Construction Site - Jabulani Performing Arts Complex in Soweto

Construction Zone:  Jabulani – Soweto’s New Theatre Complex

These aluminum studs are cut-offs from the construction of walls within the theatre complex. The complex is due to open soon.

Since these images are of the theatre venues, offices and shops still under construction, it makes sense to apply a little imagination to see the full impact of the spaces. The photos were taken with only existing light,and  are somewhat artistic in and of themselves.


Here’s a link http://www.inkanyeli.co.za/index.html to the website where you can see the artist’s original image of what the complex will look like. The order of the colours has changed, but the cubic collection is prominent and exciting to see on the landscape.

Looking from the West at the side of the Theatre. You can see each theatre space seems to have its own cube.

     Theatre consultant Denis Hutchinson invited me to take a look at the new theatre being constructed in the Jabulani area of Soweto, Johannesburg. As Theatre Consultant, he worked with the architects to get the most valuable theatre environment for the community, audience, actor and technicians. The new theatre has three performing arts venues seating 420, 180 and 90 people respectively.

     The theatre is a forward-looking reaction to the 2010 Soccer World Cup, promoting a lasting legacy for South Africans. One goal is to evolve Soweto from a bedroom community into a normalized city on its own merits. Executive Mayor, Amos Masondo said that the theatre would not just provide jobs during the construction phase but also provide on-going employment for cast and crew members such as actors, musicians, dancers, directors and singers. It is designated as a World Class Theatre Venue.

 

The Jabulani Theatre under construction in July, 2010. This is a view looking nearly East. This side is going to have the large words “Jabulani Theatre” on it.



This view from the audience seating level on the main floor is an interesting composition of curved and diagonal lines. You can see the proscenium arch walkway above on the right.



The complex features a 420-seater main proscenium venue fully fitted with wings, orchestra pit, fly tower and buttress.

The proscenium opening shows the curved pit fitted in steel, and the scaffolding in place to work the rigging points for the fly system.



This tall view of the proscenium theatre from the backstage door looking stage right shows the temporary plywood surface covering the steel girders in place for the soon - to - arrive stage floor.



What is really interesting is the view from the very top of the proscenium arch. This is going to be a hallway. This view of the consultant discussing the location of the ceiling is from on top of the proscenium arch looking toward the audience seating.



This view of the proscenium venue is from the back of the balcony. Soon there will be carpeting, seats, and aisle lights.



This view from the audience seating level on the main floor is an interesting composition of curved and diagonal lines. You can see the proscenium arch walkway above on the right.



The complex also includes two smaller "black box" venues of 180 and 90 seats, respectively.

This is what the black box looked like a few days ago. Work lights and ceiling are in. Image is supplied by Denis Hutchinson, the Theatre Consultant.



This is the smaller of the two black box theatres. The catwalk system and surrounding balcony are similar in both theatres.

The footprints are a reminder for me to add that other amenities, such as bathrooms, offices, food preparation areas, library and workrooms are also being built. We traveled across some very dusty and very new surfaces to find the costume shop, wardrobe, make-up rooms, offices and loading doors to the scene shop and storage areas.



This work-dusty stairwell will lead from the second floor proscenium arch area down to the hallways leading to the main foyer.



The plasterers are masters at throwing “mud” on vertical surfaces. The curved walls of the foyer blend into the hallways upstairs.



As with all construction sites, entrepreneurs find a shady spot to set up food service.



Through the construction scaffolding of the theatre complex you can see the famous Jabulani Amphitheatre where in 1985 Zindzi Mandela read her father’s letter to President P. W. Botha regarding the ”… preconditions for his release and the ultimate negotiations with the ANC.”  (Kgolane,  Alfred Rudolph. Celebrating and Commemorating Twenty-Years of the Harare Declaration. Web accessed 10/9/2011. http://www.sahistory.org.za/articles/harare-declaration ).

And so you see that even with the creation of a new entertainment complex progress in South Africa mingles with history as well as makes history in its own right.

