Strategies for Survival at SIBIKWA 1988 – 2021 (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies) 9781032182674, 9781032182681, 9781003253686, 1032182679

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Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies

STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL AT SIBIKWA 1988–2021 LANDMARKS OF SOUTH AFRICAN THEATRE HISTORY Commissioned and edited by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba

Strategies for Survival at SIBIKWA 1988–2021

This book provides an engaging and contextualised insight into a South African township-based arts centre that has survived the vicissitudes of steady militarisation in townships during some of the worst years of apartheid as well as the exhilaration of a new democratic polity while attempting to circumnavigate different policies and funding dispensations. Sibikwa provides arts centres across the world and especially those in decolonising countries with strategies for survival in tumultuous times. This multi-disciplinary book maps and coordinates wider historical, political, and social contextual concerns and events with matters specific to a communitybased east of Johannesburg and provides an exploration and analysis by experts of authentic theatre-making and performance, dance, indigenous music, arts in education, and NGO governance. It has contemporary significance and raises important questions regarding inclusivity and transformation, the function and future of arts centres, community-based applied arts practices, creativity, and international partnerships. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance, indigenous music, dance, and South African history. Phyllis Klotz is the artistic director and co-founder of the Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni. Smal Ndaba is the co-founder and managing director of the Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni.

Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies

This series is our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies, and edited collections. Considering theatre and performance alongside topics such as religion, politics, gender, race, ecology, and the avant-garde, titles are characterised by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics. Mothering Performance Maternal Action Lena Šimić and Emily Underwood-Lee A Sourcebook of Performance Labor Activators, Activists, Archives, All Joey Orr Sonic Engagement The Ethics and Aesthetics of Community Engaged Audio Practice Sarah Woodland and Wolfgang Vachon The Immersive Theatre of GAle Gates Daniella Vinitski Mooney Strategies for Survival at SIBIKWA 1988–2021 Landmarks of South African Performance History Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba Instruments of Embodiment Costuming in Contemporary Dance Eric C. Mullis Hamlet’s Hereditary Queen Performing Shakespeare’s Silent Female Power Kerrie Roberts For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Advances-in-Theatre--Performance-Studies/book-series/RATPS

Strategies for Survival at SIBIKWA 1988–2021 Landmarks of South African Theatre History Commissioned and edited by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-18267-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-18268-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-25368-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686 Typeset in Bembo by MPS Limited, Dehradun

Contents

List of Contributors Acknowledgements PART I

1 The political is personal: Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz in thumbnail portraits of origins and orientations

vii xi 1

3

SA RAH ROBER TS

2 Founding Sibikwa: A professional partnership tem­ pered in the forge of apartheid’s final years

18

SA RAH ROBER TS

3 Democracy, the first decade: The Mandela-Mbeki years (1994–2005)

35

SA RAH ROBER TS

4 “The Trouble with Freedom”: Mbeki’s dream of an African Renaissance, nation-building, and issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa

54

SA RAH ROBER TS

5 Issues of governance, policy, delivery, and account­ ability escalate: Sibikwa responds to developments in arts and culture policy documents and continues theatre-in-education projects

75

SA RAH ROBER TS

6 The struggle for social justice in confronting genderbased violence and strategies of intensifying an African cultural heritage as the project moves into the future SA RAH ROBER TS

91

vi

Contents

PART II

7 Governance of Sibikwa Arts Centre: A reflection on the agility, progress, and longevity of the organisation

121

123

MUNYA RAD Z I C HAT I KO B O A N D C A R YN GR EEN

8 Sibikwa’s educational programmes

147

VA NESS A B O W E R A N D HAZE L BA R N E S

9 “Living proof” - Thirty years of Sibikwa’s theatre productions

168

SA RAH ROB ER T S

10 Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy of dance and physical theatre from community to professional dance development

201

C LA RE CRAI GH E AD AN D L L I A N E L O O TS

11 Keeping the African sound relevant

225

EVANS NTS HE N GE D ZE N I N ET SHI VH A MBE

12 Framing the intersectional gender politics of the Sibikwa legacy

251

LLIA NE LOO T S

Index

269

Contributors

Phyllis Klotz is the artistic director and co-founder of the Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni and has been at the forefront of arts training and development for youth for over 40 years. Her work has always been focused on the empowerment of young black females. She has been and still is involved in developmental theatre and arts education and is recognised as an expert in the development of community arts centres. She is the recipient of several awards for her contribution to South African theatre and has directed and co-written the seminal theatre piece, You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock. She has served on boards of the National Arts Council, State Theatre, CATHSSETA, and the Market Theatre. She is also the recipient of the Naledi Lifetime Achievement Award. Smal Ndaba is the co-founder and managing director of the Sibikwa Arts Centre; as an actor, playwright, and director he has toured all over Southern Africa, the USA, and Europe and has gained both national and international recognition for his work. He has initiated arts programmes to assist street children and juvenile prisoners; he assists South African and Mozambican community arts centres to build capacity. The majority of plays directed and written by Smal focus on community issues. Smal has over 30 years’ experience working in the community arts and imparts his knowledge frequently through conducting workshops in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and the USA. He is a joint winner of the Naledi Lifetime Achievement Award 2005 with co-director Phyllis Klotz. Prof Hazel Barnes is the retired head of the Drama and Performance Studies Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg campus where she lectured, researched, performed and directed theatre, and also developed the applied drama and theatre option. She was the university orator for a number of years and also assistant Dean. Since retirement she has been a Mellon visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town and visiting lecturer and chair of the research committee of the Drama for Life Programme University of the Witwatersrand. She has written on the use of applied drama with the deaf, for reconciliation and trauma recovery, and on

viii Contributors

the work of South African playwrights, Greig Coetzee, whose plays she has anthologised, and Mandla Mothwe. Vanessa Bower studied English and Speech and Drama and taught at various institutions in Cape Town. In 1998 she joined the staff of Sibikwa Community Theatre Project, where she facilitated teacher training programmes for seven years. She was later involved in the Learnership Programmes and subsequently trained a number of artists in arts facilitation at Sibikwa, in preparation for the Artists in Schools Programme. She has published a book on Assessment of Arts and Culture and has produced Creative Arts teacher support manuals for the Gauteng Department of Education. She has also provided training in Workplace Communications. Munyaradzi Chatikobo is a lecturer in Drama for Life and Cultural Policy and Management in the Wits School of Arts. He has considerable experience in Cultural Leadership and Arts Management training. His academic and research interests are in Cultural Policy and Management which includes Community Arts, Culture and Development, Cultural and Creative Industries, Culture and Diplomacy as well as Social and Cultural Entrepreneurship. He is a board member for Nhimbe Trust and CHIPAWO Trust in Zimbabwe. He is also a non-executive director of Andani Africa. He is a registered PhD candidate in the Wits School of Arts and his area of study is Cultural Policy and Community Theatre in South Africa. In 2018 he teamed up with Avril Joffe, Johanna Mavhungu and Annabell Lebethe to author a book chapter on Cultural Governance in South Africa. The chapter appears in a book edited by Ian W King and Annick Schramme titled Cultural Governance in the Global Context; An International Perspective on Arts Organisations (Palgrave). Clare Craighead has been the company manager to Flatfoot Dance Company for the past 15 years. She holds an MA degree in Drama and Performance Studies from UKZN and has published in Critical Arts, South African Theatre Journal, South African Dance Journal and Agenda: A Journal of Feminist Media. Craighead spearheaded and continues to facilitate the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival’s graduate writing residency programme. “JOMBA! KHULUMA.” which is an intensive platform that takes graduate students – under festival conditions – through the rigours of reviewing and critically engaging dance. She has also been a contract lecturer/ tutor to UKZN’s Drama and Performance Studies and Gender Studies Programmes and has a long-standing position as a moderator for Embury Institute for Education’s “Education and Diversity” module. Currently she is working as a lecturer at Durban University of Technology’s Drama and Production Studies Department. Caryn Green is the CEO of Sibikwa Arts Centre. She previously worked and sat on transformation and research committees at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she obtained her Master’s Degree in Arts and Culture

Contributors ix

Management, alongside certificates in Project Management, Cultural Leadership, Monitoring and Evaluation, Curriculum Development and Bookkeeping. Dr Lliane Loots holds the position of Lecturer in the Drama and Performance Studies Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has a MA degree in Gender Studies and completed her PhD in 2018 looking at contemporary dance/performance histories on the African continent. As an artist/scholar her PhD research is framed within an ethnographic and autoethnographic paradigm with a focus on narrative as methodology. Loots has published widely within this area of academic/ praxis enquiry. Loots holds the founding position of Artistic Director for UKZN’s Centre for Creative Arts annual international JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience – a festival that turns 23 in 2021. She has recently completed a three-year stretch on the National Arts Festival’s Artistic Committee for dance. Loots founded Flatfoot Dance Company as a professional dance company in 2003 when it grew out of a dance training programme that originally began in 1994. As the artistic director and resident choreographer for Flatfoot, she has won numerous national choreographic awards and commissions and has travelled extensively in Europe, America, and within the African continent with her dance work. Loots was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government in 2017 for her work in the South African dance sector. Dr Evans Netshivhambe is a young South African composer lecturing in African music at the University of Pretoria with an interest in African music identity through African art composition. His PhD in African music composition incorporates Venda rhythmic elements into African art music, exploring a new “sound world” through composition. He is currently a lecturer in African music studies, at the University of Pretoria. In 2008, Evans was awarded third prize in a choral music competition held by the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), which showcased 20thcentury choral music style. He also received three commissions from the SAMRO Foundation (in 2010, 2011, and 2012 respectively). Dr Sarah Roberts’ career synthesises professional practice with a commitment to education, development, and scholarship. Recently retired from the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was an associate professor, she has developed and implemented a range of undergraduate courses in cultural studies, performance, and design in the Division of Theatre and Performance. Her focus on developing improvisation skills and the agency of actors as an ensemble is documented in publications in the Journal of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa and the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English. A multiaward-winning professional production designer, her portfolio includes significant productions emerging from South Africa since 1985 including

x

Contributors

designing the stage for the Union Building Gardens for President Nelson Mandela’s inauguration in addition to landmark productions across the spectrum of musical theatre, contemporary dance and drama, including Sarafina!, Sophiatown, and Nothing but the Truth. These productions, including a significant number of Sibikwa productions over the span of 30 years, have been feted nationally and internationally. One of the original Board members of Sibikwa at its inception, she served as a trustee for the project for ten years and has since continued to be closely associated with a range of Sibikwa projects, productions, and conferences.

Acknowledgements

It is with appreciation that we acknowledge the contribution the following people have made to realizing the Sibikwa book. We thank Dr Sarah Roberts who, since 1988, has bought into the Sibikwa vision, creating innovative and imaginative sets and costumes with minimum budgets and always at hand to offer sound advice. To Vanessa Bouwer, we say thank you for your continual commitment to training arts teachers who have spread the word about the importance of arts education and have had an impact in the schools they taught at. To Dr Lliane Loots who has graciously over the years supported Sibikwa’s gender programmes in dance and drama and has been a source of encouragement. To Munyaradzi Chatikobo who has been a long-time friend and supporter of Sibikwa and our arts policy, research, and advocacy initiatives. To Dr Evans Netshihambe, thank you for holding the link between community arts and the academy. Professor Hazel Barnes a stalwart drama educator, your input is greatly valued. To Caryn Green, the new CEO of Sibikwa to whom we have passed the baton, you continue to run Sibikwa with insight, fortitude, and courage in these difficult times and we thank you. To Elsie Cloete who has managed bringing all the moving parts of the book so professionally together we thank you. To Sipho Michael Mabena, a graduate and employee of Sibikwa, with broad shoulders on whom we leaned heavily in remembering, collecting, and collating material for this book. To the current Board of Sibikwa Chairperson Pamela Grayman, Mologadi Kekana, Zwelakhe Gumede, and Rick Edmonds their steadfast commitment to their oversight role and their constant support of our endeavours has made an invaluable contribution to the progress of the organisation – we thank you. Thirty-four years is a long time to keep an arts organisation afloat; we have written hundreds of proposals, most of them unsuccessful. It is with a deep sense of gratitude that we thank those funders who believed in Sibikwa’s values and supported Sibikwa financially enabling us to achieve our goals and produce this vast body of work which has reached thousands of people both young and old throughout South Africa. To all the young people who have walked through the doors of Sibikwa or participated in our outreach programmes and placed their trust and their future

xii Acknowledgements

in our hands believing that engaging with Sibikwa could help them toward a better future – we thank you. Our gratitude goes to Business and Arts South Africa [BASA] and the Arts and Culture Trust [ACT] who throughout the years have constantly helped to sustain Sibikwa and for their financial backing in bringing this book to life. To Routledge, thank you for publishing this book and enabling our story to be told to the world. Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba

Part I

1

The political is personal: Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz in thumbnail portraits of origins and orientations Sarah Roberts

Sibikwa during the Apartheid Years: Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz speak about themselves and a socio-political history of the East Rand, the origins of the project, and its early achievements.

