Thanksgiving is pretty much as American as it gets, well, aside from the 4th of July, I suppose, and the NFL, and baseball, and McDonalds. Anyway, it is American nevertheless. During college, I often went home for Thanksgiving, booking flights, going home for three days, eating a bunch of food, and returning a few pounds heavier back to Northwestern to buckle down for the exam grind.
But, now I live across the world. In a place that does not know when Thanksgiving is, or what it stands for. Pilgrims and Indians, blah blah blah, we all know the history, but what Thanksgiving really means for me is family. And here I am across an ocean and in a different hemisphere from those I love.
So what to do?
Clearly, do Thanksgiving in Africa.
My friend Sarah, not Sarah the roommate (who now lives in the States, TEARS!), from Frisbee was also excessively keen to make a little slice of America in South Africa, so she called up one of her friends, who happens to live in an absolute MANSION in Durban North, and asked if we could do Thanksgiving at his place. He said yes.
So, Sarah and I got to planning. We bought a turkey, potatoes, butternut, green beans, corn, apples, and shaped a menu. Then on Thursday around 1pm we rocked up at the giant white house with its own personal full time security guard and the giant attack dog that you are not allowed to pet, on the off chance he decides to chow you.
We spread out in the biggest kitchen I have ever had the privilege of cooking in. Massive stove, huge island in the middle, fantastic counter space, drawers filled will all kinds of pots, pans, utensils. There was a servant’s kitchen as well. That was a little awkward.
Sarah, Doug (another Frisbee mate who was generous enough to offer to come and spend the day cooking with us), and I got started. Sarah made turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, and green beans, while I made butternut mash, corn pudding, cranberry Jell-O, and apple crumble for dessert. We were working from 1pm until 6pm. Of course, Doug and I took a break to play Frisbee with a Tupperware lid in the garden, but we mostly worked that whole time.
Winter, the boy whose house we crashed, was lounging around with his other (young) mates all day. Although they did offer to help occasionally, the boys mostly played video games or disappeared into an outside room space and closed the door. It got me thinking, as per usual, a lot about gender roles and about the people I choose to spend my time with. Or maybe just thinking about age and maturity. Around 18 year olds in Durban, I feel like a ballie (an old person).
Around 6pm, the other Prawn Bunnies (Frisbee team) arrived. I had persuaded Sarah to let us invite some of the other Frisbee okes, since I would not know her friends. We were able to make the numbers work, so Mike, Max, Werner and his girlfriend, Fiona, also arrived. The Bunnies had decided to go semi-formal, at my request, because dressing up is fun, and Thanksgiving is special.
Everything was ready, the counter was spread with all our delicious American goodies, and everyone grabbed a plate and piled the food high.
As the boys all sat down to eat, Sarah and I hugged and beamed with pride, we made a real American Thanksgiving happen.
We all sat, and ate and ate. We toasted to Thanksgiving and to friends, and split a few bottles of red wine. Only a few were able to uphold Thanksgiving tradition and eat two or three full plates. But all fell into a Thanksgiving food coma afterward.
Most of the younger boys left the table once they had finished eating, but the Bunnies stayed put, chatting and whatnot. I whispered to Sarah that I wanted to go around the table and have each of us say what we are thankful for. We did. A lot of toasts to good friends, and good food.
I spoke to how happy it made me to spend a holiday about family with people who are becoming my family in South Africa. Apparently, Sarah had pretty much said the same thing earlier (while I was up turning off the TV which was blasting music videos), but the guys told me that I said it better. We all laughed.
After dinner, we played pool, which ended up being an utter disaster. A glass or two of wine, plus a general lack of skill, left me and Werner (and to some degree Max) playing a nearly 45 minute long game. Then, it happened again with a game of doubles.
In between games, we ate apple crumble with vanilla ice cream, an American staple.
Later, we sat on couches and talked, took photos, and otherwise enjoyed each other’s company.
It was a really fantastic day. I went home really really happy and fulfilled.
I am already looking forward to Thanksgiving in South Africa next year.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
come on bunnies, let's get frisky
RockNationals.
South African National (plus some) Ultimate Frisbee Tournament.
October 3-4, 2009.
Johannesburg.
Nearly two months ago, I got a phone call: Hi Robin, this is Neal. From Frisbee? The guys who used to play at 2 o’clock on Sunday? Yeah, so, we are going to Nationals this year. And we need more girls. Are you interested?
UM, YES!
And so (re)began my love affair with the 2pm Frisbee guys. I played with them briefly in May-June, but fell out of it. My 3:30 team was more fun, more social, and I didn’t feel fit enough to really compete with the 2pm guys.
But then I got that fateful phone call. I was in.
I practiced with them a bit in September, but with rehearsals devouring time, and then with my gimp foot, I did not get many practices in.
I almost dropped out. The week before the tournament, I almost said that I could not go. My foot was not feeling better, and I really did not know anyone, so was it going to be any fun? Was I going to be able to play?
But I sucked it up. I went.
Thank goodness.
October 3-4 can now be known as pretty much the best weekend in South Africa that I have had thus far.
This was the first time (I’m pretty sure that is an accurate fact) that Durban has been represented at Nationals. The team was proudly named Prawn Bunny. This is an incomprehensible name to those outside of Durban, so it seems. Bunnies are an Indian dish, kind of like a Panera soup bowl, aka: bread with beans inside, that are quite common in Durban, what with our Indian population. A prawn bunny, has prawns (crayfish) in addition to beans… I think. I claim ignorance through vegetarianism.
There were eight teams competing. 6 from SA, one from Swaziland, and one from Mozambique. There were two brackets, of four teams each. We each played three games on the Saturday, and depending on scores there, we proceeded on Sunday into semifinals and whatnot.
On Saturday, Prawn Bunny came together for the first time. We met our teammates. Many of the guys are regular Bunnies, but most of us girls were recruited specifically for the tournament. So it was a matter of, Hi, what’s your name?/Here’s the disc!
For meeting each other 30 minutes previous, we played our first game rather well. We started to get a sense of each other and to learn how to support each other on the field. On the sidelines, we started cheering for each other, calling out tips, and otherwise hollering for our teammates.
As a half thought, I threw some stickers into my bag before leaving Durban. Stickers that read such phrases like “Good job!” “Bright student” and “Terrific!” After our first game, I gave stickers to each player on the opposite team.
What I did not know, was that after each game both teams vote for MVP, best defense, best layout, best spirit, for the other team. When the paper came to us, I saw that I was down for Most Spirit. In that moment, I decided that since I could not play to my fullest (gimp foot), I could at least be the most spirited person on the field (read: loudest, and potentially most obnoxious in a positive way). Also up for grabs in the tournament was the coveted “All-Around” Best Team award, a large component of which was judged by spirit. So, it was time for the Bunnies to get pumped.
Between games, we wrote a cheer, to the tune of “Barbie Girl.” I’m a bunny prawn, from Durban by the sea, it’s fantastic, we play with plastic, we throw it in the air, and catch it everywhere, we love the plastic, its prawn-tastic. Come on Bunnies, let’s get discy. Come on Bunnies, let’s get frisky.
We lost all three games on Saturday. But we cheered a lot. A lot a lot.
The new, classic, and wonderful film, “Fired Up” provided us with ample cheers as well. We are running, we we are running. We are awesome, we we are awesome. We are losing, again we are losing! To name a few.
Saturday night was a big party/celebration. The Bunnies rocked the dance floor with our stylish moves and grooves.
When the Zebru (an opposing team) lifted one of their girls into the air to do a pull up on the truss in the ceiling, my team lifted me and I did 15 (which is to say, that I was hoisted up into the air, and basically did nothing while the guys below lifted). We upped the ante on the dance floor. The only thing we did not try to best, was Wendy (renowned for her streaking), when she stripped naked, placed a Frisbee between her butt cheeks and was carried horizontally by her team mates across the dance floor: she was a Frisbee shark.
Speaking of nudity, later that night, a game of Ultimate was played. Drunken. Naked. Ultimate. We stood on the sidelines and watched (and laughed) as our naked friends ran around in the chilly Jo-burg air. The game was broken up soon after the people attending the corporate event, also taking place at the country club where our party was, came out to observe the madness. I think they may have enjoyed the game more than we did.
The following morning, we had a game at 8:30am. Thankfully the Prawn Bunnies stayed sober the previous night, but the Zebru, our opponents did not. Nursing major hangovers, they took the field. It was a close game, but the Bunnies emerged victorious! For the first time! I gave everyone stickers.
We won our second game of the day as well.
From completely defeated, we were finally victorious.
The final was played between the Long Donkeys from Pietermaritzburg and Chili from Cape Town. Clearly the Bunnies cheered for the Donkeys, since they are from KZN, our province.
In the middle of the game, a kind of cheer-off occurred between the Bunnies and Zebru. We were seated on opposite sides of the field, and could easily taunt each other. But, we noticed, one of our Bunnies was not sitting with us. Rather, he was with the Zebru! Crisis.
Our captain, Paul, who we called Captain Spandex, because of his stretchy spandex pants, started cheering: When I say Neal, you say Whore! Neal! Whore! Neal Whore! (Neal has lived all over and has played with most of the teams at Nationals).
Finally fed up (in a funny way), we decided to cross the field to demand that Neal stop being a Frisbee Slut (excuse the language). Now, before this story continues, you must know that as a gift for attending Nationals, we were all given a small cooler. A squishy fabric one, black on the outside, shiny on the inside, which can hold between 2-4 soda cans. Werner, the grumpy bunny (if we were the seven dwarves, he would be grumpy, but he is hilarious and we love him), turned his cooler inside out, and put it on his head like a hat. We gave him a jacket as a cape, and lifted him into the air. Armed with a vuvusela, our Prawn King (as we now were calling Werner) led us around the field to the Zebrus and Neal. We chanted: One! We are the Bunnies! Two! A little bit louder! Three! I still can’t hear you! Four! More more more! (or alternately, Four! Neal is a whore!)
We arrived at the Zebru stands and demanded Neal join us. He didn’t. We all laughed profusely. It was good fun.
By this time, the Chilis had beaten the Long Donkeys, and the weekend was coming to a close. After the tequila run (which I opted out of, claiming gimp leg, although I did partake in a shot of tequila later), prizes were to be given.
In preparation, and because we were fairly sure we were going to win the spirit award, the Bunnies wrote a new cheer, and we all turned our coolers inside out and put them on our heads.
Then, of course, since we had them on our heads, everything that people won as prizes they had to put on their heads. Which was quite amusing.
Prizes were passed out for best MVP, male and female, best defense, best layout, etc. Then it was time for the Most Spirited Player award. The prize givers said that it was usually very easy to give out this award, but that this year it was a real contest. Finally, they said, the award must go to the newcomer, upsetting the defending spirit champion, and go to Robin of the Prawn Bunnies!
Hilarious.
I hopped and hobbled up, receiving my prize of two candlesticks, so as not to let the flame of spirit die, to the cheers of my teammates.
After the Chilis were awarded their prize for reclaiming their championship title, it was time for the coveted all around award.
The award was going to go to a team, who was unstoppable in their cheers, who really rocked the party, and who improved enormously on the field: The Prawn Bunnies!
We hopped up, bunny ears turning slightly red with embarrassment. We sang our song, to the tune of We Are the Champions: We really thank you for playing, and we will be back next year, we are the bunnies, we are the bunnies, thank you for playing, and we are the bunnies, from KwaZulu!
Just minutes after, we all were saying goodbye, and piling into cars for the long, unnecessarily long, drive home from Jo-burg.
A mere 60 some hours after I left Durban, I was back again. It was a short and fleeting weekend, but overwhelmingly joyous, full of positive energy, and a real sense of community.
You know it was a good time when everyone changes their facebook statuses to reflect the tournament and their love for the Prawn Bunnies.
PBF.
Prawn Bunnies Forever.
South African National (plus some) Ultimate Frisbee Tournament.
October 3-4, 2009.
Johannesburg.
Nearly two months ago, I got a phone call: Hi Robin, this is Neal. From Frisbee? The guys who used to play at 2 o’clock on Sunday? Yeah, so, we are going to Nationals this year. And we need more girls. Are you interested?
UM, YES!
And so (re)began my love affair with the 2pm Frisbee guys. I played with them briefly in May-June, but fell out of it. My 3:30 team was more fun, more social, and I didn’t feel fit enough to really compete with the 2pm guys.
But then I got that fateful phone call. I was in.
I practiced with them a bit in September, but with rehearsals devouring time, and then with my gimp foot, I did not get many practices in.
I almost dropped out. The week before the tournament, I almost said that I could not go. My foot was not feeling better, and I really did not know anyone, so was it going to be any fun? Was I going to be able to play?
But I sucked it up. I went.
Thank goodness.
October 3-4 can now be known as pretty much the best weekend in South Africa that I have had thus far.
