feta cheese, onions and the spicy sweet relish that made everything come together so well. A bonus to this was that the beef was tender.
To round off the experience, churros off the dessert menu were ordered. They were not overwhelmingly sweet, and they are served with either chocolate or caramel sauce.
The chicken taco with diced tomatoes, sweet corn, avocado and pressed red cabbage. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
All in all, the bill was R275. The tacos were R50 each, churros R75, and the two coca cola cooldrinks which were R30 each.
Mbonambi said: “This is a contemporary Mexican restaurant instead of traditional because the palette needs to be relatable and still be educational to the SA market.”
The restaurant also offers a unique tequila tasting experience in the evenings. Loco is open from 9am to 10pm from Wednesday to Saturday.
FEATURED IMAGE: The restaurant – LOCO – pictured during its less busy hours as the security guard on the side watches people pass by. Photo: Aphelele Mbokotho
Africa’s Gold Mafia made up of self-proclaimed prophets, diplomats and gangsters caught in 4K smuggling gold and ‘washing money’.
A four-part investigative documentary produced and aired on news channel, Al Jazeera, has blown the lid on a syndicate that facilitates well-orchestrated money laundering services for criminals. The first episode, The Laundry Service, aired on March 23, 2023 and new episodes have come out every week since.
The documentary took two years of investigation and much of it hinged on the undercover work of three reporters, who relied on hidden cameras and microphones to catch those implicated red-handed.
Leading the investigative unit (iUnit) is ‘Mr Stanley’, a Chinese gangster in search of money laundering services. Then there’s ‘Jonny’ (or the Hawala Man) a black-market trader who moves money across borders without using banks. And lastly, ‘Ms. Sin’, Mr Stanley’s financial advisor.
The first episode profiles Kamlesh Pattni, a pastor who classifies himself as Brother Paul, and the founder of Hope International. Using his pious cover, Pattni manages to get close to several African presidents and ‘work with them’ on a number of shady deals.
Pattni’s greed is bolstered by his political connections, which enable him to get exceptional licenses to export gold from country to country. Just when it seemed the authorities might be onto him and prosecute him for his crimes, particularly stealing taxpayers’ money, he relocated to Zimbabwe from Kenya.
Pattni does not work alone, his accomplices include Ewan Macmillan and Alistair Mathias. Macmillan has been in and out of prison countless times from the age of 21. He stands accused of smuggling gold worth R436 million through an untraceable bank account in Dubai.
The more unassuming of the two, Mathias, earned his gold smuggling stripes in Ghana and as the group’s ‘financial architect’, builds money laundering schemes for corrupt politicians and criminals.
What stays with the viewer beyond the shocking revelations, is the lengths the iUnit journalists went to, to expose all of the things done behind closed doors. It successfully tracks the illicit and seemingly commonplace way corruption robs resource rich nations of their riches.
The documentary comes to show how even people who claim to be prophets cannot be trusted, as seen through Pattni and Prophet Uebert Angel, a Zimbabwean diplomat who uses his government post to facilitate gold smuggling.
Investigative journalism of this kind clearly still has a place and purpose in exposing wrongdoing and holding people to account. All the episodes are free to stream on Al Jazeera’s YouTube channel.
Vuvu rating: 7/10
FEATURED IMAGE: Al Jazeera Gold Mafia Cover. Photo: Screenshot/AlJazeera YouTube
RELATED ARTICLES:
Wits Vuvuzela, REVIEW: /review-top-gun-sequels-triumph-is-less-reliance-on-computer-gimmicks. June 2022
Wits Vuvuzela, REVIEW: I am all girls, May 2021
Wits Vuvuzela, REVIEW: Dead places- not all ghosts are dead, May 2021
Milk the Beloved Country is a provocative historical exploration of South Africa’s past and present.
“I am not just reflecting on certain key episodes in our country’s story, I am at the same time questioning things that, to an extent, have not received the contemplation and deliberation they deserved.”
It has been just over a month since South African author and Wits business school graduate Sihle Khumalo’s book, Milk the Beloved Country hit the shelves in bookstores and e-commerce sites.
The subject of Khumalo’s newest book is a hybrid of travel and history, which begins by exploring the landmarks and names of South Africa through a historical lens. The book reflects on South Africa’s history and asks, “how did we get here?”
Ntokozo Ndlovu, South African Facebook book reviewer said the “interesting part of this book is about the naming of towns and cities” which makes for “thought provoking history”. An impressed Ndlovu said, “[Khumalo] is incapable of writing a boring sentence.”
