RU DRAMA DEPARTMENT AT 10TH Drama for Life International Conference and Festival
A number of students and staff from the Drama Department will participate in the 10th Drama for Life International Conference and Festival which runs from 28 November to 8 December, 2018 at Wits University. The conference and festival seeks to map developments and innovations in applied arts, in terms of the overall theme of “Transforming Arts / Transforming Lives”. Some of the concerns of the festival include investigating ways in which arts can move us from binary positions to ones which are more fluid; how we can shift from in-action to action, from anti-social to pro-social, and, ultimately, from oppression to liberation. Themes that will be addressed at the festival include building a human rights culture through arts activism as well as sexual health and wellbeing thought Arts Education. Toward this end, the department will participate with various panels, paper presentations, workshops as well as performances.
PAPERS PRESENTED BY STUDENTS AND STAFF:
The mirror between my legs: Subverting menstruation Taboo using Playback Theatre
(Mmatumisang Motsisi, MA student, Directing and Applied Theatre)
Confronting the ‘normal’ in ‘communal’ spaces: The case of Invisible Theatre,
(Manoko Tlhako, Drama 3 student and Ms Selloane Mokuku, course coordinator)
“All Wounds Speak” – Performing Trauma / Witnessing Trauma
(Prof Anton Krueger)
WORKSHOPS:
Workshops on mARThematics – an experiential workshop that shares the importance of integrating maths and arts to in a classroom setting. This will be supported by a poster exhibition.
(Ms Selloane Mokuku)
MEQOQO a collective of performer artists collaborate with Mankokosane to co-create a cutting edge production that transgresses various applied theatre forms to employ empathy, ethics and care. The collaboration will start with a closed workshop and culminate in a public untitled performance.
(Mmtumisang Motsisi, Sboniso Thombeni, Manoko Tlhako, Vuyani Mayekiso, Malika Maharaj, Selloane Mokuku, Mammatli Thakhuli-Zunza, Siph’esihle Ndaba, Nompumelelo Kubheka, Uvile Ximba, Noluthando Sibisi, Sebabatso Dimo, Heide Sincuba, Neo Letsoalo)
Cultivating Listening
(Prof Anton Krueger)
In this workshop, Anton will be presenting a range of exercises which could assist in developing a greater capacity for listening in both performers and audience. He’ll be drawing on exercises from the work of Dr Tania Singer who works in Social Neuroscience, as well as Tibetan Lama Akong Rinpoche’s Tara Rokpa Therapy, with reflections on Pauline Oliveros’ “Deep Listening”.
PERFORMANCES:
Seeing Red – Is performed by a “dynamic and impressive all-female-cast” under the direction of Mmatumisang Motsisi. The cast has created the fictional village of Boswa, in which social and cultural taboos associated with the menstrual cycle are explored and disrupted. The play won the Student Theatre award for Best Ensemble at the National Arts Festival 2018. Post the Drama for Life Festival and Conference, it will be performed at the Kuwamba Women’s Festival in Johannesburg. The festival aims to promote works by young female directors and writers.
MEQOQO – An improvised performance in which the conductor facilitates the sharing of stories generated from the audience.
The conference and festival attendance is made possible by the generous moral and financial support of the Rhodes Research Office. The department’s head Dr Heike Gehring will attend a few days of the conference and festival.
For further information please contact
Katlego Gabasheane Selloane ‘Lalu’ Mokuku
046 603 8542 0749967387
k.gabashane@ru.ac.za s.mokuku@ru.ac.za
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