We have had an imported culture from Europe while the indigenous culture – praise songs, oral tradition, dancing – was discounted. It is time to think of a post-apartheid culture, a common culture. (Nadine Gordimer, 1982, Gaborone symposium. Available at https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file%20uploads%20/ memorandum_on_the_culture_and_resistance.pdf. Accessed 10 February 2021)

Putting people first: Personal introductions It is unthinkable to approach a history or celebration of Sibikwa without first introducing the two individuals, Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz, who have variously and jointly been so central to its inception, expansion, and sustain­ ability: Bra Smal – or Chief (as Klotz calls him) – and MamKlotz, or “Tyson” as she was known to the early Sibikwa students familiar with her readiness to take on all-comers. The story of these two Naledi Lifetime Achievers (2004) as individuals – and as partners – tells of socially engaged citizens, artists, and educators whose life’s work is realised in Sibikwa’s diverse arts training and skills development programmes, community initiatives, and theatre produc­ tions.1 This complex love story tells of passionate care and investment in young people and children, intertwined with profound pleasure in creative expression and storytelling in diverse media. These pursuits are inseparable from tireless commitment to social upliftment and cultural transformation in which “the personal is political and the political is personal” rather than an expedient implementation of policy. My long association with both (as close friends and creative collaborators) predates Sibikwa and work on You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock. The mid-1980s in South Africa was a meeting ground for so many members of the theatre community and as designer of several noteworthy productions DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-2

4

Sarah Roberts

Figure 1.1 Studio photograph of Phyllis Klotz standing and Smal Ndaba seated. (Photograph by Russell Smith April 2021).

(Born in the RSA, Have You Seen Zandile?, Sophiatown and Sarafina!) it was almost inevitable that we would eventually meet. Memorably, in what was then a small street in Newtown, Johannesburg, outside the Market Theatre, I encountered Smal Ndaba who was working on Bopha! at the time. If memory serves me correctly, I met him some months before I encountered Phyllis Klotz. Barney Simon, Artistic Director of this crucible of new South African plays that challenged the hegemony of the Western repertoire, took undisguised delight in fostering creative partnerships, and introduced me to Klotz with a view of us working together. Meeting Ndaba was not related, then, to prospects of working together on a production. His first approach to me with a view to working together was in respect of Sibikwa in the capacity as one of the founding trustees.

The political is personal

5

Figure 1.2 Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz in studio portrait dressed in contemporary African dress against a backdrop of a map of Africa. (Photograph by Russell Smith April 2021).

Our much-valued association means that an insider perspective will colour my approach to structured interviews, their transcription, and reflections on important aspects of their shared history. But any history, as a chronicle of events and the persons animating those events, cannot be entirely impartial. What is recorded in this chapter depends, at least partially, on the shared recollections of the protagonists of this narrative and my role as participant observer in the work of several decades. Since 1986 we have collaborated on diverse productions and grappled with multiple issues embedded in the process of realising a new project. We have enjoyed each other’s company, laughed, and celebrated so many details of each other’s lives as friends, as much as professional collaborators. But despite this long-standing friendship there has been much to discover in the process of data-capture for this quasi-biographical approach to what Sibikwa represents.

6

Sarah Roberts

Personal narratives – increasingly acknowledged in South Africa because of the methodologies advocated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission – are central to recording the evolution of the Sibikwa vision and mission. But, in the interests of objective mapping, issues that emerged during these conferences in Gaborone in 1982 and Amsterdam in 1987 – in conjunction with a chronology of events of national political import – will comprise the focus of the chapter to follow to provide a framework to chart the achievements of 30 years of com­ mitted work.2 Political scientist Patrick Chabal (2009) in Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling eschews abstraction and theoretical interrogation as tools for analysing continental Africa, its politics, poverty, and endurance. He accounts for why he rejects orthodox methods in favour of “an attempt to tackle post-colonial politics in Africa from a different angle” (2009, p. ix). As he puts it: my intention has been to bring back people into politics … I want here to fix my camera at eye level and engage with politics as it is played out in everyday life, I have eschewed the macro for the micro, the high for the low, and the elite for the ordinary. (2009, p. xi) This focus on the significance of immediate experience, everyday social rela­ tions, and ways of being is richly productive as the indices of subjectivity and socio-political sensibility are formulated in terms of being and the significance of places of origin and location become key marker of identity. His concentration on the “politics of belonging” (2009, pp. 43–64) sets out the crucial determi­ nants of kinship relations, the value accorded to reciprocity within a community along with ways in which outsiders, “others,” or “strangers” are hospitably as­ similated in a social formation. These foundations establish a springboard for addressing, first, what he terms “the politics of believing” (2009, pp. 65–84) which, he posits, intertwine morality and rationality with agency and what that term represents, and then “the politics of partaking” (pp. 85–105) which frames his discussion of subject and citizen. Chabal’s method, the central nodes of his analysis and his propositions regarding markers of being and belonging have clear congruity with an attempt to record the lives of Ndaba, Klotz, and the Sibikwa project and undergird this documentation in which they jointly account for themselves.

Growing up in the apartheid decades Both born in 1945 (three years before the Nationalist Party ousted incumbent Jan Smuts’ United Party after the 26 May 1948 election), Smal Ndaba (12/1/1945) and Phyllis Klotz (19/9/1945) experienced childhood and much of their adult lives under apartheid with its systematic segregation, separatism, and dis­ crimination. Their work in theatre and at Sibikwa was compelled by the need to respond to the increasingly draconian measures employed by the state in efforts

The political is personal

7

to preserve white supremacy. Both were directly affected by the ways in which minority rule was entrenched through a proliferation of acts, laws, and by-laws that shored up the apartheid regime. This legislation ranged from the Population Registration Act (1950) and the Group Areas Act (1950, 1957, 1966) – which governed identity classification, rights, citizenship, and settlement – to the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (1953) which controlled access to and use of public facilities like beaches, buses, and even park benches. Three striking details emerge from their disparate childhood memories: first, they share a vivid sense of recall in quasi-dramatic or theatrical terms, vis-à-vis visual detail and also in terms of how dialogic exchange offers scope for the receiver to interpret the significance of a scene that has played out; second, neither offers stories that are about intense suffering or oppression but rather celebrate protagonists who are emblems of resilience in the face of adverse circumstance; finally, political systems and operations are explained anecdo­ tally and defined in explicitly human terms. “Bra Smal” has a vivid recall of a personal history that begins with his grandmother and her two daughters who moved from Newcastle to Johannesburg where his mother, the firstborn, would secure domestic em­ ployment in Johannesburg to pay for building a house on a piece of land in Benoni (a town east of Johannesburg). He relays details of his early childhood as one of five children growing up in the care of his aunt and her husband, the Ndaba family, in their East Rand home. I was born and bred in Benoni Bantu Township, “Benoni-ke-Twatwa”, known then to African people in the townships. My family were staunch Christian members of St Albans Anglican Church which was at the centre of the township. […] At the age of 7yrs I was already a choir boy – “Boatboy” – at St Albans with Johnny Mekoa, “Mababa”. My parents yearned that I become a priest when the time came and follow in the footsteps of my brother known as “Benoni”. [He] was ordained in St Peter’s in 1961 alongside Bishop Desmond Tutu at St Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg. In 1960 my parents sent me to live at “Christ the King” in Sophiatown with the “Community of Resurrection”, with the hope that I might forget the township style of living. In Sophiatown there were two people who made an impact on my life, Father Theo Rakale and Father Stubbs who was the head at St Peters, a theology institution in Rossettenville.3 I spent three years studying at the famous Madibane High under the founder, the “Shark” Mr Madibane. I made friends with people like James Madiba and Thami Mazwai who lived in the nearby Western Native Township, they introduced me into politics. That is how I met “The Prof” Mangaliso Sobukwe in person as a member of the PAC Youth League. (About Smal Ndaba. A brief narrative biography supplied by e-mail received 26 January 2021)

8

Sarah Roberts

As an Anglican altar boy, he was incense bearer during Easter and Christmas services and perhaps this participation in formal, solemn ritual, and communal celebration laid a foundation for his love of theatre – its secular equivalent. He was, however, equally entranced by the “vibrant jazz vibe, rehearsals, concerts and the general life provided by groups such as ‘Woody Peckers’, ‘Kadzin jammer kids’, the ‘Quavers’ and the ‘Jumping Jacks’.” He acknowledges having “really disappointed (his) loving parents” (About Smal Ndaba, by e-mail 26 January 2021) in his reluctance to enter the Church: years later he was to find a different congregation to which to minister and to whom he continues to offer pastoral care. He describes his lifestyle choices as a young 20-year-old: In 1965 I was back at home in Benoni.4 I finished my matric at Mabuya High. Thereafter I started working at the municipality bottle store as a cashier. During that time, I met guys like the alto saxophone player, Aubrey Simane, and Retsi Pule, a jazz vocalist, both from East London, and Duncan Madondo, a saxophonist from Mthatha, I offered them accommodation at home. I bought a tenor saxophone and started learning how to play (I gave that sax to Victor Ndlazelwane who became leader of the Jazz Ministers). We were later joined by two locals Bra Boy Ngwenya on piano and Shepstone Sothoane on drums.5 Aubrey Simane became the leader, and the group was named the “Jazz Ministers”. We played in several spaces around the East Rand and even took it to the Anglican Church in Daveyton under the banner “Jazz Goes to Church”. I was fired from the bottle store then I decided to go back to what I always wanted to do. (About Smal Ndaba. By e-mail 26 January 2021) “MamKlotz” launches her story with an account of migration embedded in her maternal grandparents’ decision to leave Lithuania to come to South Africa in the early 1930s. In brief, she describes her Welsh father’s family as having originally hailed from Poland. Her father was in the RAF, came to South Africa, met Lily, Klotz’s mother, married her in South Africa before returning to the UK (shortly after Klotz was born) to be de-mobbed at the end of the war. Her proud acknowledgement of a “strong Jewish, Yiddish, left-wing cultural background” is borne out by the clear significance in her life choices by an extended, tightly knit family: We all lived together, my parents and my grandparents and my mother’s two brothers. We all lived in a big house in Gardens. My grandfather was a tailor, and my grandmother was a seamstress, what we would call today like a fashion designer but in those days she was a dress-maker. My grandfather was a communist. He was a Trotskyite, very political, especially when he was in Lithuania. He had to go into the Russian Army, which he did. When he came out, in their village in Lithuania he looked after the library. He was not religious obviously. When he saw the

The political is personal

9

writing on the wall in Europe for Jews and I think in 1930, or 1931, he came to South Africa because he had family here. He was well read and erudite. My grandmother was not. And that’s how my mother grew up. In fact, my mother could sing the Internationale before she could do anything else. He used to take her to the meetings. There was a strong Jewish, Yiddish left-wing cultural background. He was with Albie Sachs’ father in the Trade Union Movement – and he knew all those political leaders – like “Moses” Kgosana who led the march from Langa to Cape Town. “Moses” Kgosana was a personal friend of his.6 He used to come to the house. (Interview 1, 27 January 2021) Klotz was born in Gardens, raised in Tamboerskloof and then Sea Point, Cape Town, with the last move necessitated by her father’s bankruptcy declaration. She grew up as an only child after the family tragedy of losing a baby boy to “one of those mysterious cot deaths” (Interview 1, 27 January 2021). She describes how her mother worked on Wednesdays to afford her drama and dance classes and how her parents were determined that she should not be materially in­ dulged: rather, they inculcated the value of independence and responsibility in her during early childhood. Years later, she earned pocket money working in her uncle’s laundry. She is proud of having been a rebellious and disruptive presence in her high school class and acknowledges to having achieved “a very average matric” (1962) (Interview 1, 27 January 2021), before defying her parents in preferring the diploma option over the BA (Drama) qualification at the University of Cape Town. Aged just 17, she could not imagine spending a lengthier period studying – she wanted to get on with living. She sums up the completion of her diploma (in 1965) with these words: I got really intellectually bored. There’s nothing here for me. […] And at “Drama School” they probably thought: “she’s out of it now. She’s married and not that interested.” I wasn’t interested in them either. I felt it was very superficial. Even in those days I used to say that we’re in Africa. Why am I only studying British theatre? What about the rest of Africa? That’s where we are. (Interview 1, 27 January 2021) Marriage truncated her studies. After her son’s birth, the young family spent some 18 months abroad (in London and Israel) before returning to South Africa, initially settling in Johannesburg but subsequently relocating to Cape Town so that the young mother could be reunited with family. Two sons followed. It was as a mother of three young boys that she returned to university to complete her degree as a mature student in defiance of the predictions of those who said she would never do so. She graduated in 1975 committed to drama training and drama in education: her area of specialisation had already crystallised.

