Performance Spectular!

For a tremendous sweep of all the time we've put into the performance, sewing, painting, hammering, singing, writing and practicing, today was a culmination of lots of effort over the past 6 weeks. I think the pictures mostly speak for themselves - as soon as I have video to post I will do so - perhaps on youtube so to make it bigger/longer. All in all we performed 5 plays - 3 quite short, traditional stories and 2 longer, more contemporary ones. In order there was "Johnny, the Best Cheater" (a story about a princess seeking a mate through a competition to see who could eat spicy food without making a peep), "Linda Perseveres" (a story about a farm girl who escapes her destiny as a domestic worker to go to college), "The Monkey & the Crocodile" (a funny little story about 2 friends, a monkey and a crocodile, and the advice given to the croc by a traditional healer to give his ailing mother the heart of a monkey), "A New Way to Love" (a modern-day story about 2 teenagers who are feeling the pressures to have sex - especially unprotected - and the advice they seek from their role models in how to pursue the other), & finally "Yabo and the 3 Goats" (a children's story about a shepherd and the 3 goats that wind up in the pumpkin patch and the many friends he enlists to help him get them out).

A list of photo descriptions from top to bottom: 1) Visitors in the audience from Sussex, the neighboring Primary school where I will begin teaching next week. 2) a behind the scenes look at our performers, 3) a good look at the faces of the performers behind the masks of their puppets, 4) more of the crowd, 5) the final puppet stand/set, 6) more crowd - baby Iris (in blue) is sitting in the lap of Mammakie her nanny, both of whom live with me at Rietpan, 7) scene from "A New Way to Love", 8) Panyalatsa in "Johnny the best Cheater", 9) puppets in action, 10) a group shot of me with a few students - the "teach", 11) Miriam, my host, filming the event, 12) students from Sussex meeting their first puppets!, 13) a brilliant shot by Seboko of some ladies who live on farm where the school is located

These first photos & last 3 photos were ones taken by a high school Senior, Seboko Phillemon Morobi, who showed special talent in film editing during a previous dramatic need workshop. On Tuesday, to help raise money to send him to Johannesburg next year for a film internship, an article was written about him in the London Times. I took a whole series of photos of Seboko for the article and apparently one of them appeared along with it, though it is not visible online. Would be the first time I'd be published in a newspaper! It's quite an interesting article detailing th need for expressive arts in ares where trauma, poverty and hunger abound - check it out at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5126664.ece