The author’s approach to non-fiction utilises irony and humour as Khumalo mixes historical fact with myth, anecdote and controversial opinion. With discussions such as the failure of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), filling in gaps in South Africa’s colonial history and a name-and-shame approach to dealing with powerful groups such as the Broederbond, Khumalo confronts the reader with an uncomfortable deep dive into some of the issues which have been skimmed over in modern texts.
The image of the past which comes to life on the pages of this book is a multicultural, multifaceted history which describes our complex nation in a way that a chronological, fact-based timeline could not do, although the author’s interrupting and digressive style can at times be difficult to follow. As Khumalo writes, “History, like life, is complicated.”
In the context of South African history, Khumalo’s book is a refreshing antithesis to previous historical analyses of South Africa which tended to fall either on the side of Afrikaner nationalism (pre-1994) or African nationalism (post-1994) which discredited counter-ideologies and portrayed the historical as natural and inevitable. Khumalo examines the ifs, buts and maybes and the various available perspectives on the past.
The book also discusses the “power brokers” of our nation, including the heavy influence of the Broederbond during apartheid South Africa, the influence of communism in the formation of a new South Africa and the legacy of freemasonry in South Africa. Each of the topics are explored with nuance and a colloquial, conversational style.
Khumalo clearly is not afraid to hold up a mirror to our, as he calls it, “perfect-from-a-distance-but-very-structurally-shaky-rainbow nation” and explains in detail who is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today.
In reflection on the text, Khumalo asks vital questions such as, “When did the feeding frenzy on state resources begin?” to which he answers that South Africa’s corruption and nepotism problems extend so far back in its history, one might believe “we have always been led by rogues”.
In an interview with Polity, Khumalo said that his reason for writing this book is that he believes it is time, “to have open, frank conversations about the state of the nation…It is time that we hold our leaders responsible.”
Throughout the book, the danger of leaving out certain histories in favour of upholding the image of a rainbow nation is criticized by Khumalo, who writes, “Due to our obsession with the ‘rainbow nation’…and all those fluffy terms, we lose endless opportunities for having genuine national conversations and instead end up putting lipstick on a pig.” Khumalo’s retrospective on South Africa examines the whole pig in a witty and daring way.
Copies of the book are available online for R300 in its paperback form on Loot, and Takealot.
Vuvu rating: 7.5/10
FEATURED IMAGE: Sihle Khumalo’s Milk the Beloved Country soft cover. Photo: Kimberley Kersten
Jazz musician shares his lockdown-composed album with fans in Braamfontein
Songstress Keorapetse performing The Call at Untitled Basement on March 31, 2022. Photo: Ayanda Mgwenya
Jazz saxophonist Sisonke Xonticaptured the heart strings of young jazz enthusiasts with his first ever Joburg performance of his album, UGaba: The Migration at Untitled Basement.
Xonti composed the album during the 2020 hard lockdown, imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which left many South Africans mourning their family members who have passed, while others were left in a precarious financial position as jobs were shed.
The album consists of nine tracks that tell stories of Xonti’s life, including the trials and afflictions he phased when he moved to Johannesburg – the City of Gold – in 2013, from Khayelitsha, in the Western Cape.
Typical of the performances that take place at Untitled Basement, Xonti and his four-piece band were set up at the centre of the venue, surrounded by eager jazz fans who wanted to hear the album, live, first-hand.
His band members consisted of significant jazz maestros such as drummer Sphelelo Mazibuko, pianist Yonela Mnana, double bassist Benjamin Jephta and vocalist Keorapetse Kolwane.
Warm and dim lights hung over the musicians – adding to the soft ambience that permeated all over the entire basement.
The band started their performance with the song, The Migration Suite Part One – which is part of a collection of songs, Migration Suite Part two, three and four in the album. The songs are the essence of the album, as they depict Xonti’s endurance of the difficulties he encountered in his journey to Johannesburg. The Migration One was performed with so much emotion and depth that some audience members closed their eyes, so they could let their other senses absorb the music.
The audience was hungry for more – and Xonti delivered. They also performed Newness, which is the first track on the album. The song isa salutation to the birth of his daughter, explained Xonti to Wits Vuvuzela after his performance. Newness is a beautifully crafted prelude of the album with a significant irregular beat in the bridge, that represent the vicissitudes of life his daughter will experience and overcome. Xonti explained that Ugaba is part of his clan’s name, therefore, the project also pays tribute to his family for walking beside him in his life journey.
The seventh track, TheCall is a smooth composition with soft vocals performed by Keorapetse Kolwane. The song has a catchy melodious chorus that got the audience harmonizing and clapping their hands along with the rhythm. Other songs, like Nomalungelo and Sinivile had the audience up, dancing and singing along due to their upbeat instrumentation.