10 Sarah Roberts

Klotz recalls childhood perceptions of apartheid through three distinct anecdotes that demonstrate the impact of systemic control of everyday life, but Ndaba relays his understanding of that social regime in a different register. Klotz tells of an exceptionally beautiful, elegant black woman in chic fifties dress who frequented the vicinity of their apartment in Sea Point and who adults referred to as “Miss Drum.” These adults spoke about her only in whispers mystifying the young Phyllis who could not understand a need for secrecy: the furtive discussions were patently at odds with what she perceived as “Miss Drum’s” bold presence. Gossip held that she had a white, German lover and the relationship clearly contravened the Immorality Act enforced at the time. Klotz also tells of the weekly Friday bus trips with her mother to her grandparents in which Coloured Persons were restricted first to the back of the bus and then to the upper deck. She recalls that around the ritual dinner table, her two (apolitical) uncles would exchange mildly disapproving looks at stories of the succession of her grandfather’s communist friends and acquaintances arrested as part of extensive 1960s police action. In contrast, Ndaba discounts embedded consciousness of the political divide until a Damascene political awakening: With apartheid during the fifties, I was not aware that we have no place – we just lived with what we had. We knew about Bantu Education. That it is there. But we didn’t understand it. We just carried on. I got to understand politics when I was in Sophiatown. [Thami Mazwai] took me down for a session to see Sobukwe. (Interview 1, 27 January 2021) He writes: This is how I remember the story of the two cousins, the dog, and the wolf, narrated to us by Prof Mangaliso Sobukwe almost 65yrs ago. Sobukwe and some of the ANC members abandoned the ANC and formed the PAC after the birth of the Freedom Charter (Kliptown, 1955). In one of the Freedom Charter’s Chapters it is stated that “the land belongs to all who live in it.” While the PAC refuted this and believed instead that the land belonged to Coloureds and Africans. Why? Because Indians belonged to India and Europeans belonged to Europe. Thus, the PAC slogan: “Izwe lethu!, Mayibuye! iAfrica!” For us young people then, to understand, he narrated the story of two cousins a dog and a wolf. One night a dog meets his very thin cousin, wolf. Wolf:

Hey cousin, [admiring him] tell me how come you look so handsome and healthy, when we are dying of hunger in this winter season. Fat dog: Well to be honest it’s because of these human beings I live with.

The political is personal

Wolf: Dog: Wolf:

11

What do you mean? They are very kind to me, give me space and shelter, food and the like. You are lucky, I wish I were you.

Before the wolf could walk away, he noticed something wrong with the hair around the neck of the dog. He stopped and asked: Wolf: Wait a minute! What’s gone wrong with your hair around your neck? Some of it has been badly shaven and the hair in some spots has been rubbed away. Dog: Ahhh! That is because of the chain, they sometimes chain me during the day when they go to work. There and then, the wolf left without saying a word. (28 January 2021 by e-mail) This fable demonstrates how the PAC viewed the ANC and its Freedom Charter. The traditional form of the cautionary tale with its allegorical op­ erations is repurposed and deployed to exercise the listeners’ recognition of how political systems inform all choices. African pedagogy and its participatory modality could not be more powerfully demonstrated than Sobukwe’s short fable as recorded by Smal Ndaba. Ndaba himself has arguably since advanced a similar mode of instrumentally provocative storytelling.

Entering the world of work As a young adult, Ndaba was clear about his ambitions and defines them in a declaration of the interdependence of creative expression, arts pedagogy, and social development. He envisioned an Arts Centre which would include a studio theatre in the Ekurhuleni Metro. He imagined this centre as an en­ vironment where every talented young person who has historically been de­ nied such access, would have an opportunity to develop through access to stimulating and rewarding experiences through the Arts.7 Associated with this goal was the personal desire to explore and expand his skills as a playwright while developing vocational training methods and modules as a template for national implementation. Arguably, the guiding principle of using “the per­ forming arts to raise social and political issues” thus informed his goals from the outset (28 January 2021 by e-mail). The Gauteng Service of Excellence Award (2020) attests to his unwavering commitment to those principles. Ndaba was resourceful and purposeful in equipping himself to achieve his intertwined objectives: his early commitments to broadening his own insights and skills development were anchored in pursuing diverse opportunities even if he recounts these initiatives seemingly unaware of an emphasis on how he systematically shared, applied, and adapted all that he learnt. For six months he attended the “famous Workshop 71,” run by Bess Finney and Rob McLaren.8 He wanted to understand contemporary initiatives in directing and storytelling

12 Sarah Roberts

without a pre-authored script but rather devised around experiences of par­ ticipants. He synthesised methods introduced in (Tuesday) acting workshops and (Thursday) directing workshops to apply these with a small group of teenagers at the Lionel Kent Centre in Daveyton where he could gain afterhours access courtesy of a security guard. It was at this community recreation venue that township “kids” converged “to dance, to learn karate and boxing”: acting ignited the interest of participants some of whom also attended per­ formances presented by Gibson Kente’s company.9 Duma Ndlovu hails Kente as “the father of theatre in South Africa” (1986, p. xx) who, for many years, successfully “continued to blaze the township trail” (p. xxiii). Ndlovu records that the output of the Fugard, Kani, and Ntshona collaboration was “not reaching the townships, [and] the very audience they sought to portray” (1986, p. xxi) whereas Kente’s musical theatre productions with township life as subject and theme of township realities had powerful appeal, as subsequently Woza Albert! (1981) and Sibikwa productions would do. Expanding on the comparatively limited popularity of Kani and Ntshona in the townships, Ndlovu writes: Their plays introduced agit-prop to South African audiences who looked to theatre for musical entertainment. Most township theatregoers were families who went to theatre to share in an event, music, laughter, joy, exuberance, and sorrow. Kente’s plays provided all of these things in one evening with huge casts that included dancers, singers, and “township characters” that brought the audience to tears with laughter and sadness. (1986, p. xxiii) Ndlovu asserts ways that Kente’s template of township theatre set a trend. Clones proliferated. Ndaba attests to this phenomenon with his observation that the “kids” he was working with formed groups to generate work that synthesised what they had learnt from him during their sessions with references to Kente’s productions. The robust form of township theatre that thrived in urban margins remained, however, largely unrecognised regionally, nationally, and internationally – until 1986.10 Ndlovu explains: Perhaps one strong reason why this theatre never made a significant impact outside of its own communities was that its participants never really looked at it as an activity that had monetary value, to be peddled and sold. Theatre was more community-oriented and therefore not regarded as a totally separate and commercial entity. It was a way of passing on information from one generation to another, or, in the case of township theatre, a way of trying to forget the frustrations of life in South Africa. (1986, p. xx) In Cape Town, Klotz’s early drama teaching experiences and running a studio in her home were directed towards white middle-class and upper-middle-class

The political is personal

13

children whose parents had expectations that the training focused on “speaking properly.” To display their prowess, the children entered Eisteddfods. Klotz was less interested in celebrating these accomplishments than focusing on themes and social issues. She resisted the prioritisation of correct pronunciation, inflection, articulation, and accent. Her increased engagement with community-oriented creative work and collective teaching initiatives was borne out by her role as teacher for the Community Arts Centre (CAP) and taking on the role of ex­ ecutive director of the Young People Theatre Educational Trust in Athlone. She worked with residents of the Cape Flats (rather than the townships) doing “a lot of educational programmes” (Interview 1, 27 January 2021) until the formation of the Vusisizwe Players for devising You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock (1986). Klotz stresses the value of reading and reflecting on the process of theatremaking and craft development: the propositions of Artaud, Grotowski, and – especially – Brecht provided her with the work of an anti-naturalist conceptual framework. But it was not until the 1980s with visits to South Africa by key practitioners of theatre/drama-in-education that she could identify kindred spirits. The ideals and methodologies of Dorothy Heathcote, Gavin Bolton, and Ken Robinson provided the impetus that affirmed her creative and pedagogical inclinations. Entering the world of work consolidated their shared impulses towards careers in a particular kind of theatre-making. Ndaba signed on as stage manager for Bopha! (1985) at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg and sub­ sequent international tours to further his skills development. At the technical level, he was introduced to stage lighting – a resource uncommon in township staging practices which required mastery of equipment. In terms of a devel­ oping sense of theatre as a medium, he enriched his perception of the cen­ trality of the audience’s role in theatre as event and encounter.11 Playing to what the audience “needs or wants,” as per Kente’s lead, would become one of the core features of Sibikwa’s practice. Klotz has been as invested in generating new productions as she has been in issue-based arts training from which creative projects emerged such as You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock (1986) which affirmed her ability to create professional work through exploring subject matter, theme, and motifs in the structuring and organising of a narrative. She acknowledges working days with Barney Simon, Artistic Director of the Market Theatre (for three days), as the only experience she had of being mentored, guided, or “taught” as a director adding the proviso: I remember a lot of the things … I didn’t like some of his ideas about Strike. I didn’t use them. But that’s what it’s about. You can cherry pick. (Interview 1, 27 January 2021) She explains how these two productions, Strike and Bopha!, toured inter­ nationally and what these tours enabled:

14 Sarah Roberts

[Strike] was a great opener for us to launch Sibikwa. Because people knew Strike. And it had been popular in Europe which gave us an entrée to go back to Edinburgh and [other] festivals, to go back to theatres in the UK. […] Strike was three women and was about women’s issues. Bopha! had three men. We shared the same agent, Arts Admin, Gill Lloyd. She would often sell the productions together to festivals so that people kind of had a female perspective and a male perspective. (Interview 1, 27 January 2021)

Klotz and Ndaba meet in the foyer of the market theatre and plan to work together on So Where To? in Perth Klotz seldom travelled with Strike because she strongly prioritised family ob­ ligations as mother to three young boys, but she knew of Smal Ndaba from cast reports. The actresses returned from various festivals where they had performed in tandem with Bopha! and would recount meeting up with fellow South African company members. While touring as stage manager, Ndaba was quietly busy with a project of his own. He was formulating what would be­ come the first of Sibikwa’s plays, So Where To? He perceived the need for an experienced theatre-maker to promote research, and to offer advice on script development and staging. He was familiar with Klotz’s interests and mode of working, and above all her experience and expertise in Theatre-in-Education, and thus recognised her as a person to approach to complement his intuitive wisdom and innate flair for storytelling. When the two met, in her customary fashion of taking the initiative or seizing the moment, Klotz greeted him: “So this is the famous Smal Ndaba!” She expands: I had heard about him often […] Just before we were going to Perth, we were at the Market Theatre. […] someone said to me “This is Smal Ndaba”. […] We went to Perth and while we were there Smal told me he was working on this play called So Where To? What interested me was that during this time a black man would write a play about a girl who had a relationship with a white soldier. And gives birth to a child. That’s really what interested me. So, we began to work on the play. It was not about establishing Sibikwa. Just working on the play. (Interview 1, 27 January 2021) So Where To? was a bedrock for future collaboration and Sibikwa’s inception. Its organic evolution is predicated on a professional partnership, respect, and reciprocal enrichment of each other’s work. Project by project, in response to unfolding socio-political needs within the Daveyton-Benoni-Ekurhuleni communities, Sibikwa’s identity was consolidated through its expanding

The political is personal

15

range of programmes attesting to Ndaba and Klotz’s particular brand of en­ gaged citizenship and public service. If Sibikwa’s identity and operations owe much to the personalities and dis­ positions of its founders, it was also shaped as a response to this current of national political developments so vividly encapsulated above. These events and their consequences need to be addressed in terms of how Klotz and Ndaba experienced and made sense of them, individually and at Sibikwa on the East Rand. Sibikwa was founded in 1988 at the peak of a period of intensified global isolation, escalating internal violence and declarations of States of Emergency. Like the years immediately preceding, 1988 was a period of global pressure intended to reinforce escalating internal resistance to apartheid rule.12 International efforts to pressurise the South African government dated back to the mid-40s. These intensified in 1960s and hardened in the 1980s as epito­ mised in the United Nations Resolution 1980, 35/206: … all states [should] prevent all cultural, academic, sporting and other exchanges with South Africa. This is also an appeal to writers, artists, musicians and other personalities to boycott South Africa. It urges all academic and cultural institutions to terminate all links with South Africa. (Resolutions 35/206 A - R of 16 December 1980. Available at http://psimg.jstor.org/fsi/img/pdf/t0/10.5555/al.sff. document.nuun1981_03b_final.pdf. Accessed 7 February 2021) Moves in the international arena are, however, less relevant to this survey than national and regional developments and their impact on Sibikwa. Although these were a crucial form of external funding, festival invitations, and inter­ national tours dominated the project’s early years. Reflecting on life in this country from 1984 to 1996, essayist and public intellectual, Njabulo Ndebele, sums up the 1980s in his essay “Thinking of Brenda: The Desire to Be” (1996). He writes: [a] new pattern of protest grew in South Africa. It consisted of stay-athomes, roving demonstrations challenging the police patrolling the town­ ships, and attacks on the businesses, houses, and persons of Africans charged with collaborating in the new Community Council system. Local grievances became the vehicle for protest against the apartheid system as a whole, spreading from township to township through a population thoroughly mobilised by student participation in school boycotts and broader involvement in the anti-constitution campaigns. At the same time, the existence of national bodies such as the UDF provided new means for coordination or protest, epitomised in the Transvaal stay-at-home of November 56, 1984, in which an estimated 800 000 participated. Beyond that, the struggles progressed through several other phases. We witnessed the States of Emergency, necklace killings, economic sanctions,