This was the first time (I’m pretty sure that is an accurate fact) that Durban has been represented at Nationals. The team was proudly named Prawn Bunny. This is an incomprehensible name to those outside of Durban, so it seems. Bunnies are an Indian dish, kind of like a Panera soup bowl, aka: bread with beans inside, that are quite common in Durban, what with our Indian population. A prawn bunny, has prawns (crayfish) in addition to beans… I think. I claim ignorance through vegetarianism.There were eight teams competing. 6 from SA, one from Swaziland, and one from Mozambique. There were two brackets, of four teams each. We each played three games on the Saturday, and depending on scores there, we proceeded on Sunday into semifinals and whatnot.
On Saturday, Prawn Bunny came together for the first time. We met our teammates. Many of the guys are regular Bunnies, but most of us girls were recruited specifically for the tournament. So it was a matter of, Hi, what’s your name?/Here’s the disc!
For meeting each other 30 minutes previous, we played our first game rather well. We started to get a sense of each other and to learn how to support each other on the field. On the sidelines, we started cheering for each other, calling out tips, and otherwise hollering for our teammates.
As a half thought, I threw some stickers into my bag before leaving Durban. Stickers that read such phrases like “Good job!” “Bright student” and “Terrific!” After our first game, I gave stickers to each player on the opposite team.
What I did not know, was that after each game both teams vote for MVP, best defense, best layout, best spirit, for the other team. When the paper came to us, I saw that I was down for Most Spirit. In that moment, I decided that since I could not play to my fullest (gimp foot), I could at least be the most spirited person on the field (read: loudest, and potentially most obnoxious in a positive way). Also up for grabs in the tournament was the coveted “All-Around” Best Team award, a large component of which was judged by spirit. So, it was time for the Bunnies to get pumped.
Between games, we wrote a cheer, to the tune of “Barbie Girl.” I’m a bunny prawn, from Durban by the sea, it’s fantastic, we play with plastic, we throw it in the air, and catch it everywhere, we love the plastic, its prawn-tastic. Come on Bunnies, let’s get discy. Come on Bunnies, let’s get frisky.
We lost all three games on Saturday. But we cheered a lot. A lot a lot.
The new, classic, and wonderful film, “Fired Up” provided us with ample cheers as well. We are running, we we are running. We are awesome, we we are awesome. We are losing, again we are losing! To name a few.
Saturday night was a big party/celebration. The Bunnies rocked the dance floor with our stylish moves and grooves.
When the Zebru (an opposing team) lifted one of their girls into the air to do a pull up on the truss in the ceiling, my team lifted me and I did 15 (which is to say, that I was hoisted up into the air, and basically did nothing while the guys below lifted). We upped the ante on the dance floor. The only thing we did not try to best, was Wendy (renowned for her streaking), when she stripped naked, placed a Frisbee between her butt cheeks and was carried horizontally by her team mates across the dance floor: she was a Frisbee shark.
Speaking of nudity, later that night, a game of Ultimate was played. Drunken. Naked. Ultimate. We stood on the sidelines and watched (and laughed) as our naked friends ran around in the chilly Jo-burg air. The game was broken up soon after the people attending the corporate event, also taking place at the country club where our party was, came out to observe the madness. I think they may have enjoyed the game more than we did.
The following morning, we had a game at 8:30am. Thankfully the Prawn Bunnies stayed sober the previous night, but the Zebru, our opponents did not. Nursing major hangovers, they took the field. It was a close game, but the Bunnies emerged victorious! For the first time! I gave everyone stickers.
We won our second game of the day as well.
From completely defeated, we were finally victorious.
The final was played between the Long Donkeys from Pietermaritzburg and Chili from Cape Town. Clearly the Bunnies cheered for the Donkeys, since they are from KZN, our province.
In the middle of the game, a kind of cheer-off occurred between the Bunnies and Zebru. We were seated on opposite sides of the field, and could easily taunt each other. But, we noticed, one of our Bunnies was not sitting with us. Rather, he was with the Zebru! Crisis.
Our captain, Paul, who we called Captain Spandex, because of his stretchy spandex pants, started cheering: When I say Neal, you say Whore! Neal! Whore! Neal Whore! (Neal has lived all over and has played with most of the teams at Nationals).
Finally fed up (in a funny way), we decided to cross the field to demand that Neal stop being a Frisbee Slut (excuse the language). Now, before this story continues, you must know that as a gift for attending Nationals, we were all given a small cooler. A squishy fabric one, black on the outside, shiny on the inside, which can hold between 2-4 soda cans. Werner, the grumpy bunny (if we were the seven dwarves, he would be grumpy, but he is hilarious and we love him), turned his cooler inside out, and put it on his head like a hat. We gave him a jacket as a cape, and lifted him into the air. Armed with a vuvusela, our Prawn King (as we now were calling Werner) led us around the field to the Zebrus and Neal. We chanted: One! We are the Bunnies! Two! A little bit louder! Three! I still can’t hear you! Four! More more more! (or alternately, Four! Neal is a whore!)
We arrived at the Zebru stands and demanded Neal join us. He didn’t. We all laughed profusely. It was good fun.
By this time, the Chilis had beaten the Long Donkeys, and the weekend was coming to a close. After the tequila run (which I opted out of, claiming gimp leg, although I did partake in a shot of tequila later), prizes were to be given.
In preparation, and because we were fairly sure we were going to win the spirit award, the Bunnies wrote a new cheer, and we all turned our coolers inside out and put them on our heads.
Then, of course, since we had them on our heads, everything that people won as prizes they had to put on their heads. Which was quite amusing.Prizes were passed out for best MVP, male and female, best defense, best layout, etc. Then it was time for the Most Spirited Player award. The prize givers said that it was usually very easy to give out this award, but that this year it was a real contest. Finally, they said, the award must go to the newcomer, upsetting the defending spirit champion, and go to Robin of the Prawn Bunnies!
Hilarious.
I hopped and hobbled up, receiving my prize of two candlesticks, so as not to let the flame of spirit die, to the cheers of my teammates.
After the Chilis were awarded their prize for reclaiming their championship title, it was time for the coveted all around award.
The award was going to go to a team, who was unstoppable in their cheers, who really rocked the party, and who improved enormously on the field: The Prawn Bunnies!
We hopped up, bunny ears turning slightly red with embarrassment. We sang our song, to the tune of We Are the Champions: We really thank you for playing, and we will be back next year, we are the bunnies, we are the bunnies, thank you for playing, and we are the bunnies, from KwaZulu!
Just minutes after, we all were saying goodbye, and piling into cars for the long, unnecessarily long, drive home from Jo-burg.
A mere 60 some hours after I left Durban, I was back again. It was a short and fleeting weekend, but overwhelmingly joyous, full of positive energy, and a real sense of community.
You know it was a good time when everyone changes their facebook statuses to reflect the tournament and their love for the Prawn Bunnies.PBF.
Prawn Bunnies Forever.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
marmoset perfection
Today in Checkers (the grocery store), I met a man with a pygmy marmoset on his shoulder.
They were buying bread.
This country is really awesome.
They were buying bread.
This country is really awesome.
Monday, September 28, 2009
they call me hop-along
When we left off, preparations were in full swing for the play. Now it is finished. A week has passed. Last week seems so far away. Time jolts forward, and those friendships and relationships are immediately obsolete. No one thought to create a contact list, or to pass around phone numbers. The constant whir of 46 cast members, 7 crew, two directors, and a handful of designers comes to an abrupt silence as spring break hits. It is cold and rainy, the South African version of London, and there are no classes, I don’t have to teach this week. I sit in my pajamas until the sun threatens to set and I read. I have finished two books in 5 days, which is a lot for me.
But I get ahead of myself. The play, FrontLines. Since many of you have asked about it, I will indulge:
The play clocked in at extensive 3 ½ hours. We started at 7:30pm and the show ended just before 11pm. That is long, no matter how you look at it. The question, though, is, was it a captivating 3-½ hours? Most have said yes, it was (however, they would have preferred it to be at least 45 minutes shorter). I am inclined to agree with them. It is hard to maintain energy and focus for that long.
The play had no traditional plot, no characters to follow; instead the play detailed the course of war. There were 12 chapters, that moved from recruiting, to leaving, training, waiting, fighting, doubting, winning and losing, longing, on through suffering, dying, returning, and remembering. In addition, we followed the months of the year, detailing the significant events of each month in our world’s war history. Briefly: January (Tet Offensive), February (Dresden Bombing), March (Mai Lai, Operation Iraqi Freedom), April (Fall of Saigon), May (Gallipoli), June (Soweto, Tiananmen Square), July (Somme, Paschendaele, Srebrenica), August (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Desert Storm), October (Somalia, Cambodia, Afghanistan), November (Armistice Day), December (Nanking Massacre, Christmas Truce). --These, I know, are sometimes overwhelmingly vague titles, Afghanistan? That’s a country, not an event. Also, since 24 chapters are not enough, we had what we called Meditations, on Africa, the Middle East, the Holocaust, and The Soldier. Plus, the opening and closing moments of the play. Total: 31 chapters. You see the difficulty in making a play of any length less than 3 ½ hours.
Yet I hope the show was more than a mere history lesson. Three projectors splashed images onto white drapes to illustrate moments, and bring our telling into reality. But our performance was a collage of letters/monologues, poetry, dance, song, drums, and images.
I did a lot of speaking, and a lot of singing in this play. Oh yes, I sang. For the first time in 6 years, since senior year of high school, I sang in front of an audience.
(I think I stopped singing because it became something that people told me to do, as opposed to something I wanted to do. Robin, sing for us, I’ll play the piano! No, that’s okay, I don’t want to. But you MUST! So, in college I stopped telling people that I could carry a tune, and instead only lived up to my songbird namesake in the comfort and safety of my own apartment (as Aurelia can attest to).)
In FrontLines, I sang in groups, I sang solo. In English mostly. But the solo was in Hebrew. When I forgot my words (or rather, the order of the syllables), which happened frequently during rehearsals, I would make up Hebrew. (The song came after a 30 second quick change, and I had to climb up a rickety ladder onto a shaking platform at least 2 ½ meters in the air, so I think it was reasonable that I was flustered.) Our director said that no one would really know the words except for her and her mother, which was reason enough to get the words right, never mind that our play fell over the Jewish New Year!
I spoke two pieces that I had written: one about the American view of “Africa,” the other about my family and our history in wars. I spoke a conversation that my dad and grandma had through letters while he was training for Nam. I told the story of September 11th, as written by a 22 year old girl from North Carolina, who happened to be in the hotel across from the WTC when the planes hit. This piece was commonly called, “the longest speech in the play,” because it was, and when after closing night, we were all joking around, people called it, “the longest speech in the play that put us to sleep backstage every night.”
With so much to do and remember, we all kept the show running order securely in our camo-pant pockets, with notes upon notes scribbled into the margins. Chapter 4: Waiting, enter SR, run & pose & tableaux, Dad/Gma, exit SL. Chronicle 6: May (Gallipoli) Waltzing Matilda, USR w/ Nhlak. By the end of the run, our papers were weak at the folds and tearing from use upon use.
What always comes from the intense process of rehearsals and performances are some really great friendships. Formed out of necessity, out of the need to make a process more enjoyable, and out of the need for greater meaning. I only knew a handful of the cast before we began, mostly because I had been their tutor! But now I know 46 new people. It is the extension of a community, and that is really exciting.
But with the show done now, the community must change. We go back to our routines. The UKZN kids go back to UKZN. The DUT kids go back to DUT. The divide returns. The spatial divide. It takes 10 minutes to drive between campuses, and much more to walk. Not easily conquerable by the busy or car-less.
So this past week has been strange, slow, and lonely, in comparison to the past month. Of course, this week is like many of my weeks before the play, but now it feels different. I thrive on the busy, hustle bustle of life, jumping from one thing to another. It gives me stress, yes, but sometimes I like that. Now I am adjusting back to having time to cook decadent meals (tonight was a pumpkin and butternut curry with tomatoes, onion, and garlic, seasoned with Indian spices until it had a sharp kick, served with rice—my favorite meal) and read books in bed.
But this week has not been all bore. In fact, it has been incredible.
I should note, however, that one of the reasons I loll in bed so much is my injury. I have, for lack of a better explanation, busted the soft tissue in my right foot, causing great pain when I walk, or otherwise put any pressure on my foot. When did this injury happen? Wednesday. Opening night. I was only able to get an appointment for the physiotherapist on Friday, when I was told what was going on in my foot (how it was swollen by one centimeter, which is a lot for feet, and that the cells were pretty much exploded on themselves). I was taped up like Misty May Treanor at the Olympics, except it was her shoulder, and my foot, and sent on my way with instructions to be good to my feet, stay off them as much as possible, and elevate. I borrowed Sarah’s crutches, and hobbled around Durban. I enjoyed the crutches because they kept me off my foot, or at least walking slowly, and they were a great spectacle.
At Rotary, they now call me hop-along.