Tebogo Mohwaduba, one of the event attendees, said that an annual attendee of the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Festival, Xonti came onto her radar as one of the supported artists in 2020. She said, he is a music scholar, and that academic aspect of jazz comes through a lot in his songs, which she appreciates.
DJ Kenzhero, who is the co-founder of Untitled Based and organiser of Xonti’s event, said for the album to be performed at his space, for the first time, was a goal for him, especially because he is a fan of it. “With the shortage of tickets, Xonti’s show was one of the most successful shows we’ve had,” he said.
FEATURED IMAGE: Sisonke Xonti with his band performing the first track of Ugaba: The Migration. Photo: Ayanda Mgwenya
A fantastic performance riddled with anecdotal but relatable scenes, tied together with beautiful music, making it a must watch for theatre lovers.
Wits University School of Arts lecturer, Fiona Ramsay and pianist Tony Bentel perform at the Iyabuya iPOPArt festival to showcase their talents and successful careers with over 35 years in the South African entertainment industry.
The talents of Ramsay and Bentel’s Old and the Beautiful, helped wrap up the festival as the final act on March 30 and 31, 2023, at the Red Roof Theatre in Milpark. The festival had a three month run from January 2023, with performances from a range of artists at various venues.
Wits School of Arts lecturer, Fiona Ramsay and pianist Tony Bentel smiling and posing for the camera on stage with a spotlight lighting up their faces before their Old and Beautiful performance at the AFDA Red Roof Theatre in Milpark during the Iyabuya Festival on March 31, 2023. Photo: Georgia Cartwright
The show opened with a spotlight centered on Ramsay surrounded by props of head statues bejeweled with fancy gems indicating wealth, with Bentel playing an upbeat tune. The pair then moved quickly into the next scene with jokes about how covid-19 gave people the ability to hide their identities because of the thousands of masks that were purchased, a joke received with loud, unmasked guffaws.
Ramsay and Bentel put on a show filled with humorous anecdotes related to the covid-19 pandemic, unemployment, loadshedding, gender inequality, and the unavoidable fact of getting old. The dynamic duo made reference to the well-known works of Marianne Faithfull and singing “Maybe this time” in their reenactment of the Broadway show Cabaret.
Each scene in the performance draws upon different issues people face in South Africa while adding a witty twist to create the ultimate form of escapism. The show begins with, “Who doesn’t want to be rich,” a song about struggles artists face when looking for work and the reality of unemployment in the arts industry. The stage props help set each scene with props of clown noses worn by Ramsay and Bentel to indicate that the real jokes are themselves for believing they could have successful careers in the arts but that their optimism, along with a little dope, helps them cope.
While the show deals with dull, often depressing topics, it also manages to make light of these issues through a satirical lens. When asked for their thoughts by Wits Vuvuzela, one audience member called it, “depressingly humorous”. Ramsay brings unique characters to life, such as Denise from an old age home in Welkom, who is staring “death” in the face while reliving her memories. The soundtrack to this is a mix of dramatic and calm classical music played by Bentel, which perfectly scores the emotional scenes as they unfold.
The stage is set with props and rugs from Bentel’s lounge, the stage of the pair’s first performance together eight years ago. Ramsay describes their act as a “satirical look on the madness of life,” and says that “if you don’t laugh, you get too stiff and serious but if you laugh, you are able to escape a little and move forward.”
The lighting changes for each scene and seems to reflect the emotions felt in every act – blue for the sadness and loneliness felt when getting old and red for the frustration brought on by loadshedding and potholes. Each scene tells a story of its own while adding the razzle dazzle qualities associated with theatre, a truly spectacular experience.
When asking the event organiser, Hayleigh Evans said the show exceeded her expectations, and going forward she hopes, “[Having] a live and consistent, permanent program where performers can thrive”, will bring people together.
Ramsay and Bentel are currently both working on projects of their own but plan on having many more magical performances together in the future.
FEATURED IMAGE: Wits School of Arts lecturer Fiona Ramsay singing during her performance of the Old and Beautiful at AFDA’s Red Roof Theatre in Milpark during the Iyabuya Festival on March 31. Photo: Georgia Cartwright
This collection of music reveals the artist’s vast creativity and his diverse use of traditional African music, making it a must have for ‘Jazzheads’.(more…)
In episode six of We Should Be Writing season 7, the team unpacked the evolution of music as a form of expression and protest, through four decades in the South African context. The episode explores the journey of South African music and its consumers from the 80s, 90s, early 2000s and contemporary listeners. From the […]
