Drama Department Productions
Item set
- Title
- Drama Department Productions
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The 2020 Rhodes University Drama Department orientation production, titled "The Purple Shall Govern." As an annual theatrical intervention, it is designed to challenge first-year students' preconceptions, raise awareness about campus risks and choices, and provide a platform for discussing the "lived experiences" of students. The work-shopped performance deals with themes of activism, leadership, social justice, and institutional change, utilizing the historical "Purple Shall Govern" slogan to reflect on the university's values and students' roles in a democracy. -
An exploration of healing and cleansing rituals through performance. The project investigates how individual approaches to healing can be utilized as a performative art form, inviting the audience to reflect on their own personal rituals and practices.
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A response to Covid-19 restrictions, this work adapts live performative practices to a digital, online environment. It explores fragments of multimedia materials through the lens of relationality—how materials affect and are affected by one another. The project is a long-distance digital collaboration between artists in Johannesburg, Spain, and Makhanda.
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A three-part performance exploring specific psychological and physical states: "Monachopsis" (feeling out of place), "Whelve" (to bury deep), and "Balter" (to dance clumsily).
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Using an episodic surreal lens, this work explores the physical and emotional weight the feet hold when overcome with anxiety and curiosity. It navigates the fragmented quality of memory and dreams.
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An exploration of the 'Femme Fatale' archetype in isolation. The film questions what the seductive woman does when she is alone, confronting her own devious, sensual, and vulnerable psyche in the private space of a bath. -
A digital visual experience exploring sensation in the body as an essence of life. Created during the coronavirus pandemic, the work uses remote learning constraints to ignite a new perspective on self-perception, turmoil, and curiosity. -
A fictional legal drama following the trial of six women accused of murdering a "Clit Collector." The play uses absurdity and dark humor to address serious issues of genital mutilation and the shaming of female bodies. -
A transformative theatre event designed to challenge new students' preconceptions and address the lived experiences of students at Rhodes University. The work-shopped production deals with sensitive topics including racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, protest action, and substance abuse. It utilizes humor, spectacle, and critical engagement to explore identities and values. -
A solo piano performance of Frederic Rzewski's "De Profundis for speaking pianist" (1994). This iteration is an adaptation based on selected texts from Oscar Wilde's 1897 letter written during his imprisonment. The performance is an interdisciplinary collision of music, text, and movement, where the pianist moves beyond traditional expressionism into an embodied role.
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Set in the fictional village of Boswa, the play follows Kgosigadi, a leader who protests a law outcasting menstruating women. After her brutal execution, her daughter Matla embarks on a spiritual journey to seek justice. The work serves as a celebration of female strength, reframing menstruation from a source of shame to a gift of life and power. -
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A devised performance piece exploring themes of urban labor, social stratification, and the "grind" of everyday life in modern South Africa. It typically utilizes highly physical movement and ensemble work. -
The annual showcase of exam pieces from senior performers in the Rhodes Drama Department. This platform features original, inspiring, and often intelligent or disturbing works that cross the boundaries of dance, physical theatre, and contemporary performance. -
A production of Caryl Churchill's fast-paced play featuring over 50 scenes and 100 characters. The play examines how the modern "information age" impacts human intimacy, memory, and the way we process meaning. -
A powerful devised work that complicates and documents South African black woman narratives. The story, written and directed by Noluthando Mpho Sibisi, re-imagines the biblical story of Lot’s wife, focusing on the eyes of the ridiculed, the violated, and the vile. It uses salt as a metaphor for seasoning, purification, and preservation. -
A performance exploring alternative perspectives and self-recognition through delicate and resilient movement. -
An autobiographical choreographic portrait of self-discovery using contemporary movement, hip-hop, iconography, and poetry. -
A physical theatre performance exploring nuanced images of manhood, intimacy, and vulnerability to challenge stereotypes of masculinity. -
A devised piece that interrogates a relationship resulting in suicide at a train station through physical recollections and memories. -
An American play exploring universal themes of sexual abuse with nuances and subtleties, adapted for a South African context.
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Set in a shabby house on a platteland smallholding, the play explores a "lustful danger" lurking in a quiet town, juxtaposing mundane life with brewing magic and danger. -
An abstract screendance film depicting the artist's experience with invisible illnesses (endometriosis, ovarian cysts). Part of the Honours Choreography "Self as Site" series.