It has been nearly two weeks. I went back to the physio after the play, and she noted definite improvement, which is exciting, but it still hurts a hell of a lot sometimes.
Today was the first day I really put my foot to the test. I went to Frisbee. Not the fun mess-around 3:30 team that I usually play with, but the 2pm buff guys who compete nationally. But I kind of had to go, considering that I am competing in the buff guy tournament this coming weekend in Jo’berg. Aka: The South African National Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. After the running of today, I hurt, but I am planning not to walk until Friday, so hopefully I will be able to run on Saturday and Sunday, for 6 games. Yikes. Luckily, there are 18 of us going, for a game that requires 7 a side. So we have an outrageous number of subs, which makes me feel better about sitting out more than I would like. Prawn Bunny! (Good thing Bunnies hop...?)
But, again, I get ahead of myself.
Monday and back to Rotary. September 21st was our club’s visit from our District Governor, Natty Moodley. In Westville tradition, our club performs a play in our DG’s honor. This year, I was conscripted to write the play. I chose, Where the Wild Things Are, a children’s book by Maurice Sendack. Our DG was the main character, Max, and did a brilliant job bouncing around in a wolf mask. The whole thing is unrehearsed. Through narration, I led the entire Rotary club in being forests that grow, oceans that tumble by, and wild things that roar their terrible roars. All in all, everyone made a complete fool of themselves, which was the goal.
Tuesday was a day in bed, reading and reading.
Wednesday held a trip to the Barnyard Theatre and a production of “Dancing Queen,” a musical review of the songs of ABBA and Queen. Otherwise known as entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Nothing memorable. Inviting no critical thinking, in fact, it encouraged the exact opposite, a shutting down of the brain in a wash of belted lyrics on strained voices. This theatre sells out nearly every show. People pack in from all over the province. This is the kind of theatre that thrives in Durban. Crisis.
Thursday was a day that I had been looking forward to for quite some time. Heritage Day, a national holiday. And the Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert. I really lucked out on Computicket, the online ticketing service, and scored Sarah and I front row seats, to the tune of R200 (but it was worth it). The concert was 4 ½ hours long, and showcased 12(?) musical groups from all around Africa. Highlighted in the line up were Ray Phiri, Ladysmith, and Johnny Clegg (who is known here as the White Zulu).
Before the concert, there were a series of music workshops happening at the convention center, I went to the one Ladysmith was hosting. Joseph Shabalala, the founder and leader of Ladysmith, spoke and answered questions. The first question he received was not so much of a question as a request. A woman, from California, had trained nearly 25 young girls (and two boys that looked like girls with their long flowing locks), in “your native music” and had brought them all to South Africa, decked out in beads, to compete in the Soweto Isicathamiyia Festival. She wondered if, maybe, “You could fulfill the girls’ dream of singing with you?” Clearly it was her dream, more than the youth’s. But Joseph said yes, and they sang together. Afterwards, the California girls were invited to perform in the concert that evening… where they sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Really? Seriously? Horrendous. Please choose something not as stereotypical, and not as commercial. But the guys of Ladysmith complied, and sang with the girls. It was an amazing bridge over the world. And I must admit I was a little jealous.
Friday was off to Rugby. A dismal dreary rainy day, like all we have seen recently. The Sharks (our Durban team) won, but it was a game filled with intercepted passes and general lazy playing.
Saturday was bliss. Before coming to SA, I watched various documentaries, one, specifically, on Ladysmith and their style of music, Isicathamiyia. So, when I stumbled upon the 12th Annual Isicathamiyia Festival in Durban, I knew I had to go. An all night competition, starting at 6pm and ending around 9am, I drove off, by myself into the CBD (Central Business District, well known as the place that white people don’t go for fear of muggings, rape, hijackings—Whatever, stop reinstating the culture of fear), to the Playhouse Theatre for the festival.
I arrived at 6pm, and waited in line. Just in front of me was an older white gentleman, the only white guy in sight. We ended up chatting, as white people do, and he invited me to sit with him and his wife. I obliged. Of course, everyone thought I was their daughter. So when they left at 8:30, and I stayed, I was asked, “Why didn’t you leave with your parents?” “I met them today,” was my dry response.
The event kicked off with, what the emcee called, “an a cappella collaboration.” A group of six white college guys entered, and sang in German or Italian or something, barbershop sextet. An Isicathamiyia group entered, shocked by the white boys. Then they sang. Both groups looked at each other, and then mixed up, forming one line. They all sang together. In IsiZulu. And all danced in unison. The audience fell into hysterics. The white boys were doing the Zulu dancing! Later on in the evening, I was having a conversation with one of the staff members at the theatre, and he said that he was so shocked that the white boys could sing the Zulu and do the dance! I thought, but did not say, well, do you think those boys are fluent in German? Of course not, they rehearsed. They practiced. Of course they can sing in Zulu.
Each of the 147 groups competing at the festival had 5 minutes to perform. The groups traveled from all over KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, some for hours and hours, just to be onstage for these 5 minutes. Each group had its own costumes, but all wore suits, shiny shoes, and white gloves. One man stands forward as the leader of the group; he is expressive and vibrant. The chorus stands behind, executing specifically choreographed moves, until the climax of the song, when everyone breaks into unison Zulu dancing—my favorite part.
I only made it through 9 hours, by which time I was falling asleep in my chair. During this time, I saw between 50 and 60 Isicathamiyia groups, and 30 women and 30 men compete in a fashion show competition. The men and women strutted around stage, while the audience leapt into the air, cheering, and yelling for phone numbers from the women.
I went alone to the festival, but around 11pm, some of my dear friends from FrontLines arrived, and we hugged profusely. I ended up sitting with them in the front row, and we commented on the music and whooped and hollered when we were thoroughly impressed.
I slept until noon on Sunday. Then I played Frisbee.
All in all, a good, but lazy week.
And so, this is my time in Durban. In one week, I can see outrageously commercial theatre, a rugby match, music from all around Africa, and a cultural festival of 15 hours duration. This week, it is back to school, back to teaching. And on Friday, it is off to Johannesburg for the Frisbee competition.
And so, it seems fitting that I officially announce to you, the cyber-world, my intention to stay in Durban next year. You may recall a job application in Chicago; that did not come through, but I am actually really glad that it didn’t. I am not done in Durban yet. There is so much I have not seen, have not done, in this part of the world, and I need more time to explore, to experience.
So, I will be back for Christmas, and will make the obligatory and heart-filling rounds in North Carolina and Chicago. Clear your calendars. And then sometime in January, I will fly on back to the middle of the hot humid Southern summer.
But I get ahead of myself. The play, FrontLines. Since many of you have asked about it, I will indulge:
The play clocked in at extensive 3 ½ hours. We started at 7:30pm and the show ended just before 11pm. That is long, no matter how you look at it. The question, though, is, was it a captivating 3-½ hours? Most have said yes, it was (however, they would have preferred it to be at least 45 minutes shorter). I am inclined to agree with them. It is hard to maintain energy and focus for that long.
The play had no traditional plot, no characters to follow; instead the play detailed the course of war. There were 12 chapters, that moved from recruiting, to leaving, training, waiting, fighting, doubting, winning and losing, longing, on through suffering, dying, returning, and remembering. In addition, we followed the months of the year, detailing the significant events of each month in our world’s war history. Briefly: January (Tet Offensive), February (Dresden Bombing), March (Mai Lai, Operation Iraqi Freedom), April (Fall of Saigon), May (Gallipoli), June (Soweto, Tiananmen Square), July (Somme, Paschendaele, Srebrenica), August (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Desert Storm), October (Somalia, Cambodia, Afghanistan), November (Armistice Day), December (Nanking Massacre, Christmas Truce). --These, I know, are sometimes overwhelmingly vague titles, Afghanistan? That’s a country, not an event. Also, since 24 chapters are not enough, we had what we called Meditations, on Africa, the Middle East, the Holocaust, and The Soldier. Plus, the opening and closing moments of the play. Total: 31 chapters. You see the difficulty in making a play of any length less than 3 ½ hours.
Yet I hope the show was more than a mere history lesson. Three projectors splashed images onto white drapes to illustrate moments, and bring our telling into reality. But our performance was a collage of letters/monologues, poetry, dance, song, drums, and images.I did a lot of speaking, and a lot of singing in this play. Oh yes, I sang. For the first time in 6 years, since senior year of high school, I sang in front of an audience.
(I think I stopped singing because it became something that people told me to do, as opposed to something I wanted to do. Robin, sing for us, I’ll play the piano! No, that’s okay, I don’t want to. But you MUST! So, in college I stopped telling people that I could carry a tune, and instead only lived up to my songbird namesake in the comfort and safety of my own apartment (as Aurelia can attest to).)
In FrontLines, I sang in groups, I sang solo. In English mostly. But the solo was in Hebrew. When I forgot my words (or rather, the order of the syllables), which happened frequently during rehearsals, I would make up Hebrew. (The song came after a 30 second quick change, and I had to climb up a rickety ladder onto a shaking platform at least 2 ½ meters in the air, so I think it was reasonable that I was flustered.) Our director said that no one would really know the words except for her and her mother, which was reason enough to get the words right, never mind that our play fell over the Jewish New Year!
I spoke two pieces that I had written: one about the American view of “Africa,” the other about my family and our history in wars. I spoke a conversation that my dad and grandma had through letters while he was training for Nam. I told the story of September 11th, as written by a 22 year old girl from North Carolina, who happened to be in the hotel across from the WTC when the planes hit. This piece was commonly called, “the longest speech in the play,” because it was, and when after closing night, we were all joking around, people called it, “the longest speech in the play that put us to sleep backstage every night.”
With so much to do and remember, we all kept the show running order securely in our camo-pant pockets, with notes upon notes scribbled into the margins. Chapter 4: Waiting, enter SR, run & pose & tableaux, Dad/Gma, exit SL. Chronicle 6: May (Gallipoli) Waltzing Matilda, USR w/ Nhlak. By the end of the run, our papers were weak at the folds and tearing from use upon use.
What always comes from the intense process of rehearsals and performances are some really great friendships. Formed out of necessity, out of the need to make a process more enjoyable, and out of the need for greater meaning. I only knew a handful of the cast before we began, mostly because I had been their tutor! But now I know 46 new people. It is the extension of a community, and that is really exciting.
But with the show done now, the community must change. We go back to our routines. The UKZN kids go back to UKZN. The DUT kids go back to DUT. The divide returns. The spatial divide. It takes 10 minutes to drive between campuses, and much more to walk. Not easily conquerable by the busy or car-less.
So this past week has been strange, slow, and lonely, in comparison to the past month. Of course, this week is like many of my weeks before the play, but now it feels different. I thrive on the busy, hustle bustle of life, jumping from one thing to another. It gives me stress, yes, but sometimes I like that. Now I am adjusting back to having time to cook decadent meals (tonight was a pumpkin and butternut curry with tomatoes, onion, and garlic, seasoned with Indian spices until it had a sharp kick, served with rice—my favorite meal) and read books in bed.
But this week has not been all bore. In fact, it has been incredible.
I should note, however, that one of the reasons I loll in bed so much is my injury. I have, for lack of a better explanation, busted the soft tissue in my right foot, causing great pain when I walk, or otherwise put any pressure on my foot. When did this injury happen? Wednesday. Opening night. I was only able to get an appointment for the physiotherapist on Friday, when I was told what was going on in my foot (how it was swollen by one centimeter, which is a lot for feet, and that the cells were pretty much exploded on themselves). I was taped up like Misty May Treanor at the Olympics, except it was her shoulder, and my foot, and sent on my way with instructions to be good to my feet, stay off them as much as possible, and elevate. I borrowed Sarah’s crutches, and hobbled around Durban. I enjoyed the crutches because they kept me off my foot, or at least walking slowly, and they were a great spectacle.
At Rotary, they now call me hop-along.
It has been nearly two weeks. I went back to the physio after the play, and she noted definite improvement, which is exciting, but it still hurts a hell of a lot sometimes.
Today was the first day I really put my foot to the test. I went to Frisbee. Not the fun mess-around 3:30 team that I usually play with, but the 2pm buff guys who compete nationally. But I kind of had to go, considering that I am competing in the buff guy tournament this coming weekend in Jo’berg. Aka: The South African National Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. After the running of today, I hurt, but I am planning not to walk until Friday, so hopefully I will be able to run on Saturday and Sunday, for 6 games. Yikes. Luckily, there are 18 of us going, for a game that requires 7 a side. So we have an outrageous number of subs, which makes me feel better about sitting out more than I would like. Prawn Bunny! (Good thing Bunnies hop...?)
But, again, I get ahead of myself.