New Theatre Being Built!

A new theatre is being built in Soweto, a township of Johannesburg South Africa, and I got the cook's tour. I'll provide more photos in a later post.

Grahamstown National Arts Festival

I had the honor of being the guardian for one of the two University of Pretoria productions performing in the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. This entailed helping to drive a 10 seat van with a trailer full of luggage on a journey of about 12 hours. Since there was no scenery, the costumes and the props rode in the van with us. There were so many different kinds of theatre going on at the Festival that it was difficult to choose which ones to watch. Eventually I learned to rely on The Cue – the daily newspaper. U.P’s production of As Night Falls was awarded an Ovation Award and featured on the front page of the Cue!

The long road to Grahamstown, South Africa featured potholes with giraffes's head sticking up out of them. This is a common occurrence, according to South Africans.

One of my Fulbright goals was to experience all of the different kind of theatre I could from Physical theatre to regular drama, with mime and puppet work in between and a little bit of dance, music and singing thrown in. There were more than 3,000 events to choose from in a period of 10 days. Some of these events were international in scope, like the Sky Like Sky production produced by recent Fulbrighter, Emily Mendelsohn with her actors from Rwanda.

Since everyone had to travel from their home institutions, productions had very limited scenery and so the only events that had anything of great scenery spectacle were the Rhodes theatre productions because they were in their own theatre. Lighting for most of the productions was flat and unimaginative because the venues had basic plighting plots and nearly zero time to add specials. I should say that they often had nearly half of a basic lighting plot. In fact most venues were lucky to have 2 or 3 booms or side lighting pipes with three or four instruments and four front lights and four back lights. Lighting designers did their level best with these limitations, and some made it work and some did not. It really depended upon how bendable the choreographers or directors were, to move their actors into the available light.

In this rehearsal photo of As Night Falls, you can see the basic lighting rig. The venues were not always meant to be theatres. This a venue was a school auditorium with a small proscenium stage. To use it for the festival the stage was ignored, a full black curtain was hung in front of its proscenium to become the background and rented bleachers were brough in and placed in the middle of the auditorium floor. Essentially the venue was redone to accomodate the Festival's needs.

In the end, much of the theatre I saw was physical in a way that increased the storytelling aspects of every production. It is subtle, but the University of Pretoria students could quickly point out troupes that had had no physical theatre training. It showed in their incomplete or clumsy movements. Perhaps this is one great reason why they won their award. Below are pictures! As you can see, their lighting designer Bailey Snyman and choregographer Nicky Haskins managed very well including clear use of warm and cool tones for different moments.


Nicky Haskins is an award-winning Choregorapher. Not only did she direct the University of Pretoria students in As Night Falls, she performed, along with Bailey Snyman and others, another strong piece at the festival called Anatomy of Weather. Behind her you can see the rented bleachers with their metal railings and plastic seats. All of the windows are hung with blackout curtains.



Many of the Festival's dance pieces used LED headlamps in their dances, and As Night Falls was no exception. They used the lamps to indicate a pathway for a journey, an owl, and emotional chaos in different scenes. In this scene the actors are lying on the ground, shining the lamps at each other's faces.

The actors also used LED camping lanterns and silver grey folding chairs.

The main focus in the dance was on the woman in white. She represented Helen Martins, South Africa's foremost Outsider Artist.

 A fair explanation of Helen Martins' unusual work and bizarre history can be found at http://africanhistory.about.com/od/biography/p/OwlHouse.htm   Nicky Haskins is not the only one to use Helen's unusual life as a source of inspiration. Athol Fugard's Road to Mecca does a wonderful job of capturing the Outsider spirit as well.

The actor playing Helen is physically very strong, and not only exhibited total trust and relaxation when being lifted and dragged about in a manner to relate the abuse Helen faced, but also managed a few good lifts of others as well.