16 Sarah Roberts

rent and rate boycotts, the calls for “liberation now, education later”, increasingly successful ANC guerrilla attacks against the apartheid state, the release of Mandela, the constitutional negotiations and the historic elections of 1994, then years after “Weekend Special”. And now that we have entered the phase of democracy, governance and delivery, Brenda is still there, continuing to make an impact. (Ndebele, N. (1996) http://www.njabulondebele.co.za/wp-content/ uploads/2015/11/Thinking_of_Brenda_ Accessed 5 May 2021) A similar claim might be made for Sibikwa. Although details of recent sociopolitical history may be increasingly unfamiliar to the so-called born-free generation, key issues in the turbulence of recent decades were directly felt and experienced by their parents and grandparents to anchor a documentation of Sibikwa’s foundation and development across 30 years. Managing the multiple shifting adversities embedded in the final years of apartheid honed and de­ veloped resilience, determination, and persistence to become ingrained sur­ vival strategies. These qualities persist and are as crucial today as during the struggle years.

Notes 1 The Annual Naledi Awards are a regional celebration of excellence in theatre, not unlike other award ceremonies elsewhere. 2 Albie (Albert) Sachs is a well-known public intellectual and political figure in South Africa for his career as a lawyer, activist, detainee, exile, writer, playwright, and ap­ pointment to the Constitutional Court by Nelson Mandela. 3 He confirms that he met actor and activist, Ramolao Makhene, through the auspices of Father Trevor Huddleston. Huddleston was sent to the CR mission in Rosettenville in 1943 and subsequently was made Priest in Charge of the Anglican Mission in Sophiatown and Orlando, ministering in the townships between 1943 and 1956. Nicknamed “Makhalipile” – the dauntless one – his investment in anti-apartheid activities in addition to being a much-respected priest has been well-documented. He was honoured by the ANC, along with Chief Albert Luthuli and Rd. Yusuf Dado as one of the first recipients of the Isitwlalandwe/Seaparankoe, the highest award for contribution to the liberation struggle (Available at https://sahistory.org.za/peple/father-trevor-huddlestone. Accessed 3 February 2021). 4 He explains the significance of place names: “Verwoerd and his Group Areas Act had already resettled my family’s home in Daveyton, ‘Emashanganeni’ as if the Tsonga people, known as amashangane were a different species from the rest of the people.” 5 The firm partnership with Bra Boy Ngwenya continued as a lifelong association and creative partnership. Bra Boy has been the pivotal figure in multiple Sibikwa produc­ tions, especially Kwela Bafana. 6 “On 30th March 1960, Philip Kgosana led a Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) march of between 30,000–50,000 protestors from Langa and Nyanga to the police headquarters in Caledon Square” (Available at https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/langa-march30-march-1960. Accessed 3 February 2021). 7 Klotz has a long-established record of formal participation in activist organisations and committees. Her curriculum vitae, from 1970 to 2020, lists a significant range of ap­ pointments which include early Cape Town based organisations and national bodies. She

The political is personal

8 9

10

11

12

17

served as National Convener of Arts Education Policy for the National Arts Initiative and as education convenor on the National Arts Coalition in the 1990s; the Councils of the State Theatre, the Advisory Council MAPPP-Seta/CATHSSETA, the National Arts Council Advisory Board, and the National Arts Festival Committee. Fellow participants included Siphiwe Khumalo, Dan Selaelo Maredi, James Mthoba. It is beyond the scope and objectives of this chapter to pursue the significance of the work of theatre entrepreneur and township impresario, Gibson Kente (1932–2004). The reader is referred to https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/Gibson_Kente and, also Kavanagh, R. M (2016) A Contended Space: The Theatre of Gibson Mtutuzeli Kente. Kente’s output spans 1963–2000. Kente’s first production was Manana the Jazz Prophet. Major texts include Sikalo (1966), How Long? (1973), and Too Late (1974). His output was prolific and hugely popular (1960–1990). Many of his texts remained unpublished and many were lost in a fire in 1989. Arguably, the so-called South African township theatre was launched internationally with the five plays presented at the Woza Africa! Festival at Lincoln Centre which showcased works by Ngema, Mtwa, Manaka, and Maponya. The fifth production – produced by the Company at the Market, Born in the RSA by Barney Simon and the cast, as an experiment in comparatively static multi-modal theatre of testimony coun­ terpointed the robust physicality and kinetic orality of the township dramas. The play was written and directed by Percy Mtwa who was, like Ndaba, a Daveyton resident. The cast was made up of Sydney Khumalo, Aubrey Molefe Moalosi, and Aubrey Radebe. This was one of the five plays presented at the Woza Africa Festival at Lincoln Centre New York in 1986. A collaboration between the Earth Players and Market Theatre the play was first performed in the Laager Theatre in 1985 followed by a season at the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town, that same year. It was staged in 2012 at the Market Theatre, directed by James Ngcobo. See https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/Bopha! Resolutions 35/206 A - R of 16 December 1980 provide a comprehensive account of United Nations measures across all aspects of international exchange. The document can be accessed at http://psimg.jstor.org/fsi/img/pdf/t0/10.5555/al.sff.document. nuun1981_03b_final.pdf. In 1984 the USA adopted a policy of disinvestment from South Africa. In 1986 the United Kingdom and Europe adopted economic sanctions in the form of extended trade barriers, tariffs, and restrictions on financial transactions.

References Chabal, P. (2009) Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling. Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal Press. Ndebele, N. (1996) ‘Thinking of Brenda’. Available at http://www.njabulondebele.co.za/ wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Thinking_of_Brenda_ Ndlovu, N. (1986) Woza Afrika!. New York: George Braziller. Roberts, S.E. (2021) Interview 1 with Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz, 27 January 2021 in Johannesburg. Unpublished.

2

Founding Sibikwa: A professional partnership tempered in the forge of apartheid’s final years Sarah Roberts

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. (Nelson Mandela, “I am Prepared to Die” Rivonia Trial, 20 April 1964. (Available at https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die. Accessed 8 February 2021)

Reviewing the 1988–1994 period in South Africa – in order to contextualise and account for Sibikwa’s work – needs to be anchored in tumultuous national events of the previous decade as President PW Botha (1984–1989) intensified the National Party’s determination to cling to white minority rule.1 His successor, FW Klerk (1989–1994), mandated the gradual sequence of negotiations that produced an Interim Constitution and culminated in the first democratic election on 27 April 1994. Notable nationwide developments in the liberation struggle in the 1970s consolidated in three broad tendencies: first, an emerging generation of scholars and students claimed the right to participate in the struggle as key role players (as the 16 June 1976 uprisings and the proliferation of youth groups and organisations demonstrated);2 second, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) launched by the charismatic Stephen Bantu Biko gained widespread traction.3 In the arts, the BCM resulted in the foundation of the Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA – 1978 Newtown, Johannesburg by Benjy Francis and Sipho Sepamla). Finally, the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in August 1983 united and consolidated the efforts of diverse oppositional movements – ranging from the End Conscription Campaign to the South African Council of Churches – into a single organisation with a common purpose.4 Co-ordinated mass mobilisation and resistance across multiple arenas ensued as reflected in the UDF declaration that reads:

DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-3

Founding Sibikwa

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We, the freedom-loving people of SA, say with one voice to the whole world that we cherish the vision of a united democratic South Africa based on the will of the people. We will strive for unity of all people through united action against the evils of apartheid … and in our march to a free and just South Africa we are guided by these noble ideals, we stand for the creation of a true democracy in which all South Africans will participate in the government of our country, stand for a single, non-racial, unfragmented South Africa, a South Africa free of Bantustans and Group Areas. We say that all forms of oppression and exploitation must end. (https://www.saha.org.za/udf/origins.htm. Accessed 5 February 2021) This goal and celebration of unity across difference not only contested apartheid indexing, classification, and segregation, but today stands in direct contrast with contemporary identity politics with its tendency towards a postmodern insistence on recognition of difference, pluralities, and multiplicities. In the 1980s the goal of collective opposition to apartheid aligned otherwise divergent organisations and the pursuit of shared goals extended to the arts sector. The scope for unified collective action across a wide range of arts and culture practices was probed in two conferences/festivals both held outside South Africa. Diverging perspectives, as well as contested positions, challenged the goal of arriving at consensus as the record of these deliberations (arguably the foundation of subsequent policy positions) attests.

Aligned artists converged in Gaborone (1982) and Amsterdam (1987) In 1982, artists – writers, musicians, visual artists, and theatre-makers – congregated in Gaborone, Botswana (5–9 July). The festival/symposium facilitated debate between some 500 participants, among them the future Nobel laureate, Nadine Gordimer. Participants, whether ANC exiles or artists aligned with mass democratic movements in South Africa, were all strongly committed to a non-racial, fully democratic future for the country. Albie Sachs’ memorandum records three objectives of the Gaborone gathering. These were first, to use the occasion as a platform for developing a national perspective of a people’s culture; second, to foster dialogue in the interests of promoting South African creative outputs internationally; and, finally, to produce a book on culture. Efforts at arriving at consensus in a coordinated formulation of liberation-aligned cultural practices were fraught by conflicts between exiled struggle stalwarts and arts-practitioners working in South Africa who deemed the exile position “too ideological.” The “non-exiles” resisted explicit alignment and classification in terms of “isms”: rather, their interest lay in forging a progressive culture embedded in grassroots responses to direct lived experiences without explicit party-political alignment. In contrast, Barry Gilder, a London-based exile, for example, advocated overt ideological expression as the objective of creative practice. His view was expressed in these terms:

20 Sarah Roberts

Revolutionary music is made by those who participate in the struggles of the people, not as musicians but as revolutionaries who make music … (or) musicians participate in the revolution as musicians – to place their music at the service of the people and the struggles they are waging. (1982 Sachs, Gaborone Memorandum https://www.sahistory.org.za/ sites/default/files/file%20uploads%20/memorandum_on_the_ culture_and_resistance.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2021) His position was supported by Keorapetse Kgositile (in exile in Nairobi) who did, however, modify his initial stance to define politically committed cultural artefacts in terms that also describe So Where To? and much of Sibikwa’s subsequent body of work. His revised or moderated position chimes with Klotz’s locally informed perspective which she expresses unequivocally: “Concerned South African citizens […] will make work that actually highlights the political and social issues that we are all averse to” (Interview 2, 3 February 2021). Similarly, Ndaba, in reflection on the intertwined-ness of culture and politics, expresses a position that is rooted in practical everyday realities that have direct impact on the lives of young participants rather than ideological abstractions: The stories we choose to tell, and the way we tell them … well, we normally looked at things people don’t have or what they need to have and then we created something about that. Just take the boys, we try just letting them see life differently […] We try to do something out of nothing. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) The issues tabled in Gaborone provide useful criteria for understanding Sibikwa’s operations, perspectives, positions, and outcomes. In relation to tensions between ideological commitment and artistic output, Kgositile is cited as concluding: “If the artist is concerned with the struggles of his people, these concerns will be reflected in his works” (Gaborone Memorandum. Accessed 2 February 2021). In other words, the integrity of expressive products – texts, artworks, or artefacts – is a consequence of alignment and position rather than dependent on crafting a message that explicitly promotes a party line. The embeddedness of the subject matter – issues and themes of Sibikwa’s body of work – precisely demonstrates this proposition. Associated issues of class and race distinctions around which struggle ideals and cultural output intersect in constructing personal and cultural identities clearly drive Sibikwa’s output and outreach programmes. Albie Sachs’ Gaberone Memorandum stressed the need for inclusivity as per the UDF valorisation of the term “non-racial” (signifying a rejection of grouping based on racial identity and ethnic markers) over “multi-racial” (denoting an acknowledgement of different races committed to a joint

Founding Sibikwa

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undertaking). Arguably, a framework for arts and culture policy for the future was being deliberated: correspondingly, the antecedents of “theatre for development” are lodged in other aspects of the Gaborone debates which focused on acknowledging South Africa as a society in progress; the need to develop and promote South African forms of cultural expression; and, finally, an affirmation of continued international support to economic sanctions through the cultural boycott was tabled. The inter-related aspects of these commitments play out variously at Sibikwa. Its location is in an ideal position for the advancement of a popular participatory people’s culture. Although ostensibly situated on the margins of the cosmopolitan hub of Johannesburg (and even on the fringes of Benoni city centre) its peri-urban setting is readily accessible to East Rand residents. Sibikwa presentations and training programmes effectively relocate public culture from cosmoplitan centre to satellite margins. Gaborone delegates rejected the homelands policy as an entrenchment of “centres of poverty” and favoured embracing urban life and opportunity as viable alternatives to traditional rural lifestyles and culture. They resisted the project of retrieving and preserving “tribal culture” except for the need to preserve texts belonging to the oral tradition before these were irretrievably lost. The investment in township living embraced all that modernity and syncretic lifestyles entailed along with hybrid cultural forms that might emerge from this transition. Consensus appears to have been reached regarding making efforts to promote and showcase productions aligned with liberation initiatives internationally. Productions being made at Sibikwa available to tour internationally conformed with these ideals. Outputs that were deemed reactionary were to be boycotted in contrast with the active promotion of UDF-aligned outputs.