Monday and back to Rotary. September 21st was our club’s visit from our District Governor, Natty Moodley. In Westville tradition, our club performs a play in our DG’s honor. This year, I was conscripted to write the play. I chose, Where the Wild Things Are, a children’s book by Maurice Sendack. Our DG was the main character, Max, and did a brilliant job bouncing around in a wolf mask. The whole thing is unrehearsed. Through narration, I led the entire Rotary club in being forests that grow, oceans that tumble by, and wild things that roar their terrible roars. All in all, everyone made a complete fool of themselves, which was the goal.
Tuesday was a day in bed, reading and reading.
Wednesday held a trip to the Barnyard Theatre and a production of “Dancing Queen,” a musical review of the songs of ABBA and Queen. Otherwise known as entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Nothing memorable. Inviting no critical thinking, in fact, it encouraged the exact opposite, a shutting down of the brain in a wash of belted lyrics on strained voices. This theatre sells out nearly every show. People pack in from all over the province. This is the kind of theatre that thrives in Durban. Crisis.
Thursday was a day that I had been looking forward to for quite some time. Heritage Day, a national holiday. And the Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert. I really lucked out on Computicket, the online ticketing service, and scored Sarah and I front row seats, to the tune of R200 (but it was worth it). The concert was 4 ½ hours long, and showcased 12(?) musical groups from all around Africa. Highlighted in the line up were Ray Phiri, Ladysmith, and Johnny Clegg (who is known here as the White Zulu).
Before the concert, there were a series of music workshops happening at the convention center, I went to the one Ladysmith was hosting. Joseph Shabalala, the founder and leader of Ladysmith, spoke and answered questions. The first question he received was not so much of a question as a request. A woman, from California, had trained nearly 25 young girls (and two boys that looked like girls with their long flowing locks), in “your native music” and had brought them all to South Africa, decked out in beads, to compete in the Soweto Isicathamiyia Festival. She wondered if, maybe, “You could fulfill the girls’ dream of singing with you?” Clearly it was her dream, more than the youth’s. But Joseph said yes, and they sang together. Afterwards, the California girls were invited to perform in the concert that evening… where they sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Really? Seriously? Horrendous. Please choose something not as stereotypical, and not as commercial. But the guys of Ladysmith complied, and sang with the girls. It was an amazing bridge over the world. And I must admit I was a little jealous.
Friday was off to Rugby. A dismal dreary rainy day, like all we have seen recently. The Sharks (our Durban team) won, but it was a game filled with intercepted passes and general lazy playing.
Saturday was bliss. Before coming to SA, I watched various documentaries, one, specifically, on Ladysmith and their style of music, Isicathamiyia. So, when I stumbled upon the 12th Annual Isicathamiyia Festival in Durban, I knew I had to go. An all night competition, starting at 6pm and ending around 9am, I drove off, by myself into the CBD (Central Business District, well known as the place that white people don’t go for fear of muggings, rape, hijackings—Whatever, stop reinstating the culture of fear), to the Playhouse Theatre for the festival.
I arrived at 6pm, and waited in line. Just in front of me was an older white gentleman, the only white guy in sight. We ended up chatting, as white people do, and he invited me to sit with him and his wife. I obliged. Of course, everyone thought I was their daughter. So when they left at 8:30, and I stayed, I was asked, “Why didn’t you leave with your parents?” “I met them today,” was my dry response.
The event kicked off with, what the emcee called, “an a cappella collaboration.” A group of six white college guys entered, and sang in German or Italian or something, barbershop sextet. An Isicathamiyia group entered, shocked by the white boys. Then they sang. Both groups looked at each other, and then mixed up, forming one line. They all sang together. In IsiZulu. And all danced in unison. The audience fell into hysterics. The white boys were doing the Zulu dancing! Later on in the evening, I was having a conversation with one of the staff members at the theatre, and he said that he was so shocked that the white boys could sing the Zulu and do the dance! I thought, but did not say, well, do you think those boys are fluent in German? Of course not, they rehearsed. They practiced. Of course they can sing in Zulu.
Each of the 147 groups competing at the festival had 5 minutes to perform. The groups traveled from all over KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, some for hours and hours, just to be onstage for these 5 minutes. Each group had its own costumes, but all wore suits, shiny shoes, and white gloves. One man stands forward as the leader of the group; he is expressive and vibrant. The chorus stands behind, executing specifically choreographed moves, until the climax of the song, when everyone breaks into unison Zulu dancing—my favorite part.
I only made it through 9 hours, by which time I was falling asleep in my chair. During this time, I saw between 50 and 60 Isicathamiyia groups, and 30 women and 30 men compete in a fashion show competition. The men and women strutted around stage, while the audience leapt into the air, cheering, and yelling for phone numbers from the women.
I went alone to the festival, but around 11pm, some of my dear friends from FrontLines arrived, and we hugged profusely. I ended up sitting with them in the front row, and we commented on the music and whooped and hollered when we were thoroughly impressed.
I slept until noon on Sunday. Then I played Frisbee.
All in all, a good, but lazy week.
And so, this is my time in Durban. In one week, I can see outrageously commercial theatre, a rugby match, music from all around Africa, and a cultural festival of 15 hours duration. This week, it is back to school, back to teaching. And on Friday, it is off to Johannesburg for the Frisbee competition.
And so, it seems fitting that I officially announce to you, the cyber-world, my intention to stay in Durban next year. You may recall a job application in Chicago; that did not come through, but I am actually really glad that it didn’t. I am not done in Durban yet. There is so much I have not seen, have not done, in this part of the world, and I need more time to explore, to experience.
So, I will be back for Christmas, and will make the obligatory and heart-filling rounds in North Carolina and Chicago. Clear your calendars. And then sometime in January, I will fly on back to the middle of the hot humid Southern summer.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
onward wounded soldier
I am taking a moment, to breathe, and to remember that:
First I honor life, and with it, my life in the theatre.
The play comes apace. FrontLines. Rehearsals are long. We officially rehearse from 5:30pm- 9:30pm. However, extra rehearsals are called every day starting from 2pm. And before 2pm and in between classes, we do other tasks, have costume fittings, gather props, etc. It is a full time job, as all theatre is.
Today is Thursday.
We open on Tuesday.
Tomorrow we will finish blocking the play.
Maybe we will do a run, but probably only a partial run.
New text and songs are still coming.
I am not nervous. I am overwhelmed, a bit. And my face is breaking out. I have what seems like mountains of text to learn, although its really not terrible. Today, I was given a song in Hebrew to learn... I do not know how to pronounce Hebrew properly. I sleep like a rock, and although I am getting 7 hours, I need many more. I drank, for the first time, an entire RedBull today.
Although there is much to learn and do, and it causes all 46 of us a vast amount of stress (yes, there are 46 cast members), there are some incredible moments in this play.
My mom's father, and my dad and his mom are all lifted up in this play. I speak the words of my recently deceased grandmother. My grandfather is honored as a man who served his country. It is the most beautiful of memorials. Adil's voice is lifted through his story of September 11th. This is what I must continue to hold onto. That this play will be beautiful and that the people I love are a part of it.
In other news, I am playing in the South African Ultimate Frisbee Championships in early October. On a team called Prawn Bunny. It will be magical.
First I honor life, and with it, my life in the theatre.
The play comes apace. FrontLines. Rehearsals are long. We officially rehearse from 5:30pm- 9:30pm. However, extra rehearsals are called every day starting from 2pm. And before 2pm and in between classes, we do other tasks, have costume fittings, gather props, etc. It is a full time job, as all theatre is.
Today is Thursday.
We open on Tuesday.
Tomorrow we will finish blocking the play.
Maybe we will do a run, but probably only a partial run.
New text and songs are still coming.
I am not nervous. I am overwhelmed, a bit. And my face is breaking out. I have what seems like mountains of text to learn, although its really not terrible. Today, I was given a song in Hebrew to learn... I do not know how to pronounce Hebrew properly. I sleep like a rock, and although I am getting 7 hours, I need many more. I drank, for the first time, an entire RedBull today.
Although there is much to learn and do, and it causes all 46 of us a vast amount of stress (yes, there are 46 cast members), there are some incredible moments in this play.
My mom's father, and my dad and his mom are all lifted up in this play. I speak the words of my recently deceased grandmother. My grandfather is honored as a man who served his country. It is the most beautiful of memorials. Adil's voice is lifted through his story of September 11th. This is what I must continue to hold onto. That this play will be beautiful and that the people I love are a part of it.
In other news, I am playing in the South African Ultimate Frisbee Championships in early October. On a team called Prawn Bunny. It will be magical.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
the last three months
I have not written (a blog) in a long long time. Perhaps the reason for that is being busy. Perhaps the reason for that is not wanting to. Perhaps it is time to break the silence.
To recap from July is to, by necessity, leave quite a bit out. However, the memories are within me, and I suppose that is the real place that they should be.
July held the Grahamstown National Arts Festival; 10 days of theatre, dance, music, art, film, and performance. I traveled the 12 hours (through the Transkei) with a group of students from UKZN who were performing a devised piece based on their work with Durban street children, called Draw Wings. It was a fantastic production, and I saw it a total of three times, clearly earning my title of the production’s groupie.
We were in Grahamstown for 3 days, during which time I saw 15 plays. Some were brilliant, others were mediocre, but even those plays were not an utter waste of time.
Of note:
1. Every Year Every Day I Am Walking. A play in French about the refugee experience. Physical theatre. Two actresses. Shoes to represent characters. Shoes crunching through sand. A fire. A giant bonfire on stage, burning a paper house, a girl. Smoldering ashes.
2. Stilted. A man on meter tall stilts jumping on a trampoline. About what it means to perform. Clowning dancing. Einstein on the Beach and Sigur Ros played; which took me back to another time. Quite odd in that way.
3. The Bonfire Theatre. They make plays out of the audience’s story. The project was a memorial project, for those who are not with us, for moments in the past. I was one of two who told a story. I spoke, or rather, sobbed, the tale of my Grandma’s last days. How she teased the nursing staff with stuffed ferrets. How I fed her her last meal, chocolate cake, on New Year’s Eve. I cried. And the ensemble made a play. It was an incredible lifting up of her spirit and her memory.
4. Blood Diamond. Performance Art/Instillation Piece in the Grahamstown train station. You enter the station and are given a playing card, you wait. Your card is called. You enter the platform, alone. The door closes behind you. A child, a small black child, appears out of nowhere and takes you hand. You walk, with this small boy, as he guides you through the experience of 1820 (or so) and the colonization of Grahamstown, the execution and oppression of countless blacks. A pile of rubbish sits in the middle of the train track. Heaping. Stinking. Black garbage bags overflowing, meters tall. Sitting in the heap, are children, scrounging for food. Eating what they find. Hums of tunes from men and women taking shelter behind cardboard boxes. Two men sit on a wall, watching, threatening as you walk by, they stare at you. You walk into a graveyard, home to bodies forgotten. Your child says thank you at the end, the only word spoken all night.
July 15th was Matthew’s 8th birthday. In addition to a lovely party, he was gifted a dog. A maltese poodle. We were told the dog was coming on Thursday, and he arrived on Friday. Matthew promptly named the dog Tiny, because he is so tiny.
Tiny is a funny little thing. Attacks leaves in the yard. Rolls over on his back if you walk near him. But he is still, to this day, untrained. The house is his toilet and everything is his chew toy. Part of training a dog, is training the people who live with the dog, and we all need to go to puppy school.
With the death of Michael Jackson, Durban came alive with theme parties. I attended the official Michael Jackson “Thriller” party at what must be the whitest club in the entire world. I bought a fedora for the occasion.
The end of July and beginning of August heralded the Durban International Film Festival, a smorgasbord of films, mostly from Africa. Again, I hit it hard, and saw 10 films in as many days. Documentaries on Durban street children, Vogue, and men who attempt to change the world. Dramas about Durban street children, the Mafia, and South African violence. Comedies by Woody Allen. A film set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; perhaps I loved it for its familiar skyline and accents, but it both warmed and broke my heart.
In the midst of all these films, school started up again. Except if you say “school” in South Africa, people assume you mean high school. So, rather, I ought to say, varsity started up again.
This semester holds a course called “Theatre for Debate,” which looks at, among many things, applied theatre, participatory theatre, Boal, Freire, and ultimately cumulates in a week long workshop/devising process in the Westville Maximum Security Women’s Prison. Needless to say, I am utterly excited about our work in the prison, upcoming in October.
I am continuing my IsiZulu class once a week, now at the pre-intermediate level…whatever that means. I am learning and understanding, but putting it all into practice is difficult.
In addition to the learning, I have been doing a great amount of teaching, including three classes at the varsity. I have been tutoring a Brecht practical class, in which we made a 10-minute piece using Brechtian texts and current newspaper articles. My group created a play around the idea of “what is a mother?” using Caucasian Chalk Circle and the recent story of the American woman who killed her friend and cut out her baby from her womb to raise it as her own.
Additionally, I am, still, teaching two monologue tutorials for first year students. They have had to write their own monologues for created characters as well as work on a monologue from a scripted play. Talents range dramatically.