The real Helen had her toes amputated as a result of poor footwear, and also hired a man of colour to help her make her camel garden and other glass-imbedded cement sculptures. She was shunned by society because of her relationship with this man and also shunned for her crazy artwork which she exhibited once a year by allowing the public into her studio/home. 



The company of dancers in As Night Falls wore black with attention to a 1960's coctail dress style or black trousers and shirts for the men. The period flavour grabbed your attention because it was both formal and funereal. In the picture above you can see an actor wearing a mask, a feathered headpiece, and gesturing her fingers in a feather-like spread.



In this scene the actors are taunting  Helen.

They capture her, and forcer her to wear this cage skirt which to me represented a final attempt at being normal.

A social scene - a party - shows Helen cannot manage with other people, and ends in two ugly rapes.

In the end, Helen takes her own life. In this scene, her employee/lover find her and is in anguish, dancing a fantastic solo.

The movement in this piece was really difficult to capture on film. I am adamant about not using flah and really tried to capture the darkness of the piece. I hope that through these photos you can see why As Night Falls received an Ovation Award.

"Sexcetera" with NYU, Sibikwa Arts Center and Wits Drama Department

Sexcetera – an exploration of space between audience and performer, the right to choose, obsession, fetish, voyeurism, and sequence.

I used Google Sketchup 8 to create this map of the locations for our site specific performances.

Sexcetera was devised by Phyllis Klotz of the Sibikwa Arts Centre, and designed by Heidi Hoffer who is a Fulbright Scholar currently in residence at University of Pretoria Drama. The cast was made up of students from the New York University in collaboration with The University of the Witwatersrand School of the Arts Drama Department, actors from the Sibikwa Arts Centre and students from the Wits Drama Department.  It was a site specific piece, with the location being a premium space for musicians and artists as well as the production.

The courtyard of the Wits School of the Arts was our location. This is a view from the middle looking down the stairs towards the foot fetish corner in red light.



This view is from the Lovers doorway looking down towards the Enchained piece with performers in white across from the sultry Priced Right performance.

Lovers was performed by Thapelo Kotolo and Thandi Dube. Audience members had to squeeze their way past these two occupied performers to get into the courtyard.

Smoochers in the pathway.

Tree of Love was written and performed by the musicians Eric Namaky, Siyabulela Sifatyi and Esther Maumela.

The musicians performed love songs...what else?

And to greet you and ignore you was an angel wearing a hard hat, because love is a dangerous business. The Angel was performed by Rasta Mokhere.

An Angel to guide us through and keep an eye on things.

When you crossed the metal bridge past the Lovers if you looked down to your left you could get a top view of the dominatrici in their subterranean lair. Succumb was developed and performed by NYU students.


View from above of the Dominatrix duo.

On the left performing while standing in sinks of water was Chris Couperthwaite and Bulelwa Ndaba in Love Lost written by Jessica Annunziata. Audience members viewed them through open windows.

Love Lost written by Jessica Annunziata could be performed backwards and forwards.

Continuing to the opposite end of the courtyard from the entrance, one got a glimpse of young love/lust on a car seat. Don't worry, they didn't really do it. They just expertly gave animated explanations of the sexual feelings and thought that accompanied their date. Oops and Umms was written by Bulelwa Ndaba in collaboration with Denise Mosiana. It was performed by Denise Mosiana and Taemane Mothobi.

Performers in Oops and Umms talk about the awkwardness of love on a car seat.

My Pastor, My Father, My Pilgrim was developed by Ethan Fishbane, Vuyelwa Maluleke, and Masiza Mbali. This performance was achingly surreal in its depiction of religious bindings.

The performers of My Pastor, My Father, My Pilgrim used long lengths of elastic to stretch and snap their ideas.

A site specific performance about sensuality, sex and acceptance is not without its body image artist. Caged was choreographed and performed by Louisa Levy.

The workshop built a "cage" for the actor in Caged to athletically manouver within while checking her reflection in shards of dangling mirrors.

