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Izithombe 2094:

The Bertrams Stories Project started in October 2015 to explore the everyday experiences and ways of living in the Bertrams, Lorentzville and Judith’s Paarl area through participatory drama and art. The result is Izithombe 2094, a site specific play performed in the streets and public space of the area with a small cast of professional actors performing alongside local participants.  Starting and finishing at Twilsharp Studios, 40/42 Gordon Road, the play takes the form of a walking tour with live performances and installations along the way. The stories, characters and vignettes woven together in the production have all been drawn from work with Bertrams Junior School, Bienvenu Refugee Shelter for Women and Children, Gerald Fitzpatrick House (for senior citizens), Bambanani Organic Vegetable Garden and countless conversations with people who have or are currently living and working in this cluster of three small suburbs at the head of the Bezuidenhout Valley, postcode 2094.

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The play is accompanied by an exhibition at Twilsharp Studios of art objects and found objects, sound installations and short video pieces from the playmaking process. Audiences are invited to view the exhibition after the play’s performance.

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Lindiwe Matshikiza and Toni Morkel, theatremakers who have long histories with the area, are the tour guide anchors for the play and Market Theatre Laboratory graduate, theatremaker and storyteller, Baeletsi Tsatsi is the assistant director with cameo performance moments. Izithombe 2094 is the culmination of director, Alex Halligey’s doctoral research, through the African Centre for Cities and the University of Cape Town’s Drama Department, into how drama and theatre can work with knowledges of the everyday.

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Performance dates and times:

Performance Dates and Times:

Saturday, 29 October: 09:00

Saturday, 29 October: 15:30

Sunday, 30 October :15:30

​Tuesday, 1 November @ 11:00

Saturday, 5 November: 09:00

Saturday, 5 November: 15:30

Sunday, 6 November: 15:30

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Meet at Twilsharp Studios, 40/42 Gordon Road. There is a field for parking monitored by a Twilsharp car guard. Performances are an hour and a half long, with a recommended extra half hour for viewing the exhibition – two hours in total for play and exhibition viewing.

Sunblock, hats and umbrellas are advisable.

Entrance is 'pay what you can', but due to limited capacity, booking is essential. 

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Creative Team:
Alex Halligey

Researcher and Director

​Baeletsi Tsatsi

Research Assistant and Assistant Director

Alex is currently pursuing her PhD in Drama through the University of Cape Town’s Drama Department and the African Centre for Cities. She is researching through her own performance practice the ways in which drama and theatre as public art in Johannesburg might help to explore the relationship between people and the built environment. She teaches part-time at the Market Theatre Laboratory and the Wits Theatre and Performance Division and writes for daily radio soap opera, Radio Vuka, flighted on SAfm. Outside of her research, she works with environmental activism theatre company, Well Worn Theatre, and continues to make her own performance work.

Baeletsi is a storyteller, facilitator, stage manager and writer. She is the creator of Naane le Moya, a blog that wishes to contribute towards encouraging a reading culture amongst young black people. Her performance credits include Museum Izindao, a one woman storytelling show she wrote and performed in, directed by Alex Halligey, performed at the Ramolao Makhene Theatre, POPArt Theatre and the National School of the Art’s Festival of Fame. She also performed in the first edition of the Storyteller Series hosted by Lebogang Mogashoa in association with POPArt Theatre. She has written for Rivoningo Season 6, an edutainment program for children

flighted on SABC 2. Her aim is to create work that advocates oral storytelling into the main stream market.

Lindiwe Matshikiza

Actor

Toni Morkel

Actor

Lindiwe is an artist who uses theatremaking tools to extend into film, music and various other disciplines. She is interested in work that is collaborative, process-driven and experimental. A performer, director and writer, she has initiated projects such as The Donkey Child - a devised theatre piece involving 40 players of all ages - in collaboration with Hillbrow Theatre Project, and JHB MASSIVE: Jozi <-> Accra, a temporary collective of 15 artists that combined forces to get to Chale Wote Street Art Festival in James Town, Accra.

Toni has been involved in the performing arts for over 30 years. She is well known as a physical theatre performer, having workshopped and performed in 15 Robyn Orlin productions (most memorably the award winning daddy…). Recent stage appearances include Hearts Hotel directed by James Cuningham; Tobacco and The Harmful Effects Thereof with Andrew Buckland, directed by Sylvaine Strike;

The Last Show with Roberto Pombo, directed by Jemma Kahn. Other memorable performances include Sylvaine Strike’s The Travellers and Coupe, Jenine Collocott’s High Diving; Pieter Dirk Uys’s The Merry Wives of Zuma; Nounouche - The Side Show and Two Straight Queers. Toni is a member of The Fortune Cookie Theatre Company and both Causing a Scene and Jittery Citizens Improvisation Groups.

Toni first entered the world of performance, after completing her studies in Fine Arts, with The Handspring Puppet Company where for 3 years she trained as a performer and gained invaluable experience in theatre making.

Toni Morkel

Actor

With support from: 

TIFFANI CORNWALL is a dramatic arts student in her fourth and Honours year of study at Wits University. She is majoring in Directing and Set and costume design and Stage Management. Tiffani runs 2 arts festivals: the RAPS Festival and she is the Johannesburg Festival Coordinator for the Shakespeare Schools Festival. She has also adjudicated various arts competitions, in addition to working with Tsogo Sun and Mini-Max Productions on an art education project. She has a passion for women and the agency they hold, as well as for children and education through art. She has designed and stage managed various production at Wits University and has worked in various theatres throughout South Africa.

After graduating from UCT in 2003 with a BA Theatre and Performance Degree, MICHAEL INGLIS has worked in the theatre in a variety of capacities. He is the founder of Emmet Theatre, a company dedicated to producing innovative and inspiring theatrical works. He has also worked extensively as stage-manager for various theatres and theatre producers, including The Baxter Theatre, The Fugard Theatre, Madame Zingara and Showtime Management, and at theatres and arts festivals around the globe.

As a freelance stage-manager on SA tour of Eve Ensler’s Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls around the World, Michael had the opportunity of working for Splitbeam, and in 2014, he joined the Splitbeam team in a full-time capacity, where he utilises his varied experience in the theatre in his work for the company, while learning from the diverse and exciting work that Splitbeam does.

FIONA GORDON is most at home combining her passion for the arts and love for lists, within an inspiring team. She offers her communications and project management experience to clients under the banner of Creative Fix, on projects of social and artistic relevance. She is a member of the 2016 Naledi Theatre Awards Judging Panel, and part of a research team at the Centre for Cultural Policy and Management at Wits. Fiona loves to share her knowledge through formal and informal teaching, and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Arts & Culture Management through the University of the Witwatersrand.

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