My work at Cato Crest has been waning as of late. When I go there, I usually end up completing the teacher’s lesson plans for her, as she runs out of the room to do other things when I arrive. So, the drama literacy part of my time at Mayville Secondary School has ceased, to make way for standard lessons thrown upon me the moment class begins. I know that I could work hard and reshape what is happening now, but my energies, at the moment, lie elsewhere… to be discussed soon.
However, the fruits of my Cato Crest labor arrived when I was asked to be the guest speaker at the matric dance, aka: prom. I do not remember a guest speaker at the Enloe prom, but I did not argue, and instead wrote a speech to give that night at the dance. I was told that I must inspire the youth to stay in school, work hard, study, pass their exams, and go to varsity. Quite the tall order for a dance! So, I did what I could to satisfy the teachers’ requests, but also attempted to make the speech fun. I ended with a favorite anecdote, of a boy named Prince and a song called “It’s All Up To Me.”
Rotary is still going strong, and I attend every possible meeting at my club, Durban-Westville. A rowdy group, they always have something to say, and I come home every night with a ‘quote of the evening.” Reigning supreme may still be, not a quote but a movement: A Rotarian pulled me over to him by putting his finger in my back pocket and tugging. Yikes?
I have been asked to write the annual Westville Rotary play to be performed for the District Governor on September 21st. I have no idea what it should be about. Past plays have been spin offs of Snow White, Aladdin, etc.
And so August brought commitments and studying, but it also has been a time of strengthening friendships. Sarah and I (because we so often circulate the social crowd together) have been invited into a group of South African friends, and we in turn have invited them into our Frisbee world. It is a lovely exchange, full of laughs, braais, sport, and the occasional accident blue curacao. I have been spending a great amount of time with a group of Europeans, mostly German and French. They have introduced me to the nightspot that everyone else already knew about: Cool Runnings. Although it is mostly known for its drug scene, Cool Runnings hosts drumming circles on Thursday nights. We go and dance, and pretend we know how to drum (and decline the drugs, thank you very much). Unfortunately, however, the Germans are all but gone; one left this Thursday, and the other tomorrow…so I write tonight up until I get the call that says its time to go out.
And now to the end of August, when things got really hectic.
On Monday, August 24th I applied for a job as a part time drama teacher in Durban. On Tuesday, August 25th, I interviewed. On Thursday, August 27th, I was hired. On Friday, August 28th, I was trained. On Wednesday, September 2nd, I began work.
I am now teaching 5 different drama classes on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, as well as Saturday mornings in and around Durban. Two of my classes are ages 5-8, two are 9-12, and the other is a combination of all ages. The program is the Helen O’Grady Drama Academy, an international organization with roots in Australia, Africa, and the US, among other places. My job will mostly be to direct the end of year productions with the students. Scripts are provided (as are blocking plans) so it’s much like connect the dots. I wish I could do Where the Wild Things Are or Horton Hears a Who or something, but instead I get The Bold Buccaneers and The Snake Charmer, plays written exclusively for Helen O’Grady, with little rhyming couplets for lines. I imagine that Charlotte Chorpenning might roll over in her grave a bit, but the goal of these plays is not to be good children’s theatre, but rather to teach the kids the skills of confidence and public speaking.
Speaking of plays… Did I mention that I am in a play?
It is a devised piece about war, created in a collaboration of UKZN and the neighboring Durban Institute of Technology (the first time in 50 odd years that these two institutions have worked together). We began rehearsals on August 26th, and we open on September 14th. You do the math. Anyway you look at it, it’s a short process.
The play is a combination of dances, songs, movements, and mostly letters… written by soldiers home to their loved ones, and from those loved ones to their boys on the front lines. As such, our play is named FrontLines.
In preparation for the piece, we were asked to write our own letters, imagining we were soldiers, mothers, sons, etc. Well, I decided I did not want to do that, so I wrote home instead. Perfect timing, as it turns out, my Grandmother was going through all the letters her husband, my grandfather, sent to her while he was stationed on various ships throughout WWII.
She and my mother proceeded to go through these letters, from Pearl Harbor to the South Pacific, while my mom also found the letter that my dad had written to his mom, my other grandma, while he was stationed in Vietnam.
These were the letters that I submitted for our play. And tomorrow in rehearsal, I will hear someone speak my father’s words aloud. His letters are in our play.
I tell my cast members brief versions of the stories of my family. My grandfather commanding the USS Wasmuth out of Pear Harbor while Kamikaze pilots zoomed above. My father surviving Nam by luck. My cousin who was late to a meeting in the World Trade Centers and therefore survived. Their jaws drop. But they have stories too. Of the Border Wars. Of Soweto. Songs of the struggle pour out of their souls, while I must struggle to remember the order of the verses in “Where have all the flowers gone?”
I enjoy this devising process. I did not realize just how much I miss making stuff. Of being a part of something. My director brain still wants to butt in, although my performer brain is enjoying the exercise.
So that pretty much brings us up to date here in Durban. My future past December is uncertain at this point. I have applied for a job in Chicago, and if I get it, I will move to Chicago. If not, I will stay in Durban. Either way, I think I win. Over 100 people applied for this one position, and of those 100, 20 were chosen for further consideration. I am one of 20. That means I must be doing something right. And that in and of itself is such a huge honor.
I am living in a bit of a limbo right now, not knowing where I will be next year. Part of me wants so much to be in Chicago. But the other part wants terribly to stay in South Africa, and do some of these projects that I have started dreaming of.
I was speaking (rather typing) to Jon Levy yesterday (Jon, I’ve mentioned you in my blog now, as I promised I would, so I hope you have held up your end of the bargain by being a faithful reader), and he said that from where he stands, Chicago is in the past. He lives in New York now, and because of time zones, Chicago is in the past, literally. Chicago is my past, too, I lived there for four years. Is a return to Chicago now an attempt to recreate what has already happened? Must I instead look forward, eastward, for my present?
I do not know if I have these answers. And I am glad that the full weight of these decisions does not rest fully on my shoulders. If I get the job, I go. If I don’t, I stay. I win either way. I just wish I knew, then I could imagine my future more clearly.
To recap from July is to, by necessity, leave quite a bit out. However, the memories are within me, and I suppose that is the real place that they should be.
July held the Grahamstown National Arts Festival; 10 days of theatre, dance, music, art, film, and performance. I traveled the 12 hours (through the Transkei) with a group of students from UKZN who were performing a devised piece based on their work with Durban street children, called Draw Wings. It was a fantastic production, and I saw it a total of three times, clearly earning my title of the production’s groupie.
We were in Grahamstown for 3 days, during which time I saw 15 plays. Some were brilliant, others were mediocre, but even those plays were not an utter waste of time.
Of note:
1. Every Year Every Day I Am Walking. A play in French about the refugee experience. Physical theatre. Two actresses. Shoes to represent characters. Shoes crunching through sand. A fire. A giant bonfire on stage, burning a paper house, a girl. Smoldering ashes.
2. Stilted. A man on meter tall stilts jumping on a trampoline. About what it means to perform. Clowning dancing. Einstein on the Beach and Sigur Ros played; which took me back to another time. Quite odd in that way.
3. The Bonfire Theatre. They make plays out of the audience’s story. The project was a memorial project, for those who are not with us, for moments in the past. I was one of two who told a story. I spoke, or rather, sobbed, the tale of my Grandma’s last days. How she teased the nursing staff with stuffed ferrets. How I fed her her last meal, chocolate cake, on New Year’s Eve. I cried. And the ensemble made a play. It was an incredible lifting up of her spirit and her memory.
4. Blood Diamond. Performance Art/Instillation Piece in the Grahamstown train station. You enter the station and are given a playing card, you wait. Your card is called. You enter the platform, alone. The door closes behind you. A child, a small black child, appears out of nowhere and takes you hand. You walk, with this small boy, as he guides you through the experience of 1820 (or so) and the colonization of Grahamstown, the execution and oppression of countless blacks. A pile of rubbish sits in the middle of the train track. Heaping. Stinking. Black garbage bags overflowing, meters tall. Sitting in the heap, are children, scrounging for food. Eating what they find. Hums of tunes from men and women taking shelter behind cardboard boxes. Two men sit on a wall, watching, threatening as you walk by, they stare at you. You walk into a graveyard, home to bodies forgotten. Your child says thank you at the end, the only word spoken all night.
July 15th was Matthew’s 8th birthday. In addition to a lovely party, he was gifted a dog. A maltese poodle. We were told the dog was coming on Thursday, and he arrived on Friday. Matthew promptly named the dog Tiny, because he is so tiny.
Tiny is a funny little thing. Attacks leaves in the yard. Rolls over on his back if you walk near him. But he is still, to this day, untrained. The house is his toilet and everything is his chew toy. Part of training a dog, is training the people who live with the dog, and we all need to go to puppy school.
With the death of Michael Jackson, Durban came alive with theme parties. I attended the official Michael Jackson “Thriller” party at what must be the whitest club in the entire world. I bought a fedora for the occasion.
The end of July and beginning of August heralded the Durban International Film Festival, a smorgasbord of films, mostly from Africa. Again, I hit it hard, and saw 10 films in as many days. Documentaries on Durban street children, Vogue, and men who attempt to change the world. Dramas about Durban street children, the Mafia, and South African violence. Comedies by Woody Allen. A film set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; perhaps I loved it for its familiar skyline and accents, but it both warmed and broke my heart.
In the midst of all these films, school started up again. Except if you say “school” in South Africa, people assume you mean high school. So, rather, I ought to say, varsity started up again.
This semester holds a course called “Theatre for Debate,” which looks at, among many things, applied theatre, participatory theatre, Boal, Freire, and ultimately cumulates in a week long workshop/devising process in the Westville Maximum Security Women’s Prison. Needless to say, I am utterly excited about our work in the prison, upcoming in October.
I am continuing my IsiZulu class once a week, now at the pre-intermediate level…whatever that means. I am learning and understanding, but putting it all into practice is difficult.
In addition to the learning, I have been doing a great amount of teaching, including three classes at the varsity. I have been tutoring a Brecht practical class, in which we made a 10-minute piece using Brechtian texts and current newspaper articles. My group created a play around the idea of “what is a mother?” using Caucasian Chalk Circle and the recent story of the American woman who killed her friend and cut out her baby from her womb to raise it as her own.
Additionally, I am, still, teaching two monologue tutorials for first year students. They have had to write their own monologues for created characters as well as work on a monologue from a scripted play. Talents range dramatically.
My work at Cato Crest has been waning as of late. When I go there, I usually end up completing the teacher’s lesson plans for her, as she runs out of the room to do other things when I arrive. So, the drama literacy part of my time at Mayville Secondary School has ceased, to make way for standard lessons thrown upon me the moment class begins. I know that I could work hard and reshape what is happening now, but my energies, at the moment, lie elsewhere… to be discussed soon.
However, the fruits of my Cato Crest labor arrived when I was asked to be the guest speaker at the matric dance, aka: prom. I do not remember a guest speaker at the Enloe prom, but I did not argue, and instead wrote a speech to give that night at the dance. I was told that I must inspire the youth to stay in school, work hard, study, pass their exams, and go to varsity. Quite the tall order for a dance! So, I did what I could to satisfy the teachers’ requests, but also attempted to make the speech fun. I ended with a favorite anecdote, of a boy named Prince and a song called “It’s All Up To Me.”
Rotary is still going strong, and I attend every possible meeting at my club, Durban-Westville. A rowdy group, they always have something to say, and I come home every night with a ‘quote of the evening.” Reigning supreme may still be, not a quote but a movement: A Rotarian pulled me over to him by putting his finger in my back pocket and tugging. Yikes?
I have been asked to write the annual Westville Rotary play to be performed for the District Governor on September 21st. I have no idea what it should be about. Past plays have been spin offs of Snow White, Aladdin, etc.
And so August brought commitments and studying, but it also has been a time of strengthening friendships. Sarah and I (because we so often circulate the social crowd together) have been invited into a group of South African friends, and we in turn have invited them into our Frisbee world. It is a lovely exchange, full of laughs, braais, sport, and the occasional accident blue curacao. I have been spending a great amount of time with a group of Europeans, mostly German and French. They have introduced me to the nightspot that everyone else already knew about: Cool Runnings. Although it is mostly known for its drug scene, Cool Runnings hosts drumming circles on Thursday nights. We go and dance, and pretend we know how to drum (and decline the drugs, thank you very much). Unfortunately, however, the Germans are all but gone; one left this Thursday, and the other tomorrow…so I write tonight up until I get the call that says its time to go out.
And now to the end of August, when things got really hectic.
On Monday, August 24th I applied for a job as a part time drama teacher in Durban. On Tuesday, August 25th, I interviewed. On Thursday, August 27th, I was hired. On Friday, August 28th, I was trained. On Wednesday, September 2nd, I began work.