Intensified resistance and oppression in South Africa During the 1980s violent protest escalated as did state repression which resulted in the imposition of the State of Emergency in 1985 (for nine months) and then again in 1986 (for four years). Three intertwined core issues urge emphasis: first, the specific local circumstances of the East Rand ensured that the region was a unique hotbed of insurrection and violence; second, the interplay of strategies to broker future solutions became intertwined with intensified commitment to civil disobedience and the armed struggle; finally, the increasingly draconian measures of the State of Emergency need to be understood in terms of how they affected the experience of everyday life. The East Rand became one of the epicentres of civic violence and social instability in 1983 and remained so even on the eve of the 1994 elections as reflected in So Where To?, D.E.T. Boys High, and Ubuntu Bomhlaba. Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s speech on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize (1984) offers a way of understanding “lived experiences” of the previous year’s violence and its cost in human lives effectively substantiating precisely the

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conditions that Ndaba was so familiar with and sought to present on stage in theatres, community centres, schools, and at festivals: Before I left South Africa […] we had an emergency meeting of the Executive Committee of the South African Council of Churches with the leaders of our member churches. We called the meeting because of the deepening crisis in our land, which has claimed nearly 200 lives this year alone. We visited some of the trouble-spots on the Witwatersrand. I went with others to the East Rand. We visited the home of an old lady. She told us that she looked after her grandson and the children of neighbours while their parents were at work. One day the police chased some pupils who had been boycotting classes, but they disappeared between the township houses. The police drove down the old lady’s street. She was sitting at the back of the house in her kitchen, whilst her charges were playing in the front of the house in the yard. Her daughter rushed into the house, calling out to her to come quickly. The old lady dashed out of the kitchen into the living room. Her grandson had fallen just inside the door, dead. He had been shot in the back by the police. He was 6 years old. A few weeks later, a white mother, trying to register her black servant for work, drove through a black township. Black rioters stoned her car and killed her baby of a few months old, the first white casualty of the current unrest in South Africa. (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1984/tutu/lecture/ Accessed 8 February 2021) In efforts to control the “ungovernable” conditions a State of Emergency was declared on 20 July 1985 in 36 of the nationwide total of 260 magisterial districts. These conditions would last until March 1986. The first set of emergency measures that enabled tighter jurisdiction by the military apparatuses of State had barely expired when a more extensive and severe national State of Emergency was imposed that would last for close to four years (12 June 1986–8 June 1990). PW Botha’s much anticipated address of 15 August 1985 (subsequently known as the Rubicon Speech) demonstrates expectations of a formal response to continued and untenable civic unrest, disruption, and outbreaks of violence were exacerbated from 1984 to 1985. Tentative reform measures by the South African Government had triggered hopes of further and even more extreme concessions. Botha, however, retreated.5 Internationally, Botha was accused of not crossing the Rubicon. The prompt response by Oliver Tambo, ANC leader in exile, sums up Botha’s speech and resolutions that the ANC would adopt when confronted by the obdurate refusal to negotiate. Tambo wrote: … the ruling group could not help but show itself for what it is, a clique of diehard racists, hidebound reactionaries and bloodthirsty fascist braggarts who will heed nobody but themselves. […] He pledged to perpetuate the criminal Bantustan system, further Balkanise our country and to continue

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the land dispossession of the African majority, which is confined to little more than ten percent of South Africa. The masses of our people against whom the Botha-Malan regime has declared an all-out war must and will escalate the popular offensive to destroy the apartheid organs of government, to make the criminal racist system unworkable and to make South Africa ungovernable. We who are its victims are ready to make any and all sacrifices to achieve justice and democracy based on the principle of one man, one vote in a unitary South Africa. South Africa has crossed her Rubicon. (https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/ 03lv03445/04lv04015/05lv04016/06lv04025/07lv04026.htm Accessed 8 February 2021) Since Sibikwa – as a project aligned with an oppositional, liberation agenda – was founded in 1988, it is important to spell out the Emergency conditions that prevailed, to stress how ordinary lives, and the majority of Sibikwa attendees, were affected: The State of Emergency was a draconian instrument used by the apartheid government to detain people in large numbers while bypassing legal avenues. People could be arrested and held in undisclosed locations, while others could be killed without the police or other state security apparatuses being held to account. Statistics reveal that there was a correlation between, on the one hand, increases in detention, deaths in detention, resort to exile, and the declaration of a State of Emergency on the other. Despite heavyhanded crackdowns on political dissent throughout the apartheid period, people continued to fight against apartheid. (https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/states-emergency-south-africa1960s-and-1980s Accessed 8 February 2021) State of Emergency provisions clamped down on the human rights, the legal rights of dissidents, public gatherings, the right to protest, the right to information and freedom of expression. Theatre-makers navigated the fine line between opposition and ostensible compliance through recourse to allegory, fable, and metaphor, to enable the sustained debate in the public domain. Since theatre as a medium integrates image, word, and public encounter, it functions in direct antithesis to that which remained invisible or unspoken, undeclared, and unexpressed in social or public interactions. As a tool for expressing the invasive impact of emergency measures on the everyday lives of South African citizens and subjects, theatre could invest narratives with distinct and individual human faces. In less emotive terms the extensive reach of emergency regulations and legislative powers on individual lives is recorded in these words: Organisations could be banned, and meetings prohibited; the Commissioner of Police could impose restrictions on media coverage of the Emergency; and the names of detained people could not be disclosed. […] political

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funerals were restricted, curfews were imposed, certain indoor gatherings were banned and news crews with television cameras were banned from filming in areas where there was political unrest. (https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/states-emergency-south-africa1960s-and-1980s Accessed 8 February 2021) Recollections of the State of Emergency express a bleakness that is difficult to listen to, hard to absorb, and – from a contemporary perspective – almost incomprehensible. The pastoral sensibilities and weight of responsibility that underpin how Ndaba shaped his role at Sibikwa are grave and sombre in tone. As I remember it, it really changed the lives of people, the normal lives of people. It was very difficult for people to adapt to the horrible regulations that came with the State of Emergency. The death of people. People were killed. It was something unusual. Every day. Burying people. Burying children. It was not good. The State of Emergency was changing the youth. The question we had to ask was how could we take them back to who they were before? And trying to organise that they could be safe. And trying to give them strategies for how to handle a situation where so many were dying around them. The parents too. They couldn’t do anything. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) Klotz readily acknowledges her perspective as that of a privileged white Capetonian resident whose experience of the State of Emergency differs considerably from that of any township resident. She nonetheless shared an abiding concern for the well-being and education of children during this period: For me it was always fear. I remember trying to get into Nyanga. I was supposed to be doing a workshop with a group of kids. As I turned off the road, I was confronted head on by about 200 or 300 kids toyi-toying in the road. I was alone in the car and there were the kids. I thought what will they do? They did nothing. I went home. I remember always being fearful. Could you go to Guguletu? No. Could you go to Langa? No. Where could you go that was safe? Was the work safe? No. Any moment the work could be banned or have to go underground. It was always a situation of never knowing what would happen next. It was hard to plan things. Very hard to plan. You would be supposed to be doing a workshop in a school … Teachers were boycotting. Pupils were not in school. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) In the context of the pervasive measures of the State of Emergency regulations, cultural activists reconvened beyond the country’s borders to pursue the Gaborone agenda. The conference known as Culture in Another South Africa

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(CASA: 14–19 December 1987) took place in Amsterdam. Bopha! and You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock both performed at this festival. Klotz was not on tour with the company, but Smal Ndaba was present among carefully selected attendees who reached consensus that culture was indeed a weapon in the struggle. His brief account of what it meant to him is revealing: For us it was exciting to meet the people in exile. And they were excited to see our work. They really enjoyed it because it spoke about their enemy – the police. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) The statement relays the importance of establishing and affirming connections and commonalities with other South African theatre-makers who variously conformed with the spirit of the Gaborone symposium that subsequently gathered momentum in Amsterdam. Sibikwa’s operations and output largely embodied the resolutions that had been formulated and gained traction which provide useful criteria by which to assess what Sibikwa delivered. First, Sibikwa was implementing the core principle that “artists and cultural workers must create appropriate organisational structures at local, regional, national and international levels to enable themselves to take collective action, consult and co-ordinate their activities” (Gaborone Memorandum); second, “all forms of oppression must be addressed” and the triple oppression of “black women as members of an oppressed gender, oppressed nationalities, and exploited class” was explicitly prioritised (Gaborone Memorandum); third, artistic outputs should be accessible to a majority in terms of linguistic expression and use of symbols in the interests of inclusivity, meaning, and value production; finally, the need to redress issues of skills, development, and training along with access to resources. While Sibikwa responds proactively to these injunctions, this is not because Ndaba and Klotz set out to implement these recommendations. Rather, the correlation between the CASA resolutions and Sibikwa’s operations attests to how their personal and professional goals aligned with those of the Mass Democratic Movement. Klotz, referring to the documentary film of the conference screened at the Market Laboratory (circa 2019), is quick to make a set of connections that complement those of Ndaba, when she observes: It is interesting that unwittingly Sibikwa followed that path. It wasn’t any conscious decision to follow or implement the recommendations that were made. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) The constraints imposed by the State of Emergency would seem to foreclose on the active advancement of cultural practices that promoted and publicised intensified resistance to the State. Yet, the Market Theatre continued to promote emergent drama and was the launching pad for a considerable number of productions that toured internationally. As significantly, Sibikwa

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was founded and produced its own work which also toured widely. An inadvertent outcome of the cultural boycott which largely prohibited South African performances of new plays by a significant number of playwrights was that this action spurred the development of original South African writing. Global interest in and support for South African theatre intensified as dissident, oppositional or protest theatre in both its content and form had an invested audience worldwide which ensured steady international invitations to participate in a range of cultural events globally. Between 1989 and 1994, Ndaba and Klotz toured to various destinations and were hosted at prestigious international festivals. In 1989 So Where To? played at the Edinburgh Festival and the Zurich Theatre Spectacle. In 1990 the production was showcased on the African continent in Zimbabwe and at Waterford School in Swaziland. In 1992 D.E.T. Boys High and So Where To? played at the Singapore Festival. D.E.T. Boys High played in Namibia in the same year and, in 1993, toured Canada, playing at the Toronto Festival prior to the Edinburgh Festival. Kwela Bafana in its earliest iteration was rehearsed in Vancouver. From the outset Sibikwa had an identity as participants in an international theatre circuit and simultaneously prioritised touring within the southern African region. These tours not only served to showcase the emerging plays and build a reputation to substantiate proposals for financial aid from international bodies but also ensured that Klotz and Ndaba had a deep appreciation of how effective the model of festivals would be for promoting cultural activities within a specific community and will be discussed in the concluding chapter of Part I. The slogan “culture is a weapon” was widely adopted by aligned artistactivists across a range of media from literature to music, and in theatre across the spectrum of internationally recognised figures such as playwright Athol Fugard and performer-satirist Pieter Dirk Uys. Protest voices across the spectrum of the Arts proliferated within South Africa even if individuals (and collectives) were obliged to navigate constraints imposed by the apparatuses of censorship and surveillance to make difficult choice about subject matter and treatment to evade repressive consequences or banning. As Njabulo Ndebele has argued in his essay “Actors and Interpreters” (2006) first presented as the Sol Plaatje Memorial Lecture in 1984, artists and scholars are interpreters who represent or interrogate the world that they inhabit. He writes: In any society the makers of history, that is to say those that bring about the actual material transformation of society, tend to be disproportionately more numerous than the interpreters of social transformation, that is to say those whose business is to formulate theories of society … who observe study and interpret. (2006, pp. 83–85) His views have some correspondence with questions raised regarding the efficacy of agitprop theatre of the Brechtian model: although artists might desire to be acknowledged as provocateurs and instruments of social action, it is

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impossible to prove unequivocally that an artwork or theatre performance has changed the consciousness of an audience in ways that translate to committed social action or ballot paper decision. For Ndebele, the true agents of radical social change are political leaders, public figures, activists, and, indeed, social citizens who are catalysts for destabilising an entrenched system. Public action that is demonstrable in its material impact undermines State authority through economic pressure and civic instability. In brief, it was arguably the actions of multiple actors in this field of operations – in the international arena and internally – that initiated the sequence of tumultuous socio-political changes that led to the first democratic election in 1994. These included the unbanning of banned organisations, the release of Rivonia trialists, and, notably, Nelson Mandela. In the late 1980s, however, it was impossible to imagine such an outcome and what it might mean in terms of future international funding and support within the arts sector. Uncertainties and instability prevailed. This was the context in which Sibikwa was founded.