The viewing of Caged brought the audience to the top of the stairs. Just underneath the stairs, lurking like a sensuous troll in a sequinned outfit was the performance of Basadi which was choreographed and performed by Freddie Nkantolo Zwane.

 Freddie Nkantolo Zwane performed near- contortionist moves in his dance of obsession with the curvy lounge chair.

Priced Right was developed and performed by Ashalin Singh and Chanelle Sardinha. This performance was reminiscent of the window displays of prostitutes in Amsterdam. Audience members got a glimpse of the power of money through the safety of a window.

Priced Right performers Ashalin Singh and Chanelle Sardinha exhibit some of what can be done for money.

Opposite the performance above was a unique poetic performance demonstrating need of acceptance and friendship and comany, and how those very things are often harmful.

Enchained was developed and performed by Raezeen Wentworth and Keith Leroyal Smith.

These performers performed circus style nearly - arial manouvers which were not completely arial because these performers were chained to the railing above.

Continuing in this basement level of the courtyard, the audience came acroos a scene of foot fetish. Foot Fetish was performed by Lesego Ngwato and Lucky Tshimbudzi.

What footsore Nurse wouldn't like to have a nice foot rub?

Lipstick was performed by Thokozane Nsibande. This actor sat on a swing, putting on his lipstick while audience membders went past him to the Foot Fetish performance or the Succumb dominatrix scene.



The tallest actor was given the task of using a bit of lipstick and a hand mirror on a swing suspended from the bridge above. He borrowed a swanky ginger coloured wig, some ladie's clothes, and voila! - a masterpiece of cross-dressing innocence.



The final destination on this level was the Succumb performance by NYU Students.

The desire for a normal life was juxtaposed with the desire for a dominatrix life in this performance of Succumb.

To quote the student Assistant Director Chris Couperthwaite in collaboration with the cast,

“The process for Sexcetera was highly personal and very organic. Grappling with the topic of sex is not easy for many people but we broke down the walls that we had built about sex, discovering as much about ourselves as we did this topic. With the direction of Phyllis Klotz we were exposed to a world of fantasy, sensuality and sexuality, working with sexologists, a dominatrix and, some of the cast observing professional strippers. We unanimously agreed upon not merely delivery of the expected but rather a highly thought provoking “sexhibition”, a show that is a creative collaboration of different voices, backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. We have grown together as a cast, exploring paths that we would not have had an opportunity to explore in any other way. It has been an unforgettable process of learning and engaging that will have lasting effects.”

Assistant Designer for the production was Chiara Moliaro. Stage Manager was Busizwe Mtshali. Assistant Stage Manager was Kgomotso Lwazi Mthembu. Crew members were Luke Webster, Darylene Pillay, Tyrel Van der Merwe, Chulekazi Mahlangeni, Karabo Sekgale, Crystal Vittee, Nicolette Spykerman, and Themba Twala.

Piper Band Scottie

The Pretoria Boys Gathering was held at Pretoria Boys High School in Pretoria, Gauteng on Saturday, 11 June 2011. I fell into this event whilst walking about with my friends Richard and Susan. We heard the drums and the pipers of course, and walked into the boy's school to see a huge gathering and competition happening. What fun; great sound, sharp and colorful uniforms, and wonderful vendors of everything under the sun. The pipers were fantastic.


 Not all entertainment is dramatic theatre, but it is full of characters and drama!

The clans were serious about their uniforms to the point that tucked into the stocking of the right leg is a sgian dubh knife.

And the bands performed well, with several judges scrutinizing their every drumstick twirl and bag pipe note. Here are a two of the judges:

 The African Sky Pipe Band below is taking the field of competition.

 And since it was also a gathering, a rasher of characters abounded.

The competitors checked each other out...

whilst a master (Transvaal Scottish) looks on...

 Wonderful afternoon, ne? If anyone knows how to identify the bands according to their plaids, I would love to know that as I have pics of many bands and the drum heads are not always facing to where I can read the names, drop me a comment. Thanks!