I am now teaching 5 different drama classes on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, as well as Saturday mornings in and around Durban. Two of my classes are ages 5-8, two are 9-12, and the other is a combination of all ages. The program is the Helen O’Grady Drama Academy, an international organization with roots in Australia, Africa, and the US, among other places. My job will mostly be to direct the end of year productions with the students. Scripts are provided (as are blocking plans) so it’s much like connect the dots. I wish I could do Where the Wild Things Are or Horton Hears a Who or something, but instead I get The Bold Buccaneers and The Snake Charmer, plays written exclusively for Helen O’Grady, with little rhyming couplets for lines. I imagine that Charlotte Chorpenning might roll over in her grave a bit, but the goal of these plays is not to be good children’s theatre, but rather to teach the kids the skills of confidence and public speaking.
Speaking of plays… Did I mention that I am in a play?
It is a devised piece about war, created in a collaboration of UKZN and the neighboring Durban Institute of Technology (the first time in 50 odd years that these two institutions have worked together). We began rehearsals on August 26th, and we open on September 14th. You do the math. Anyway you look at it, it’s a short process.
The play is a combination of dances, songs, movements, and mostly letters… written by soldiers home to their loved ones, and from those loved ones to their boys on the front lines. As such, our play is named FrontLines.
In preparation for the piece, we were asked to write our own letters, imagining we were soldiers, mothers, sons, etc. Well, I decided I did not want to do that, so I wrote home instead. Perfect timing, as it turns out, my Grandmother was going through all the letters her husband, my grandfather, sent to her while he was stationed on various ships throughout WWII.
She and my mother proceeded to go through these letters, from Pearl Harbor to the South Pacific, while my mom also found the letter that my dad had written to his mom, my other grandma, while he was stationed in Vietnam.
These were the letters that I submitted for our play. And tomorrow in rehearsal, I will hear someone speak my father’s words aloud. His letters are in our play.
I tell my cast members brief versions of the stories of my family. My grandfather commanding the USS Wasmuth out of Pear Harbor while Kamikaze pilots zoomed above. My father surviving Nam by luck. My cousin who was late to a meeting in the World Trade Centers and therefore survived. Their jaws drop. But they have stories too. Of the Border Wars. Of Soweto. Songs of the struggle pour out of their souls, while I must struggle to remember the order of the verses in “Where have all the flowers gone?”
I enjoy this devising process. I did not realize just how much I miss making stuff. Of being a part of something. My director brain still wants to butt in, although my performer brain is enjoying the exercise.
So that pretty much brings us up to date here in Durban. My future past December is uncertain at this point. I have applied for a job in Chicago, and if I get it, I will move to Chicago. If not, I will stay in Durban. Either way, I think I win. Over 100 people applied for this one position, and of those 100, 20 were chosen for further consideration. I am one of 20. That means I must be doing something right. And that in and of itself is such a huge honor.
I am living in a bit of a limbo right now, not knowing where I will be next year. Part of me wants so much to be in Chicago. But the other part wants terribly to stay in South Africa, and do some of these projects that I have started dreaming of.
I was speaking (rather typing) to Jon Levy yesterday (Jon, I’ve mentioned you in my blog now, as I promised I would, so I hope you have held up your end of the bargain by being a faithful reader), and he said that from where he stands, Chicago is in the past. He lives in New York now, and because of time zones, Chicago is in the past, literally. Chicago is my past, too, I lived there for four years. Is a return to Chicago now an attempt to recreate what has already happened? Must I instead look forward, eastward, for my present?
I do not know if I have these answers. And I am glad that the full weight of these decisions does not rest fully on my shoulders. If I get the job, I go. If I don’t, I stay. I win either way. I just wish I knew, then I could imagine my future more clearly.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
the ukubingelela song
Ndumo (the long week) June 24-30
We always begin with a bang. This time it was us leaving campus late and in a horrid frantic angry rush, including bribing security guards and running barefoot across campus. We drove silently for an hour, not wanting to break the ice, break the tension, break the silence. I drifted off to sleep, this being the only respite from the monotony of silence.
After the first toll, we stopped, and Harald got out of the car, shut the door and then reopened it, saying, “good morning.” I giggled, we were starting over. If only it were this easy all of the time. If only all things were this easily fixed. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and that ability to look back and learn how to redo is vastly important. In hindsight we ought to have prepared more thoroughly for this week. All of the phone calls and communications that needed to happen with our organizers in Ndumo fell through. We were more or less traveling blind. Not knowing who we would meet after that 5 hour journey, not knowing who we would be working with or when.
We had to stop along the way, to pick up food and supplies, since we had not been given a food list before then. We had a meeting scheduled for the Monday before the trip, but no one showed up except Harald and myself, so nothing much could get done, or at least nothing outside of what my tasks and responsibilities were. We left that meeting with just as many questions as we had answers, and it was only in the koombi on the way to Ndumo that some of these queries were met.
We arrived on that Wednesday afternoon to an empty community center, an empty Umhlanga Rocks, and low spirits. Apparently, some of the youth had been waiting for our arrival, but because we were so incredibly late, they had to leave. Unbeknownst to us, the youth had an exam the next day.
Some of the kids did return, and we spoke with them for a moment, asking them to rally the troops and get everyone ready for Thursday afternoon—we would meet at 3pm—and wishing them good luck on their exam. With good conscience, we could not ask these guys to stay on now to work; they had to study, had to rest, had to get ready. Of course, we were, in a way, blamed for not knowing about this exam in advance, but how could we know if not one had taken the initiative to ask?
We went back to the Environmental Center, where we were staying, and cooked dinner and went to sleep. Because of the youth’s exam, we would not be able to see them until 3pm, greatly cutting down the time we thought we would have with them, and so we scheduled to take a tour of the Ndumo Game Reserve on Thursday morning.
In the game reserve, we met with two rangers who spoke to us about population management, land claims, and the differences between culling and poaching. Then we took a drive through the reserve, sighting wildebeest, crocs, warthogs, giraffes, but unfortunately no rhino or leopard.
That afternoon at 3pm, the UKZN team had assembled at Umhlanga Rocks. Slowly, some of the youth began to trickle in. I think we had about 7 youth that afternoon, which is not terrible, but we realized that we needed many more in order to create a truly beneficial experience. By the end of the day, we had asked each student to bring at least 5 friends, so that hopefully we might increase our numbers. We crossed our fingers and hoped that this would work. Because really, it is word of mouth and the entreats of friends that get us to do things.
But on that Thursday, we began the work of re-meeting everyone and re-learning how to play and work together. We played some icebreakers games, and reestablished connections. We then revisited the values clarification game, which had been a favorite since March. Our statements were not as provocative this time, and often the entire group would agree or disagree together. But at least we were dealing with issues and making choices.
After this, we played a “Gender ABC” game that I had first encountered at the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Conference in Atlanta over the summer of 2008. The game then did not have to do with gender, but the structure allows itself to be adapted for any topic. The letters of the alphabet are listed out on two pieces of paper, and two groups compete to fill in their alphabet with words describing the given topic. On Thursday, we had all of the girls writing words describing maleness and masculinity, and all of the boys describing femaleness and femininity. Once the youth had completed the exercise, we tried to digest the words they had written, looking for similarities, differences, the words that made us angry and the words that delighted us.
We then did a free-write exercise where we addressed the “problems in my community.” These free-writes ended up founding the basis for two newscasts that the youth created wherein the posed the problems of their community and suggested (im)possible solutions. But on that day, we merely wrote the articles, and pop-read them. Afterwards, we attempted a very poor version of a theatre exercise named, “mantle of the experts.” It, unfortunately, was not planned well enough ahead to work as effectively as it could. It was also the first time we attempted a teacher-in-role situation, which I think came out of the blue for these youth, despite my attempts to describe what was going on.
I also think, though, that these youth need less to be secured within the safety net of play than do the kids in the States that I have worked with. These Ndumo kids just want to say what they think, and do not need to pretend to be someone else in order to say it. The fact that we are engaging with the topics is enough.
Friday we arranged to meet at 1pm, with all of the friends that our kids would be bringing. We wished on the shooting stars we saw Thursday night that we might have a solid group of students on Friday. And I guess that wishing helped, because we did. A group of about 15, which did fluctuate a bit, but more or less stayed consistent.
But we had to start over, in a way. Here were ten new and wonderful boys and girls who had never seen us, never met us, and only knew the tiny bit that their friends might have told them. Why did they agree to come into this process and spend the next few days with us? What did they tell their parents, siblings, grandmas?
So, on Friday, we played. Name games. Silly games. Focus games. Games that forced us to get close to each other, to really look at each other, to hold hands, to touch, to fail together, to laugh. Those boundaries started to break down, a bit, as much as they can in the first 30 minutes.
We then explained the process that we wanted to venture on, and the product, being a short performance piece that we would share with the community on Monday afternoon. Everyone seemed to get on board, they agreed to our process. So we got started.
Thursday, we had explored the world we live in now, so Friday was the day to discover the world we want to live in. We spread out long sheets of white paper across the floor, and empowered the youth with words and images, crayons and markers.
Flatfoot Dance Company was arriving that afternoon in Ndumo and had agreed to use the afternoon session to work with our kids in order to make a dance that addressed our theme of “the world we want to live in.”
The session started haphazardly and slowly. Gathering the youth was a mission, and motivating the work was almost more so. But by the end, the youth were creating their own pieces with the guidance of the Flatfoot members, and were working quite well on their own.
What emerged were three distinct dances; two groups of boys, and then all of the girls. The first boys dance was utterly shocking yet beautiful. These three boys had an incredible ability to break down all physical barriers and get exceptionally close to each other. The dance was not sexual because they did not imbue it with anything, but it certainly could have been. These three were rolling on top of each other, holding each other’s legs, crotches were everywhere. But because they were not aware of this, they kept going, kept playing, kept exploring. As a facilitator, I felt myself being pulled in so many ways. Here were three boys experiencing the greatest of expression and improvisation, yet if this was put in front of an audience, what would the reaction be? Would the piece be read as homosexual, would the boys be criticized? Would I be responsible for that? How could I shift the nature of the dance slightly without alluding to how the dance could be perceived and yet still preserve the integrity and vitality of their work?
Luckily, this did not come to pass. One of the boys was unable (or unwilling) to return to the process, and so the remaining 3 boys decided to change the dance. In their edits, all possibilities of sexuality were erased. The work was still their own, entirely.
We left the day Friday with a fully choreographed and assembled dance, an epic of images and words about the world we want to live in, and from Thursday, a description of the kind of world we live in now.
So Saturday had to be a big day. Our scheduling was full, starting at 8am and going until 5pm (which of course actually means that everyone arrives around 9 or 9:30am). We had to decide the forms that our work would take, but of course could not define the content in advance. We had to trust the youth.
We started the day—after some games and a bit of yoga—with a rehearsal and polishing of the dance from Friday. This was when the boys altered their dance and everyone else solidified what they were doing. Leaders started to emerge within the groups. Sanele proved to be a detailed perfectionist, needing to be in the limelight. Zanele pulled people away with her laughter. Scora counted his group in delicately and led his dance, making sure everyone was on the same page.
From the “world I live in now” writings, I found that the youth’s ideas broke down, roughly, into three categories: health, environmental, and social concerns. So, we asked the youth to choose the one topic that they would like to work on, and from there we would make short newscasts addressing those issues. But actually the youth were only interested in health and environment, so that is what we did. It made the groups bigger and the scenes longer, but that was okay, if that was what the youth wanted.
We created newscasts, which seems to be such a great tool in allowing the youth to talk about what they want to talk about. Although the UKZN supervised, we were really able to let the kids go on this one, choosing their own topics and arguments. Of course, that meant their material was not entirely accurate or realistic. But for now, maybe it is okay for the kids to dream? To dream that their problems of poor infrastructure will be solved by a tar road and the introduction of big industry, such as Coca-Cola, into their rural community.
We walk the line, as representatives of the university, of presenting 100% accurate information and, as facilitators and artists, of allowing the youth to create their own understandings of their world. Hopefully these two can align together, but oftentimes that is not possible. So we must gently guide the youth into our academic understandings? But that is not right either, because who gets to decide what is best for a community? Well, it seems that the academics do, but maybe the people who live there know best. However, the argument is that these people might not be educated enough to know better. It is the eternal question of who has the right to choose, and so often it is the western and the formally educated.
After lunch, we spent some time discussing various higher education options, from UNISA (the correspondence university), to technikons, to formal universities such as KwaZulu-Natal. This is information that the youth have been wanting since day one, and so we brought course booklets and application forms for all of the youth. They all dream of going to varsity, but most of them will not be able to make it there. After the performance on Monday, I walked with Scora back to Umhlanga Rocks. We spoke of the work we had just completed, and I said that if I had it my way, this would be the work that defines who we are and forms the basis for our acceptance into varsity. Speaking your mind in front of an audience of strangers, friends, and community leaders, for me, is far more difficult to do than sit in class and write an exam. For me.