So Where To? and the founding of Sibikwa Arts Centre The long development of the production So Where To? began in conjunction with the foundation of Sibikwa in 1988 at the Lionel Kent Centre, Daveyton, with intermittent breaks as Ndaba was touring internationally with Bopha! The introduction of this kind of intertwined practice of theatre-making and arts education was to become the template for Sibikwa’s operations as demonstrated by the simultaneous launch of drama classes conducted by Wits University graduates, Tlale Motsepe and Gladwyn Marumo, held in Ndaba’s home,6 while his nephew Themba Ndaba taught English. While devising the play, the cast travelled to Cape Town to work with Klotz. Rehearsals continued into 1989. Ndaba was picked up by Special Branch – the South African Police Force’s security unit during apartheid – and interrogated at the police station about the play. Having found a copy of the Freedom Charter on the wall of his home, they also questioned him about this document. Ndaba had to explain that the play about teenage pregnancy had little to do with the Freedom Charter. The intervention of a senior official ensured his release. A few days after the company’s return to South Africa, Nelson Mandela was released on 11 February 1990. Media coverage of this historic moment was extensive. Personal recall of the ANC leader’s first steps to freedom from Victor Verster Prison remains vivid for those old enough to remember a day on which a man whose face had neither been seen, nor whose voice heard for 27 years, walked into a future. His address that day paid tribute to all those who had – in different capacities and constituencies – fought for his release and what it represented. He acknowledged organisations and leaders as well as the youth and women of South Africa: I pay tribute to the endless heroism of youth, you, the young lions. You, the young lions, have energised our entire struggle.

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I pay tribute to the mothers and wives and sisters of our nation. You are the rock-hard foundation of our struggle. Apartheid has inflicted more pain on you than on anyone else. (https://allafrica.com/download/resource/main/main/idatcs/ 00010797:daf2fae771c79dec3c21da5d5cd7e366.pdf Accessed 8 February 2021)

1990–1994: The unbanning of the ANC, extended negotiations, and the first democratic election The release of Nelson Mandela was the culmination of a complex sequence of meetings and negotiations which was to result in the declaration of the National Peace Accord (14 September 1991). Mandela had been moved to Pollsmoor Prison in 1982 at the instigation of Niel Barnard, head of the National Intelligence Service, to facilitate secret meetings which were only revealed seven years later. The public was comparatively more aware of another set of conversations to bridge the impasse between Government and the ANC: the Dakar Conference (July 1987) talks were initiated by prominent businessmen and opinion-makers with representatives from the ANC. “Talks about talks” had begun. A further series of deliberations was launched by the Groote Schuur Minute (4 May 1990) which recorded the joint commitment between the ANC – unbanned in February 1990 in De Klerk’s opening address in Parliament – and Government to address prevailing violence and intimidation. The rights of returning exiles and the release of political prisoners – both pressing matters of concern – were also addressed. Formal deliberations in the form of multi-party talks committed to the transition to a democratic dispensation began at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park on 29 November 1991. Known as the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), the first round of meetings was mandated to establish foundations for subsequent negotiations and, significantly, what was entailed in the project of drafting an interim constitution. It was attended by 20 political organisations and documented in these terms: Parties present were: the government; the NP; the ANC; the SACP; a joint delegation of the Natal Indian Congress and the Transvaal Indian Congress; the DP; the PAC; the IFP; and the coloured and Indian parties in the Tricameral Parliament, the Labour Party, Solidarity, and the National People’s Party. Nine homeland parties or military councils representing all the homelands except KwaZulu were included. KwaZulu was considered adequately represented by the IFP. Cosatu was excluded on grounds that it was a trade union. (https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-southafrica-codesa-codesa-1. Accessed 8 February 2021)

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Veteran opposition party parliamentarian, Helen Suzman, was a participant and made the observation that female voices were largely excluded from these talks, noting that 10 out of 228 delegates were women and that moving forwards CODESA should commit to greater female representation. The plenary session resulted in the signing of the Declaration of Intent, committing all parties to a united, democratic, non-racial, and non-sexist state. Talks resumed in May 1992 with CODESA 2 which broke down in response to the Boipatong massacre (17 June 1992): The attack on township residents was carried out by armed men from the steelwork’s residence, KwaMadala Hostel, which was located roughly 1km from the township. Forty-five people died and several other people were maimed. The attackers were supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), a rival party of the African National Congress (ANC). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_South_Africa Accessed 8 February 2021) Negotiations resumed, largely in the form of bilateral negotiations between the ANC (with Cyril Ramaphosa as its spokesperson) and the ruling National Party (represented by Roelf Meyer). On 17 March 1992 a National Referendum on ending apartheid solicited a white’s only vote: the 85.08% turnout delivered a vote of 68.73% majority in support of dismantling apartheid. The draft for an Interim Constitution was approved in Kempton Park and was duly endorsed by the last apartheid Parliament to become the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 200 of 1993. Resolutions for future governance were resolved by Joe Slovo who had provided a “sunset clause” for a coalition government for five years in the wake of the first election.

Sibikwa’s work 1990–1994 In 1990 work on D. E. T. Boys High7 began with rehearsals at Ndaba’s house while drama classes for about 15 students took place in a single empty classroom at Isidingo Training College, courtesy of the approachable Principal. As an interim solution this proved workable but unease regarding using these facilities spurred Ndaba into searching for and locating more suitable premises in which to work. The current premises at Liverpool Road, Benoni, were identified and occupation taken up in 1991. Concurrently, the Mobil Foundation (spurred by Trevor Manuel) sponsored So Where To? for a tour of townships around Cape Town in conjunction with the dramatisation of children’s stories which were presented in Khayelitsha and Gugulethu. The current premises in Liverpool Road are situated next to the railway station and taxi rank and could accommodate a wider constituency of learner participants from surrounding townships in addition to Daveyton diehards. Facilities comprised one classroom which was the rehearsal space; administration space; but there was no telephone. Funds were secured from the German

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Government to continue working on D.E.T. which proved so popular at the Grahamstown Festival Fringe in 1991 that extra performances had to be scheduled. Funds from the Mobil Foundation supported Sibikwa’s operational costs. The project began to attract diverse participants, including four older musicians who drifted into Sibikwa to begin the revival of 50’s songs that germinated into Kwela Bafana, the whimsical, vibrant celebration of the music of a past era that seemingly dispenses with political commentary in favour of celebrating cultural identity and its expression. Klotz was the more instrumental of the two professional partners in procuring funding and sponsorship. She recalls: Productions kept Sibikwa going, Festivals paid for some rehearsal time, travel, accommodation, daily living allowances and performance fees. Any surplus was ploughed back into the organisation. Residential rehearsals were expensive and variously funded or sponsored. The focus was on producing plays and presenting them in southern Africa and abroad. Training occurred through developing the actors. Sibikwa continued to operate out of one room. There were no filing cabinets, and one chair was shared by all. Managed to get IBM to donate 2 used computers. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) Ndaba, the driving force behind so much of the development of musically focused productions, explains the genesis of the Kwela Bafana project as developing from the sheer pleasure of singing the songs and how Boy Ngwenya and fellow musicians shared their expertise in the 1950s musical idiom with the young “boys” who made up the cast of D.E.T. Boys High. The transmission of skills from one generation to the next included training in tonic solfa and scales. Klotz was not in Johannesburg at the time and this project was largely driven by Ndaba. She adds, however, that she had always loved 50’s township music and jazz since seeing King Kong as a child. She also recalls childhood visits to Johannesburg and sitting on the grass listening to the radio with domestic workers in the afternoons: I always loved that music. It was part of what I wanted to do. We shared a love of music of that era. We shared a love for how people faced that awful time with this beautiful music. They thought it was American music. But being South African, and quirky, they changed it. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) Klotz recalls the 1992/1993 period in these terms: More young people drifted to Sibikwa. Classes were held without a rigid timetable. Smal would leave to tour and give instructions before he left as to what was to be accomplished during his absence. It was at this time that we secured Total SA as a sponsor. They assisted Sibikwa in going to

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Grahamstown with D.E.T. Boys High and On Flight (a musical performance featuring five older singers and five young men) who sang cover songs such as Moon River among others from the 1950s. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) This production partly reflects Sachs’ revised position articulated at an ANC in-house seminar in 1989 and his subsequent publication, “Preparing Ourselves for Freedom” (1991). The shift corresponded with the quest for: An artistic and cultural vision that corresponds to this current phase in which a new South African nation is emerging. Can we say that we have begun to grasp the full dimensions of the new country and new people that is struggling to give birth to itself, or are we still trapped in the multiple ghettoes of the apartheid imagination? […] We are totally against censorship and for free speech [but] our members should be banned from saying that culture is a weapon of struggle. (Gaborone Memorandum. https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/cultureresistance-conference-1982. Accessed 2 February 2021) These efforts at continuing what – on the surface at least – appear to be routine ways of living during an ongoing low-grade civil war can be contextualised and understood through reference to Ivor Chipkin’s considered analysis (2007) of East Rand township violence (1990–1994). Fatality statistics are staggeringly high. The violence took “the form of a conflict between hostel-based, mostly Zulu migrant workers and township youth organised in and through civic structures and youth organisations” (2007, p. 121). Chipkin notes that the escalating conflict between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) should not be deemed a primary causal factor and that the discourse in which Zulu identity was equated with IFP allegiance and youth with ANC is reductive and misleading. Chipkin, citing data from Shaw record: Over 1,500 people were killed in the last half of 1999 alone. One average, the police were collecting eight bodies a day. The scale was truly horrifying. Between June and October 1990, approximately 500 people died in a single township, virtually on or around a single street: the infamous Khumalo Street in Thokoza. On one occasion, in a single day, 143 people were killed. Violence remained high right up until the first democratic election in April 1994. Around 1,000 people died in 1991, and double that the following year: Violence peaked in 1993, when more than 2,000 people were killed in fighting. A total of 754 died in 1994. Thousands were injured, fled, or displaced. Thousands of houses were destroyed, and hostels were razed to the ground or severely damaged. Railway lines were uprooted, train stations burnt down and businesses fire-bombed. (2007, p. 121)

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Ndaba offers an insider perspective of tensions between factions among township residents: his emphasis of the insidious threat latent in fellow residents who displayed no distinguishing markers declaring their allegiance conveys levels of suspicion and anxiety that tainted and fractured communities to rupture social cohesion: The most dangerous thing during that era was the people who were staying in the hostels. People feared them more than the police because you couldn’t recognise them on the street. But they were the enemy. If you look at the police – everybody knows them, with their vans. But here was a worse enemy – these Zulus … these “Gatshas”. The police would give us a warning if they were going to shoot us. But these Gatshas8 … . Many of us had to try to stop the mob. How do we control our people? We had to try to keep everybody in their houses, which is impossible. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) Klotz acknowledges the extreme disparities between urban and township residents in terms of direct experience of violations and how overt equivalences between representations of distant events may not be recognised in relation to what was unfolding in the immediate vicinity. She remembers sitting in the auditorium at the Baxter Theatre watching a documentary in which Germans, shortly after World War II, denied all knowledge of concentration camps. Sitting as a white person in that auditorium – I was in township schools during the day, when I could get there – I thought, here you all are and not even 10 kilometres down the road, in Langa, people are suffering excruciatingly under the State of Emergency with police and army all around and not one of you know anything about it and choose not to know about it. (Interview 2, 3 February 2021) In 1993 while classes continued at Sibikwa, an application was made to the Grahamstown Festival to present Ubuntu Bomhlaba – an epic African Opera – on the main festival programme for 1994 on the understanding that the Festival organisers would partially fund this ambitious project and its large cast. The production would make history as the first “community” play staged on the Main Festival. This complex innovative work was inspired by the continued violence on the East Rand. Rehearsals began at the Liverpool Road premises. Calling themselves the Sibikwa Players, they had already established the practice of removing actors from their everyday environment in the interest of ensuring focus and full commitment to the work involved in creating a play. The entire cast of 30 relocated to a retreat at Wilgespruit (a small hamlet north-west of Johannesburg) for a week to develop the world of this epic panAfricanist fable. Even in this West Rand sanctum with its steep road providing the only means of access, refuge from escalated political tensions was not entirely possible.

