Is als oraait by die huis van die Here?
Marginalized voices from the Northern Cape: a community in crisis.
This production was initiated as an exploration in a postgraduate specialty of Cabaret at the Drama department. Since the first iteration, the production was significantly changed, and refined for the professional stage. Please note the video recording is the first iteration of the production.
The production was inspired by a small, marginalized Northern Cape community of Steinkopf (where the production was also performed in 2023). Events such as a church being closed and shunning the pastor by disgruntled parishioners, and a “prophet” that impregnated a young woman, functioned as the inspiration for the production. Against the background of these events, the cabaret investigates various fictional voices from a similar community. In a community that is already marginalized through poverty and geographic isolation, some characters are centralized, and others are moved to the periphery of the society. During the developmental phase of the production, and the subsequent professional iterations that followed the first performance, we explored various fringe figures (homeless and disenfranchised characters), in contrast to centralized characters of power (the police, church leaders) in how they view the events, and we see the effect of these events on the various groups.Even though the stories are set in a fictional town of Kookfontein, the stories resonate through numerous impoverished spaces of rural South African (coloured) society.
Afrikaans Kabarett has a long history and firm roots in the German tradition of literary Kabarett. The lineage of practice that we engaged with during the creation and rehearsal and reworking processes, includes artistic “templates” from practitioners such as Amanda Strydom, Nataniël, Herman van Veen, and Dutch ‘kleinkuns’. The Brechtian style of literary kabarett of Hennie Aucamp and Etienne van Heerden were also explored. Although these different lineages as a point of departure is very valuable, the approaches were used in different times and socio-political contexts. As anti-apartheid commentary was a very strong focus in the traditional Afrikaans kabarett, the themes and even artistic shape are no longer relevant in contemporary South Africa. Kabarett can also no longer be seen as a transitory literature. Even though new themes and voices are necessary to keep the kabarett relevant, the artist must...
Marginalized voices from the Northern Cape: a community in crisis.
This production was initiated as an exploration in a postgraduate specialty of Cabaret at the Drama department. Since the first iteration, the production was significantly changed, and refined for the professional stage. Please note the video recording is the first iteration of the production.
The production was inspired by a small, marginalized Northern Cape community of Steinkopf (where the production was also performed in 2023). Events such as a church being closed and shunning the pastor by disgruntled parishioners, and a “prophet” that impregnated a young woman, functioned as the inspiration for the production. Against the background of these events, the cabaret investigates various fictional voices from a similar community. In a community that is already marginalized through poverty and geographic isolation, some characters are centralized, and others are moved to the periphery of the society. During the developmental phase of the production, and the subsequent professional iterations that followed the first performance, we explored various fringe figures (homeless and disenfranchised characters), in contrast to centralized characters of power (the police, church leaders) in how they view the events, and we see the effect of these events on the various groups.Even though the stories are set in a fictional town of Kookfontein, the stories resonate through numerous impoverished spaces of rural South African (coloured) society.
Afrikaans Kabarett has a long history and firm roots in the German tradition of literary Kabarett. The lineage of practice that we engaged with during the creation and rehearsal and reworking processes, includes artistic “templates” from practitioners such as Amanda Strydom, Nataniël, Herman van Veen, and Dutch ‘kleinkuns’. The Brechtian style of literary kabarett of Hennie Aucamp and Etienne van Heerden were also explored. Although these different lineages as a point of departure is very valuable, the approaches were used in different times and socio-political contexts. As anti-apartheid commentary was a very strong focus in the traditional Afrikaans kabarett, the themes and even artistic shape are no longer relevant in contemporary South Africa. Kabarett can also no longer be seen as a transitory literature. Even though new themes and voices are necessary to keep the kabarett relevant, the artist must...