From the images and words that the youth had written on those long sheets of paper, two ideas were inspired. First, we came back to the idea of writing poems about “the world I want to live in,” and secondly, Sanele had written a song about peace, freedom, and respect in South Africa. We split the group into boys and girls. So while the boys turned Sanele’s poem into a rap, the girls created what would become, for me, one of the most powerful pieces in our play, a poem about our ideal world.
My favorite devising idea ever comes from Betsy Quinn, who once gave her students the assignment of “bring something in for the play.” It could be anything, anything the student could imagine. From what she said, this was the most liberating of exercises for her students and also generated much of the play’s content. We tried this exercise with our youth on the spot. We asked them to break up into groups, and gave them an hour to create something for the play.
From this exercise, we gained a version of the national anthem layered with text about “this is our world, this is our South Africa,” a selection of traditional wedding songs, and a drama, completely in IsiZulu about the problems arising from unemployment. All three pieces were absolutely wonderful and poignant.
The drama was more difficult than the others, because it was in IsiZulu, and it dealt with some controversial issues. For instance, the unemployed man is South African, while the employed man is from Mozambique, which led to xenophobic remarks being used that were actually offensive to members of our group. But using those words is a re-presentation of reality, of what happens everyday. I do believe that such potentially offensive words must be used carefully and with purpose, if they are to be used at all, and that the message of the piece, or its resolution but also be created with purpose. The ending of this piece was originally such that, in order for the unemployed father to get out of jail, he must give his daughter to the Mozambiquan, for free. And this, clearly, starts dealing with issues of human rights and trafficking. Luckily, we were able to workshop this play a bit such that the resolution was not so impossible and the language was not as offensive.
At the end of Saturday, we had a dance, two newscasts, a rap, a poem, the national anthem, a series of traditional songs, and a drama. Our play was taking shape.
That night, we started dreaming up the structure of the play, so that we could rehearse it in order on Sunday. We found a structure that moved from the issues of now into the possibilities of the future, while separating sections similar in structure. So, all of the newscasts were not back-to-back, etc.
Sunday morning, the youth went to church and the UKZN students created a scene that we would perform in the play. After a lot of unused ideas, we decided upon creating an episode of Captain Planet. So, the four of us created a short scene about the consequences of littering. It ended up being quite a funny scene, partially because I, as Litterbug the villain, spoke in an absurdly stereotypical villain voice and melted like the Wicked Witch of the West when I was defeated by the Planeteers.
After the play, the kids kept quoting the piece, shrieking “Litterbug!” and laughing. The message was memorable because of its mode of transmission. But, the message did not change the student’s behavior. After the play, at our celebratory braai, Harald found chip bags all over the ground, the chips that the youth had just been eating. The message was remembered, but not heeded. Which begs the question, can theatre actually change people?
Once we met with the youth, an hour later than scheduled, we incorporated an interactive component to our play, adding a version of Values Clarification that the youth would lead with their audience, allowing the audience to respond verbally to the questions raised.
We brainstormed the beginning of the play, settling on a series of songs, which I named “the Ukubingelela song” as a result of needing a common phrase for the piece, and it also made the kids laugh. Ukubingelela means to greet. So it was a natural beginning of our play.
Then we rehearsed. We put the whole thing together and performed it in front of a makeshift audience, which is to say the other collaborators of the project and us. When the 5pm hour rolled around and we were not finished with our run, I stopped the kids and asked if they would like to finish now or if they had to hurry home. To my happy surprise, the youth wanted to finish the work. We stayed until it was nearly dark outside and we finished running the piece. The play ran one hour and five minutes. The youth knew what was going on, and were already able to cover for each other when members of their group were absent.
From the run, we as facilitators were able to generate a list of things that we needed to work on or touch up before the performance the next day. The list was mildly short, but included the attempt to correct the incorrect and erase the offensive.
Except our Monday plans were dashed by a lack of keys. This moment, for me, epitomized what our experience, logistically, had been in Ndumo. The varsity students arrived at 9am at Umhlanga Rocks. But we did not have the keys. Neither did the youth. We phoned and phoned our professors, organizers, and anyone who might be with them. We could not get through, and when we finally did, they were in the game reserve and could not leave to get us the keys. We were stuck outside, and it was cold and windy. All of our materials were inside.
Finally, we were told the keys would be with us in 20 minutes, so we waited for 40. Then I gave up, gave up and said okay, we are moving, this is absurd. And it was. Absurd that we stood outside. Absurd that no one thought to ask for the keys.
But this is my quandary for this whole project. We are supposed to be doing this on our own, creating our own process, but there are little things, minor things that are arranged for us. Like matches for the Bunsen burners, toilet paper, keys. When these items go missing, oftentimes we do not know what to do because we do not know where the supplies are, who to ask, where to go. It is our fault for not asking. But we cannot anticipate the questions that we do not know will be an issue.
When we arrived at the community center, the floor was sopping wet. Apparently it was cleaning day, so we could not use that space either. We ended up settling in the courtyard, which is a difficult space because it is not contained and it is open to the elements. I tried to organize the group into working on our newscasts, but my fellow facilitators were missing in action; resting elsewhere, playing with tree parts, or some other odd thing.
Eventually we were able to work through the parts that were suspect and the youth agreed to make the necessary changes in their newscasts. Of course, only a fraction of these happened in performance, and the newscasts were longer in duration than they had ever been before.
The lead actor in the unemployment drama was absent on Monday. Apparently he had gone to Durban. And that, of course, was a trip that had been planned for a long time, and yet he had not told us. So, we had to scramble. Luckily, we had just added a new member to our group on Sunday, Mdu. Mdu agreed to be our master of ceremonies, but also stepped into the role of the father in our drama. He got to rehearse the part, the improvised part, only one time, after seeing it once on Sunday. I must say, Mdu was brilliant. Just as I experienced in Haven Middle School, the students have an uncanny ability to step in and take each other’s roles if called to do so. There is something about the spur of the moment that allows the youth to take a huge risk and perform.
During a quiet moment during our workshopping session, one of the youth asks the bold question, “Why are we doing this?” In moments like these, I like to reflect the question back. Why do you think we are doing this play? “Because it helps us with our confidence in speaking English.” Yes, definitely. “But here is a question for you. Have you ever been able to stand up in front of your community and say exactly what you wanted to?” No. “Did anyone tell you what you had to say in this play?” No. “Are you saying exactly what you want to say in front of your community today?” Yes. Yes we are. Then that is why we are doing this play.
Soon, that time rolled around. Of course we held the house for 30 minutes, hoping that some more people would show up. A few did. We had about 20-30 people of varying ages in our audience. But, the wonderful thing that we did, was to ask our performers to sit in the audience when they were not on stage, which gave the illusion that the house was must fuller than it actually was.
They performed so well. Mdu was incredible at improvising all of the segues in between scenes, if not long-winded, and the youth performed with confidence. They needed to project more than they did, but for a first stab at it, they were fantastic.
The play grew and grew in length, finally clocking in at over 90 minutes. But that time was added by Mdu’s emcee-ing and the interaction between audience and ensemble during the values clarification section. This was conducted in IsiZulu, so I had no idea what was going on, but the tone did get slightly heated. Mdu did quite well toning everyone down and reminding them that this was a conversation not a debate. It is hard to facilitate, but Mdu did well.
The audience, in the end, received our play well. I think it is a strong yet raw piece. If reworked and edited and styled, it could be an incredible piece of theatre. Harald has mentioned continuing this work and presenting this play in the schools in November. That could be interesting. And a lot of work. If it is anything like this semester, I do not know if I can handle it.
After the play, we all walked back to Umhlanga Rocks were we prepared a large braai, chicken, salads, pap, beans, juice, the works. It was a deserved treat for the youth who had given up so much of their time to be with us and embark on this journey.
It got dark and cold and the food ran out. We said our goodbyes. And departed. Some of us for the last and final time.
Alarms went off at 4am the next morning and we stumbled into the koombi. As a deserved treat for us, we drove through Hluhluwe Game Reserve on the way home. I think we needed that. We were all so sick (literally, I had terrible flu) and tired after our week.
In, effectively, four days we created, wrote, and rehearsed a difficult and reflective hour and a half long play, and performed it in front of the community that the issues in question arise from. It was daunting work. We devised a community interactive play based on the kind of world we want to live in and the world we live in now. And we deserved a nap.
We always begin with a bang. This time it was us leaving campus late and in a horrid frantic angry rush, including bribing security guards and running barefoot across campus. We drove silently for an hour, not wanting to break the ice, break the tension, break the silence. I drifted off to sleep, this being the only respite from the monotony of silence.After the first toll, we stopped, and Harald got out of the car, shut the door and then reopened it, saying, “good morning.” I giggled, we were starting over. If only it were this easy all of the time. If only all things were this easily fixed. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and that ability to look back and learn how to redo is vastly important. In hindsight we ought to have prepared more thoroughly for this week. All of the phone calls and communications that needed to happen with our organizers in Ndumo fell through. We were more or less traveling blind. Not knowing who we would meet after that 5 hour journey, not knowing who we would be working with or when.
We had to stop along the way, to pick up food and supplies, since we had not been given a food list before then. We had a meeting scheduled for the Monday before the trip, but no one showed up except Harald and myself, so nothing much could get done, or at least nothing outside of what my tasks and responsibilities were. We left that meeting with just as many questions as we had answers, and it was only in the koombi on the way to Ndumo that some of these queries were met.
We arrived on that Wednesday afternoon to an empty community center, an empty Umhlanga Rocks, and low spirits. Apparently, some of the youth had been waiting for our arrival, but because we were so incredibly late, they had to leave. Unbeknownst to us, the youth had an exam the next day.
Some of the kids did return, and we spoke with them for a moment, asking them to rally the troops and get everyone ready for Thursday afternoon—we would meet at 3pm—and wishing them good luck on their exam. With good conscience, we could not ask these guys to stay on now to work; they had to study, had to rest, had to get ready. Of course, we were, in a way, blamed for not knowing about this exam in advance, but how could we know if not one had taken the initiative to ask?
We went back to the Environmental Center, where we were staying, and cooked dinner and went to sleep. Because of the youth’s exam, we would not be able to see them until 3pm, greatly cutting down the time we thought we would have with them, and so we scheduled to take a tour of the Ndumo Game Reserve on Thursday morning.
In the game reserve, we met with two rangers who spoke to us about population management, land claims, and the differences between culling and poaching. Then we took a drive through the reserve, sighting wildebeest, crocs, warthogs, giraffes, but unfortunately no rhino or leopard.
That afternoon at 3pm, the UKZN team had assembled at Umhlanga Rocks. Slowly, some of the youth began to trickle in. I think we had about 7 youth that afternoon, which is not terrible, but we realized that we needed many more in order to create a truly beneficial experience. By the end of the day, we had asked each student to bring at least 5 friends, so that hopefully we might increase our numbers. We crossed our fingers and hoped that this would work. Because really, it is word of mouth and the entreats of friends that get us to do things.
But on that Thursday, we began the work of re-meeting everyone and re-learning how to play and work together. We played some icebreakers games, and reestablished connections. We then revisited the values clarification game, which had been a favorite since March. Our statements were not as provocative this time, and often the entire group would agree or disagree together. But at least we were dealing with issues and making choices.
After this, we played a “Gender ABC” game that I had first encountered at the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Conference in Atlanta over the summer of 2008. The game then did not have to do with gender, but the structure allows itself to be adapted for any topic. The letters of the alphabet are listed out on two pieces of paper, and two groups compete to fill in their alphabet with words describing the given topic. On Thursday, we had all of the girls writing words describing maleness and masculinity, and all of the boys describing femaleness and femininity. Once the youth had completed the exercise, we tried to digest the words they had written, looking for similarities, differences, the words that made us angry and the words that delighted us.
We then did a free-write exercise where we addressed the “problems in my community.” These free-writes ended up founding the basis for two newscasts that the youth created wherein the posed the problems of their community and suggested (im)possible solutions. But on that day, we merely wrote the articles, and pop-read them. Afterwards, we attempted a very poor version of a theatre exercise named, “mantle of the experts.” It, unfortunately, was not planned well enough ahead to work as effectively as it could. It was also the first time we attempted a teacher-in-role situation, which I think came out of the blue for these youth, despite my attempts to describe what was going on.
I also think, though, that these youth need less to be secured within the safety net of play than do the kids in the States that I have worked with. These Ndumo kids just want to say what they think, and do not need to pretend to be someone else in order to say it. The fact that we are engaging with the topics is enough.
Friday we arranged to meet at 1pm, with all of the friends that our kids would be bringing. We wished on the shooting stars we saw Thursday night that we might have a solid group of students on Friday. And I guess that wishing helped, because we did. A group of about 15, which did fluctuate a bit, but more or less stayed consistent.
But we had to start over, in a way. Here were ten new and wonderful boys and girls who had never seen us, never met us, and only knew the tiny bit that their friends might have told them. Why did they agree to come into this process and spend the next few days with us? What did they tell their parents, siblings, grandmas?
