Art is a way we connect with the world. Theatre is no different. It is an artistic form of expression that uses stories to allow us to connect and engage with ourselves, our society and the politics of the day. Theatre becomes richer when these stories come from different voices and places.
While it remains a male-dominated industry, women have made their mark, but theatre needs more women in it. And more women of colour. That is why the recognition of these young female theatre makers is so important.
1. MOMO MATSUNYANE
Momo Matsunyane is a ball of fire. She has a magnetism and a commanding presence that makes the stage love her. Each role she takes on, whether as a performer, singer, writer or director, is handled with unrelenting vigour. A University of the Witwatersrand graduate, Momo is part of the talented Thenx Sketch Comedy Group.
She wrote Penny for the Wits So Solo Festival in 2015; directed Paul Slabolepszy's Mooi Street Moves for the State Theatre in 2016 and is the co-director of Thabiso Rammala's multi-award-winning play Tau, a piece of theatre that is as important as the films Moonlight or The Wound."As a young, black, female theatre practitioner in South Africa, it is my responsibility to use my craft in a way that will hopefully change how people might perceive a particular topic relating to current political issues. This sits in my heart and my heart is my history. What that history presents us with today and how we navigate that, is what comes through in my work," she says.
She is excited to be in Ankobia, the new play by 2017 Standard Bank Young Artist theatre winner Monageng Motshabi.
"Ankobia is about land. Today so many Africans find themselves displaced due to colonial and apartheid pasts. And when you're displaced, you're removed from who you are. It's an intense and relevant story which I'm proud to be a part of."
2. LESEDI JOB
Lesedi is the 2017 recipient of the Market Theatre's Sophie Mgcina Emerging Voice award. She has shown intelligence, grace, integrity and consistent brilliance in all her work and is fresh from directing Helen of Troyville at the National Arts Festival.
"Being a young, black, female theatre practitioner in this country comes with a lot of challenges, responsibility and pressure. As you go along you realise there's not a lot of black women in positions that you can chart your own career against in this industry. So the responsibility becomes yours to make work that is impactful. And I work very hard."As director, production liaison for arts and culture at the University of Johannesburg and through her production company, she continues this with her Naledi-winning play Scorched about civil war and forced migrations and, Black, based on the CA Davids 2014 novel The Blacks of Cape Town, adapted for the stage by Penny Youngleson.
She teams up with Ameera Patel in both productions.
Ameera won best supporting actress for Scorched, while Jade took best director."All of this work that I do has become very identity- and personal-history-driven, specifically around coloured, mixed-race, women identities," Jade says.
Black is Ameera's first one-woman show. Her first written play, Whistle Stop, a witty love story, premiered at the National Arts Festival in 2014 and won the PANSA new writer's award. Her first novel, Outside the Lines, is long-listed for the Barry Ronge Fiction Award and is being translated into German.
"I love heightened text so the poetic way that Penny wrote Black works for me. Whistle Stop and Scorched are also heightened texts. I love playing with words in that way," says Ameera...