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In advance of Election Day on 27 April 1994, Klotz, at the Young People’s Theatre in the Western Cape, along with other staff, was involved in the important introduction of voter education, democracy, and its processes. In this ANC stronghold the community experienced little of the schisms and tensions that characterised other parts of the country, especially further north in the Transvaal (the northern province of which Johannesburg and Pretoria were part). Ndaba tells how the mounting excitement in Daveyton (where the ANC predominated) was constantly undermined by the awareness that one section of the township was inhabited by Inkatha supporters. The presence of rival political factions threatened any form of community cohesion and social stability. Klotz uses the word “magic” to describe the atmosphere of the long day in a voting queue as an acknowledgement of inhabiting a hard-won present. Ndaba’s recollection captures the spirit of anticipating a future that Mandela’s inauguration would affirm: “Everyone was looking forward.” Nelson Mandela’s Inauguration Address (10 May 1994) began with these words: Today, all of us do, by our presence here, and by our celebrations in other parts of our country and the world, confer glory and hope to new-born liberty. Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud. Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul and sustain all our hopes for glorious life for all. All this we owe both to ourselves and to the peoples of the world who are so well represented here today. (https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/read-nelson-mandelasinauguration-speech-president-sa. Accessed 8 February 2021)

Notes 1 Botha presided over the tri-cameral parliament which is described by Ivor Chipkin as “another oddity of apartheid constitutional planner. It sought to resolve two contradictory political imperatives: safeguard white political control while accommodating (some) non-whites into the political community […] the constitution provided for a House of Assembly (for whites), a House of Delegates (for coloureds) and a House of Representatives (for Indians)” (200, p. 228). 2 Chipkin details how young activists played a role in “demanding compliance with work stayaways and consumer boycotts” (2007, p. 142). They were also instrumental in establishing kangaroo courts which dispensed “people’s justice” particularly to impimpi (sellouts) who were “necklaced” (a car tyre placed around the neck of the accused who would be soaked in petrol and then set alight, as referred to in So Where To?) 3 Biko was held in detention without trial for 533 days and interrogated multiple times. In the final interrogation of 6 September he was brutally beaten, sustained life-threatening injuries and died on 12 September 1977.

34 Sarah Roberts 4 Just over 475 grassroots organisations participated in the gathering at Mitchell’s Plain. Months later UDF membership had increased to over 600 organisations from all over the country. See https://www.saha.org.za/udf/origins.htm Accessed 5 February 2021. 5 The Rubicon Speech includes this assertion: “[…] most leaders in their own right in South Africa and reasonable South Africans will not accept the principle of one-man-one-vote in a unitary system. That would lead to domination of one over the other and it would lead to chaos. Consequently, I reject it as a solution. […] I am not prepared to lead White South Africans and other minority groups on a road to abdication and suicide. Destroy White South Africa and our influence, and this country will drift into faction strife, chaos, and poverty. […] If Mr Mandela gives a commitment that he will not make himself guilty of planning, instigating, or committing acts of violence for the furtherance of political objectives, I will, in principle, be prepared to consider his release […] But let me remind the public of the reasons why Mr Mandela is in jail …” https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/ 04lv01600/05lv01638/06lv01639.htm Accessed 19 March 2021. 6 344 Rambuda Street, Daveyton. 7 The acronym D.E.T. stands for Department of Education and Training. 8 Gatshas were known as followers of Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi who is a traditional Zulu leader and who founded the Inkatha Freedom Party in 1975.

References Botha, P.W. (1985) The Rubicon Speech. Available at https://omalley.nelsonmandela. org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01600/05lv01638/06lv01639.htm Chipkin, I. (2007) Do South Africans Exist? Nationalism, Democracy and the Identity of ‘the People’. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Interview 2 Ndaba and Klotz, 3 February 2021, Johannesburg. Mandela, N. (1964) I am Prepared to Die. Available at https://www.nelsonmandela.org/ news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die Mandela, N. (1990) First Public Address on Release from Victor Verster Prison. Available at https://allafrica.com/download/resource/main/main/idatcs/00010797:daf2fae771c79dec3c21da5d5cd7e366.pdf Mandela, N. (1994) Inaugural Address. Available at https://www.sanews.gov.za/southafrica/read-nelson-mandelas-inauguration-speech-president-sa Ndebele, N. (1984) ‘Actors and Interpreters’ in (2006). Rediscovery of the Ordinary. Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal Press. Roberts, S.E. (2021) Interview 2 with Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz, 3 February 2021 in Johannesburg. Unpublished. Sachs, A. (1982) Memorandum from the Gaborone Symposium. Available at https://www. sahistory.org.za/article/culture-resistance-conference-1982 (also includes narrative detail about the symposium/festival). Sachs, A. (1991) Preparing Ourselves for Freedom: Culture and the ANC Constitutional Guidelines. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/1146119 Tambo, O. (1985) Response to ‘the Rubicon Speech’. Available at https://omalley. nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv04015/05lv04016/ 06lv04025/07lv04026.htm Tutu, D. (1984) Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. Available at ( https://www. nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1984/tutu/lecture/

3

Democracy, the first decade: The Mandela-Mbeki years (1994–2005) Sarah Roberts

We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their invincible rights to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world. (President Nelson Mandela Inaugural Address, 10 May 1994)

This chapter will focus on the first decade of democracy charting major political and cultural developments in some detail to highlight the pragmatism of the shifts in Sibikwa’s operations and how it addressed issues of national importance. The aim is to map the steady expansion and implementation of theatre-ineducation programmes and demonstrate the models adopted as proactive re­ sponses to emerging issues of a transitional period. The contextualization of Sibikwa’s development requires a discussion of the macro-issues of major political transformations that framed everyday experiences of “Reconstruction and Development. The three pillars of negotiated transition – the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) are the focus of the following two chapters.

Individual and collective covenants in rites of passage To celebrate the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela, the headline of The Star (11 May 1994) carried a bold declaration above a near full-page colour photograph of the crowds assembled at the Union Buildings, Pretoria. This caption reiterated the key symbol of the newly sworn-in president’s address: “The rainbow covenant.” Two sets of ideas are intertwined in what the rainbow represents. The spectrum is a motif of unity: colours are in­ dividually identifiable but also merge into one another where they meet; and the rainbow, in the Christian testament, is the symbol of hope embedded in the solemn pledge to a better future after the disaster of the deluge. In nature, it is a sign that the worst of a storm is past. The euphoria at a peaceful transition was frequently declared a “miracle.” These theologically laden terms in DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-4

36 Sarah Roberts

conjunction with the phenomenon of the rainbow in nature, obscure ne­ cessary human endeavour with its difficult work of negotiation and com­ promise. A year earlier, in 1993, the Nobel Peace Prize had been jointly awarded to Mandela and De Klerk as brokers of a transition to democracy. The citation read: “For their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa” (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1993/summary/ Accessed 13 February 2021). The nascent democracy, with an Interim Constitution, and newly elected Interim Government of National Unity, was launched with multiple signs of amity and accord. These signs ranged from the revelation of the new national flag which was suspended from helicopters in the inaugural fly-past to singing the anthems that represented both constituencies. The Star, under the banner, “New Lessons in Harmony” reported: A row of people stood respectfully on the terraces mouthing along to the unfamiliar words as best they could while the band played Die Stem. What made the sight riveting was the fact that they were all black South Africans – ANC officials, in fact; people who, in earlier times, would have refused even to listen in silence to the “apartheid anthem” … The difficulty some blacks had in singing Die Stem was more familiarly mirrored in hundreds of white faces, as they battled to get beyond the first few words of Nkosi Sikelel’iAfrika – but both tried their utmost. […] Many normally con­ servative whites raised their fists while Nkosi played, and some blacks even did the same during Die Stem – surely a first in South African history. (The Star, 11 May 1994, p. 1) The new anthem, in which the two parts are eventually more effectively combined through having one segue into the other in the course of a few bars of music (as a symbolic representation of amity), was formally introduced on 7 February 1997. The day marked collective and individual ceremonial rites of passage. The “new South Africa” would not only tolerate but also actively embrace differences in race, language, belief systems, and ethnicity. Among its many provisions, the Interim Constitution dismantled the authority and enforced use of spoken and written Afrikaans and English which entailed the exclusion of all indigenous languages. Both languages had long-entrenched associations with colonisation and apartheid so the declaration of freedom of expression had significant political and cultural resonance. From this day onwards, the equal status of 11 official languages – 10 of them indigenous – was to be embraced and actively promoted. At Sibikwa, the significance of this memorable day with its core theme of the endurance and liberation received dramatic treatment in the 1997 production of Uhambo, the Journey. As though in tribute to the title of Mandela’s autobiography (Long Walk to Freedom (1994)) the production of Uhambo signals and circulates around the metaphor of a difficult journey through space and time.

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Figure 3.1 Smal Ndaba in Uhambo is seated with a small transistor radio to his ear as he listens to the Inaugural speech by Nelson Mandela. The iconic black-and-white pho­ tograph of the new president taken on the last day of the Rivonia trial hangs on the reed wall behind him. A second photograph of Mandela in action as sportsman and boxer, hangs on the door. (Photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer, September 2015).

38 Sarah Roberts

When Klotz relocated to Johannesburg to accommodate the demands of her work at Sibikwa in 1997, the creation of a new play, Uhambo was developed to commemorate the day of Mandela’s inauguration. The core themes of this address form the central “message” of a story which pays tribute to all those who endured life under apartheid, especially ordinary workers. Mandela’s address, like his autobiography, celebrates achievement through acknowledging the complex sequence of events of the past that enabled liberation in the present. The past is not forgotten. The mo­ mentous gains of the present have been produced through past losses, struggle, and sacrifice. Individual dignity – an affirmation of sense of being and belonging – depends on the deep interconnectedness between “man” and the regional habitat, whether rural landscape or urban hub, as implied by these lines from the Inaugural Address: To my compatriots, I have no hesitation in saying that each one of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld. Each time one of us touches the soil of this land, we feel a sense of personal renewal. (Mandela, 1994) In the play, motifs from the address are deftly woven throughout to extend beyond allusions to the natural beauty of the landscape to moral and ethical imperatives of “the time for healing” and the capacity for “spiritual and physical oneness” between persons and places as if to remind the audience that past sacrifices cannot be forgotten, Uhambo also refers back to in­ corporate references and implications of other public speeches that pre-date the inauguration. The trace of Mandela’s first public address on leaving prison (11.2.1990) – so vividly recalled by Klotz and many others for whom this broadcast was a distinctly historic moment – is an explicit reference point for the endorsement of the lives of all individuals who made up the vast anonymous body of migratory workers who moved from rural villages to Egoli (Johannesburg) in search of work on the mines. Mandela’s first public address after his release was momentous because it symbolised the extent to which a previously voiceless majority would no longer be silenced. Mandela had acknowledged political groups and activists and then paid tribute to workers: I extend my greetings to the working class of our country. Your organised strength is the pride of our movement. You remain the most dependable force in the struggle to end exploitation and oppression. … The apartheid destruction on our subcontinent is incalculable. The