So, on Friday, we played. Name games. Silly games. Focus games. Games that forced us to get close to each other, to really look at each other, to hold hands, to touch, to fail together, to laugh. Those boundaries started to break down, a bit, as much as they can in the first 30 minutes.
We then explained the process that we wanted to venture on, and the product, being a short performance piece that we would share with the community on Monday afternoon. Everyone seemed to get on board, they agreed to our process. So we got started.
Thursday, we had explored the world we live in now, so Friday was the day to discover the world we want to live in. We spread out long sheets of white paper across the floor, and empowered the youth with words and images, crayons and markers.
Flatfoot Dance Company was arriving that afternoon in Ndumo and had agreed to use the afternoon session to work with our kids in order to make a dance that addressed our theme of “the world we want to live in.”
The session started haphazardly and slowly. Gathering the youth was a mission, and motivating the work was almost more so. But by the end, the youth were creating their own pieces with the guidance of the Flatfoot members, and were working quite well on their own.
What emerged were three distinct dances; two groups of boys, and then all of the girls. The first boys dance was utterly shocking yet beautiful. These three boys had an incredible ability to break down all physical barriers and get exceptionally close to each other. The dance was not sexual because they did not imbue it with anything, but it certainly could have been. These three were rolling on top of each other, holding each other’s legs, crotches were everywhere. But because they were not aware of this, they kept going, kept playing, kept exploring. As a facilitator, I felt myself being pulled in so many ways. Here were three boys experiencing the greatest of expression and improvisation, yet if this was put in front of an audience, what would the reaction be? Would the piece be read as homosexual, would the boys be criticized? Would I be responsible for that? How could I shift the nature of the dance slightly without alluding to how the dance could be perceived and yet still preserve the integrity and vitality of their work?
Luckily, this did not come to pass. One of the boys was unable (or unwilling) to return to the process, and so the remaining 3 boys decided to change the dance. In their edits, all possibilities of sexuality were erased. The work was still their own, entirely.
We left the day Friday with a fully choreographed and assembled dance, an epic of images and words about the world we want to live in, and from Thursday, a description of the kind of world we live in now.
So Saturday had to be a big day. Our scheduling was full, starting at 8am and going until 5pm (which of course actually means that everyone arrives around 9 or 9:30am). We had to decide the forms that our work would take, but of course could not define the content in advance. We had to trust the youth.
We started the day—after some games and a bit of yoga—with a rehearsal and polishing of the dance from Friday. This was when the boys altered their dance and everyone else solidified what they were doing. Leaders started to emerge within the groups. Sanele proved to be a detailed perfectionist, needing to be in the limelight. Zanele pulled people away with her laughter. Scora counted his group in delicately and led his dance, making sure everyone was on the same page.
From the “world I live in now” writings, I found that the youth’s ideas broke down, roughly, into three categories: health, environmental, and social concerns. So, we asked the youth to choose the one topic that they would like to work on, and from there we would make short newscasts addressing those issues. But actually the youth were only interested in health and environment, so that is what we did. It made the groups bigger and the scenes longer, but that was okay, if that was what the youth wanted.
We created newscasts, which seems to be such a great tool in allowing the youth to talk about what they want to talk about. Although the UKZN supervised, we were really able to let the kids go on this one, choosing their own topics and arguments. Of course, that meant their material was not entirely accurate or realistic. But for now, maybe it is okay for the kids to dream? To dream that their problems of poor infrastructure will be solved by a tar road and the introduction of big industry, such as Coca-Cola, into their rural community.
We walk the line, as representatives of the university, of presenting 100% accurate information and, as facilitators and artists, of allowing the youth to create their own understandings of their world. Hopefully these two can align together, but oftentimes that is not possible. So we must gently guide the youth into our academic understandings? But that is not right either, because who gets to decide what is best for a community? Well, it seems that the academics do, but maybe the people who live there know best. However, the argument is that these people might not be educated enough to know better. It is the eternal question of who has the right to choose, and so often it is the western and the formally educated.
After lunch, we spent some time discussing various higher education options, from UNISA (the correspondence university), to technikons, to formal universities such as KwaZulu-Natal. This is information that the youth have been wanting since day one, and so we brought course booklets and application forms for all of the youth. They all dream of going to varsity, but most of them will not be able to make it there. After the performance on Monday, I walked with Scora back to Umhlanga Rocks. We spoke of the work we had just completed, and I said that if I had it my way, this would be the work that defines who we are and forms the basis for our acceptance into varsity. Speaking your mind in front of an audience of strangers, friends, and community leaders, for me, is far more difficult to do than sit in class and write an exam. For me.
From the images and words that the youth had written on those long sheets of paper, two ideas were inspired. First, we came back to the idea of writing poems about “the world I want to live in,” and secondly, Sanele had written a song about peace, freedom, and respect in South Africa. We split the group into boys and girls. So while the boys turned Sanele’s poem into a rap, the girls created what would become, for me, one of the most powerful pieces in our play, a poem about our ideal world.
My favorite devising idea ever comes from Betsy Quinn, who once gave her students the assignment of “bring something in for the play.” It could be anything, anything the student could imagine. From what she said, this was the most liberating of exercises for her students and also generated much of the play’s content. We tried this exercise with our youth on the spot. We asked them to break up into groups, and gave them an hour to create something for the play.
From this exercise, we gained a version of the national anthem layered with text about “this is our world, this is our South Africa,” a selection of traditional wedding songs, and a drama, completely in IsiZulu about the problems arising from unemployment. All three pieces were absolutely wonderful and poignant.
The drama was more difficult than the others, because it was in IsiZulu, and it dealt with some controversial issues. For instance, the unemployed man is South African, while the employed man is from Mozambique, which led to xenophobic remarks being used that were actually offensive to members of our group. But using those words is a re-presentation of reality, of what happens everyday. I do believe that such potentially offensive words must be used carefully and with purpose, if they are to be used at all, and that the message of the piece, or its resolution but also be created with purpose. The ending of this piece was originally such that, in order for the unemployed father to get out of jail, he must give his daughter to the Mozambiquan, for free. And this, clearly, starts dealing with issues of human rights and trafficking. Luckily, we were able to workshop this play a bit such that the resolution was not so impossible and the language was not as offensive.
At the end of Saturday, we had a dance, two newscasts, a rap, a poem, the national anthem, a series of traditional songs, and a drama. Our play was taking shape.
That night, we started dreaming up the structure of the play, so that we could rehearse it in order on Sunday. We found a structure that moved from the issues of now into the possibilities of the future, while separating sections similar in structure. So, all of the newscasts were not back-to-back, etc.
Sunday morning, the youth went to church and the UKZN students created a scene that we would perform in the play. After a lot of unused ideas, we decided upon creating an episode of Captain Planet. So, the four of us created a short scene about the consequences of littering. It ended up being quite a funny scene, partially because I, as Litterbug the villain, spoke in an absurdly stereotypical villain voice and melted like the Wicked Witch of the West when I was defeated by the Planeteers.
After the play, the kids kept quoting the piece, shrieking “Litterbug!” and laughing. The message was memorable because of its mode of transmission. But, the message did not change the student’s behavior. After the play, at our celebratory braai, Harald found chip bags all over the ground, the chips that the youth had just been eating. The message was remembered, but not heeded. Which begs the question, can theatre actually change people?
Once we met with the youth, an hour later than scheduled, we incorporated an interactive component to our play, adding a version of Values Clarification that the youth would lead with their audience, allowing the audience to respond verbally to the questions raised.
We brainstormed the beginning of the play, settling on a series of songs, which I named “the Ukubingelela song” as a result of needing a common phrase for the piece, and it also made the kids laugh. Ukubingelela means to greet. So it was a natural beginning of our play.
Then we rehearsed. We put the whole thing together and performed it in front of a makeshift audience, which is to say the other collaborators of the project and us. When the 5pm hour rolled around and we were not finished with our run, I stopped the kids and asked if they would like to finish now or if they had to hurry home. To my happy surprise, the youth wanted to finish the work. We stayed until it was nearly dark outside and we finished running the piece. The play ran one hour and five minutes. The youth knew what was going on, and were already able to cover for each other when members of their group were absent.
From the run, we as facilitators were able to generate a list of things that we needed to work on or touch up before the performance the next day. The list was mildly short, but included the attempt to correct the incorrect and erase the offensive.
Except our Monday plans were dashed by a lack of keys. This moment, for me, epitomized what our experience, logistically, had been in Ndumo. The varsity students arrived at 9am at Umhlanga Rocks. But we did not have the keys. Neither did the youth. We phoned and phoned our professors, organizers, and anyone who might be with them. We could not get through, and when we finally did, they were in the game reserve and could not leave to get us the keys. We were stuck outside, and it was cold and windy. All of our materials were inside.
Finally, we were told the keys would be with us in 20 minutes, so we waited for 40. Then I gave up, gave up and said okay, we are moving, this is absurd. And it was. Absurd that we stood outside. Absurd that no one thought to ask for the keys.
But this is my quandary for this whole project. We are supposed to be doing this on our own, creating our own process, but there are little things, minor things that are arranged for us. Like matches for the Bunsen burners, toilet paper, keys. When these items go missing, oftentimes we do not know what to do because we do not know where the supplies are, who to ask, where to go. It is our fault for not asking. But we cannot anticipate the questions that we do not know will be an issue.
When we arrived at the community center, the floor was sopping wet. Apparently it was cleaning day, so we could not use that space either. We ended up settling in the courtyard, which is a difficult space because it is not contained and it is open to the elements. I tried to organize the group into working on our newscasts, but my fellow facilitators were missing in action; resting elsewhere, playing with tree parts, or some other odd thing.
Eventually we were able to work through the parts that were suspect and the youth agreed to make the necessary changes in their newscasts. Of course, only a fraction of these happened in performance, and the newscasts were longer in duration than they had ever been before.
The lead actor in the unemployment drama was absent on Monday. Apparently he had gone to Durban. And that, of course, was a trip that had been planned for a long time, and yet he had not told us. So, we had to scramble. Luckily, we had just added a new member to our group on Sunday, Mdu. Mdu agreed to be our master of ceremonies, but also stepped into the role of the father in our drama. He got to rehearse the part, the improvised part, only one time, after seeing it once on Sunday. I must say, Mdu was brilliant. Just as I experienced in Haven Middle School, the students have an uncanny ability to step in and take each other’s roles if called to do so. There is something about the spur of the moment that allows the youth to take a huge risk and perform.
During a quiet moment during our workshopping session, one of the youth asks the bold question, “Why are we doing this?” In moments like these, I like to reflect the question back. Why do you think we are doing this play? “Because it helps us with our confidence in speaking English.” Yes, definitely. “But here is a question for you. Have you ever been able to stand up in front of your community and say exactly what you wanted to?” No. “Did anyone tell you what you had to say in this play?” No. “Are you saying exactly what you want to say in front of your community today?” Yes. Yes we are. Then that is why we are doing this play.
Soon, that time rolled around. Of course we held the house for 30 minutes, hoping that some more people would show up. A few did. We had about 20-30 people of varying ages in our audience. But, the wonderful thing that we did, was to ask our performers to sit in the audience when they were not on stage, which gave the illusion that the house was must fuller than it actually was.
They performed so well. Mdu was incredible at improvising all of the segues in between scenes, if not long-winded, and the youth performed with confidence. They needed to project more than they did, but for a first stab at it, they were fantastic.
The play grew and grew in length, finally clocking in at over 90 minutes. But that time was added by Mdu’s emcee-ing and the interaction between audience and ensemble during the values clarification section. This was conducted in IsiZulu, so I had no idea what was going on, but the tone did get slightly heated. Mdu did quite well toning everyone down and reminding them that this was a conversation not a debate. It is hard to facilitate, but Mdu did well.
The audience, in the end, received our play well. I think it is a strong yet raw piece. If reworked and edited and styled, it could be an incredible piece of theatre. Harald has mentioned continuing this work and presenting this play in the schools in November. That could be interesting. And a lot of work. If it is anything like this semester, I do not know if I can handle it.
After the play, we all walked back to Umhlanga Rocks were we prepared a large braai, chicken, salads, pap, beans, juice, the works. It was a deserved treat for the youth who had given up so much of their time to be with us and embark on this journey.
It got dark and cold and the food ran out. We said our goodbyes. And departed. Some of us for the last and final time.
Alarms went off at 4am the next morning and we stumbled into the koombi. As a deserved treat for us, we drove through Hluhluwe Game Reserve on the way home. I think we needed that. We were all so sick (literally, I had terrible flu) and tired after our week.
In, effectively, four days we created, wrote, and rehearsed a difficult and reflective hour and a half long play, and performed it in front of the community that the issues in question arise from. It was daunting work. We devised a community interactive play based on the kind of world we want to live in and the world we live in now. And we deserved a nap.
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