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fabric of family life of millions of my people has been shattered. Millions are homeless and unemployed. (Mandela, 1990 https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/nelsonmandelas-address-rally-cape-town-his-release-prison-11-february-1990 Accessed 8 February 2021) Mzamo’s story becomes representative of countless nameless others as the narrative of his life is interwoven with Mandela’s words which launch a reenactment of the past. The play concludes with a powerful affirmation of connectedness between generations, and between individuals who are not bound by kinship ties. The recorded voice is at once part of the narrative and a framing device to initially trigger, and much later, bring closure to the story of a man’s rites of passage. The play shows us what coming to terms with loss and forging spiritual reconnection means through the evocative register of a per­ sonal narrative, a form that was to gain traction during Mandela’s term and beyond in the wake of the work – format and outcomes – of the TRC. The young 14-year-old Mzamo – played by a young actor who corresponds with the figure of the older Mzamo, the storyteller, played by Ndaba – leaves rural Qumbu after the death of his grandmother to seek his parents in Johannesburg. He meets three miners on his train journey. Two years later, aged 16, when he leaves Johannesburg having found both his mother (in a TB hospital) and father (co-habiting with another wife and children in Pimville), he encounters the same three miners and an Induna (a person of authority or a headman) on another train journey. This time they travel to Coalbrook Mine. They become his mentors and trusted adoptive fathers. The Induna, Dlamini, Maduna, and Majola die underground after the mine collapses. The fabricated world of the play references the historical incident of the 21 January 1960 Coalbrook Mine disaster in which 435 men lost their lives. Mzamo experi­ ences another serious loss: the most profound thus far in his young life. Returning us to the present, some 40 years later, old Mzamo shares his ca­ pacity to transcend bereavement through the music that he coaxes from his treasured pennywhistle. His music bridges the gap between the living and the dead as it invokes the presence of his foster fathers. The tapestry of living through years of apartheid slides seamlessly into an unforeseeable present and an unknowable future. In terms of subject matter, characters, plot, and theme, the play is structured around details of profound personal significance to both Ndaba and Klotz. Several aspects of the play are notable characteristics of Sibikwa’s dramaturgy and stagecraft. Like many of the devised, collaboratively authored, or work­ shopped texts that Ndaba and Klotz were to facilitate with actors, social issues are addressed through an interplay between past and present, between reality and fabrication as much as being affirmed as storytelling events that ac­ knowledge the presence of an audience. This particular play intertwines two distinct periods of history – the 50s and 1994 – in addition to a spatial narrative in which differing places or environments (and the lives that they promote) are

40 Sarah Roberts

similarly intertwined. The figure of a storyteller, developed into a character who is both inside of and external to the action, is a key dramaturgical device. In this instance the character-cum-storyteller is not the sole origin of the story that he tells. His story is prompted by listening to the voice of another. Careful listening triggers the recall of a life in which listening to the voices of others is the key motif that forges connections between young Mzamo and strangers who become his extended family. As a whole, the play comprises a series of sketches or vignettes within a particular setting to introduce a range of secondary or subsidiary characters of rural and urban life. In this play – as in a much later play, iLembe – the transitions between scenes are a crucial component of the narrative. The motif of the train journey symbolises complex personal and spiritual developments. Songs and musical accompaniment serve a dual function: they are variously deployed as integral to the diegetic world and pivotal in promoting the action, while they also serve to punctuate transitions between scenes. Mzamo’s pennywhistle resonates expressively: it captures the tone and style of the period to invoke one of the iconic photographic images of Sophiatown in the 1950s.1 It is also endowed with quasi-magical properties in invoking the spirits of Mzamo’s foster fathers as the play closes. As an inert object, the pennywhistle is one of Mzamo’s few prized possessions: the music he can generate on the instrument bonds him with other musicians in a jamming session that relays the quiet message that it is not what you have but how you use your resources that defines who you are. Although not explicit, Uhambo reads – and plays – as Sibikwa’s testimony to the period of transition and the institution of the TRC as a public forum dedicated to auditing accounts of hidden histories and previously unheard voices. Unlike the body of dramatic texts that emerged in the wake of the Commission’s hearings, and which favoured monologic tes­ timony as odes to verities and the valorisation of the individual subject, Uhambo asserts the truth value of fabrication produced through dialogue, encounters, interaction, and community. Social issues affecting a collective – and the individual within that community – compel this treatment and the ideas presented through the play. Two other more or less contemporaneous projects, Trash Truck and April Fool’s Child, further demonstrate the extent to which sustained community development was a crucial aspect of Sibikwa’s dramatic output which in­ tensified from 2000 onwards to augment their arts education programmes. The 2002 production, Trash Truck (funded by the Lottery for three years), addressed environmental awareness to inculcate the reduction in consumption and recycling waste. The multi-faceted concept implements the principles of participation and consolidation that Phyllis so strongly advocates. Associated activities are structured around the performances to facilitate the application or implementation of learning outcomes embedded in that production. The ideas and messages embedded in what is enacted or shown are thus consolidated, expanded, and take on immediate personal and collective relevance as learners

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engage in games or exercises that require them to apply choices or take on responsibilities to which they have been introduced: The production built on my personal philosophy of theatre in education. We bought a big flat-bed trailer. The show would be staged on it to the whole school or (preferably) smaller groups. The performance was a catalyst for further exploration in the school. Consultative workshops with the teachers had been held in advance. They were a pre-requisite for us coming to the school. After the performance, the teachers had the responsibility of dividing the children into separate groups of about 10 children per group. Each group would do an environmental audit by going around through the school counting the taps, for example, to check how many were leaking. The groups would be further divided and allocated two complementary tasks: one half would be responsible for a presentation of what they found in the environmental audit and what these suggested. They would be encouraged to identify more responsible behaviour attuned to respecting the environment. Each group would then make a play about the environment. At Sibikwa we would host a one-day festival in which 10 schools could participate to present and share their work. It was a competition. We used to have prizes – like a television set for a school. But the issue is this: if you are going to use drama or theatre techniques in education you need these multiple prongs, otherwise don’t do it. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) Sibikwa’s outreach projects increasingly culminated in ad hoc communal fes­ tivals at Sibikwa’s premises which became a highly productive meeting ground or place where different facets of the community might congregate to share and enjoy each other’s work. The genesis of April Fool’s Child (Ndaba’s play) lay in how Sibikwa became a fulcrum to nurture further personal development. The play is a cautionary tale of the prison experiences of a young boy arrested and imprisoned for hijacking. Ndaba describes aspects of its evolution: We did some prison programmes at different prisons – Sun City,2 Soweto, Leeukop – introducing how to act, dance, tell stories. From there productions developed. Those plays would come to Sibikwa for competitions with all the other plays from the township. For 3 years the prisoners would win first prize – they had time to rehearse their work. When they finished their [prison] sentence, some of them they would come to Sibikwa. There was one – Temba – arrested for hijacking. The play started with some of his story. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) Klotz explains the plot and the lessons embedded in the play that developed: He is a young boy and doesn’t know how the prison system works. An older man, a cook – originally a white Afrikaans actor – then Smal [Ndaba] took

42 Sarah Roberts

over – befriends him. The symbolism is obvious, the cook is there to nourish. The cook gives him extra food and watches over him. The time comes when the cook wants a return for these favours. We don’t explicitly say its sexual. He gets beaten up and punished. That’s how the play ends. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) The signature of Sibikwa’s issue-based community theatre-in-education was now an established local style.

Situating Sibikwa within South Africa’s global integration and transition to democratic governance By 1994 the rapid restoration of South Africa’s position within the international community was reflected diversely: the country had been re-admitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations and athletes were welcome to parti­ cipate in the 1992 Olympic Games. International trade and socio-cultural links ties were re-instated and (with its newly acquired “favoured nation status”) the country successfully hosted major tournaments such as the ICC Cricket World Cup (2003) followed by the Rugby World Cup (1995).3 One of the iconic images memorialises the Springbok triumph after a tense final with its narrow victory in this Rugby World Cup: at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, President Mandela, wearing a player’s shirt with the number of flanker-captain Francis Pienaar, presented him with the Webb Ellis Trophy. Both beam with shared pride. Pride in proclaiming achievements seemed novel. Klotz, with equally appropriate pride, describes how Sibikwa’s extensive international touring expanded in the immediate post-1994 period. Tours were enabled by booking agents and the reward of her own initiative in ac­ tively seeking out opportunities to present productions. I started to book our own tours in 1989 and 1990, throughout Europe and the UK, not in the States. People knew me from Strike, and they knew Bopha. So that was a great advantage. After 1994 we got an American agent, based in Seattle, who booked us for tours throughout America and Canada. We toured extensively during ’96, ’97 and ’98. In the year 2000 we were tired. Not only had we toured overseas but we had gone up and down South Africa with productions. We were tired. Also, our Swedish funder was quite angry with us for not focusing enough on Sibikwa’s work in local development. She was very put out – she actually gave us less money than the other projects. But we also felt compelled to start building the entity locally. That’s when the tours stopped. Our last one was in about 1997 with a Norwegian funder and a tour of Norway. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) She also accounts for how international funding has been crucial to Sibikwa’s local operations:

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Under apartheid there were a lot of funds available, particularly from the Nordic countries and the Netherlands. Not so much Germany, but the UK certainly. We worked a lot with the British Council to get our productions overseas. They were very cooperative in getting productions overseas. After ’94 there was lot of money that came into the country because people were rooting for South Africa. Everyone was rooting for the country to succeed so people brought money into the country. They made it clear, at the time, that this would be a 5-year project. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) She stresses the significance of the time period attached to international funding and aid which sustained the arts and NGOs as a time of relative af­ fluence (1994–1999) and links this to future expectations of more rigorous audit and accountability for sponsorship and the terms on which funding and aid were granted. She emphasises her experience of ways in which interna­ tional donors looked favourably on projects with a luminary among the board of directors and also intensified the demands for impeccable accountability. Remember that under apartheid people were not so pernickety about procedures and processes and financial responsibility. Now you really had to be financially responsible. Also, the Boards were a big thing. I remember once crying to Smal and saying we can’t get money because Desmond Tutu is not on our Board, or Alan Boesak, or someone like that. You needed these big names on your board to get money from overseas. So, for the first five years, money was pumped in [but] it was never easy for us. Then, after that 5-year period when Mbeki took over, the overseas funds dried up. Mbeki himself stepped in between the arts organisations in South Africa and the Swedes that they were funding directly. He did not want this to happen. They signed an agreement with a codicil to the effect that money would no longer come directly to NGOs in South Africa. It would go to the Dept. of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. We never saw the money again. We didn’t know what happened to it. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) As Klotz explains, dreams of expansion and sustainability that had previously relied on more or less guaranteed international funding faced being com­ promised. Local national support for (and promotion of) arts education was not forthcoming despite the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) to which Mandela’s ANC had pledged. In the new dispensation, since at last we had a Department of Arts and Culture, our natural expectation was that we would be supported. We were actually devastated when we came to realise that in spite of RDP policy that support did not materialise. Urban legend has it that Dr Ngubane

44 Sarah Roberts

(then minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology) didn’t know what to do with these “orphan children” – by which he meant historic arts centres. It was Government policy not to support us at all. What they did do was build 42 RDP arts centres throughout SA. But they did this without consultation in various communities. Without consulting anyone. Not even arts practitioners. They built arts centres with rooms 4 metres square for dancing! […] Of those arts centres, perhaps two survive today. Most have been demolished. It was a very painful period for us. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) Lack of formal endorsement and funding did not, however, deter Ndaba and Klotz in their ambitions to develop the premises and expand on infrastructural capacity. Despite continued insecurities regarding the lease of the premises expanding their base from the single building in Liverpool Street began and gathered momentum as over the course of decades they gained permission to use unoccupied and disused buildings on the same site. They intensified in­ dependent efforts at securing corporate sponsorship to undertake resourceful renovations and modifications of available structures. As with the most suc­ cessful improvised use of found spaces in the long history of developments in theatre architecture, the “theatre” evolved over several decades from a rela­ tively crude and simple “empty space” to a fitted venue equipped with rostra, masking curtains, and a raked auditorium. Klotz describes the rudimentary facilities used from 1996 as make-shift with minimal equipment and a basic lighting board. The lack of access to (ideal) facilities and resources did not inhibit the presentation of many highly successful productions including Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Minor accretions like a new lighting board and a few more lamps were gradual. Years later more expansive renovations were undertaken: The big shift in the theatre came in 2016. Stan Knight built the raked platforms for seating; provided masking curtains as a full surround. A few more lights were bought. Up to this point we had probably spent under R200,000.00. In 2018, with money from DSAC we were able to put in air-conditioning. This was an enormous expense – R650000. In the past when the heat became unbearable in the theatre particularly on our big, packed community days, our solution to the problem had been to lift the back garage doors to let the air in. The venue is a relatively low maintenance, intimate and versatile Black Box playing space. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) This theatre together with a smaller flexible space that had long served as a classroom in the adjacent building means that Sibikwa has two indoor venues in which they can house an audience. This second playing space, also fitted out by Stan Knight, was necessitated by increased student numbers and the need to accommodate annual student showcase concerts. The large courtyard between

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the two buildings is also a venue for performance presentations. The East Rand target audience is now well acquainted with these venues, their flex­ ibility and capacity for hosting more than one production within a single day.

Human rights and the public presentation of personal narratives The transition to democracy was anchored in three fundamental and essential processes: implementing a free and fair democratic election, drafting a con­ stitution, and founding the Constitutional Court to ensure accountable gov­ ernance and social justice. The political process prioritised issues of national governance. The associated priority of crafting, then formally adopting, a new constitution was a crucial mechanism for ensuring human rights and holding Government to account. The Interim Constitution of 1993 provided for es­ tablishing the Constitutional Court in 1994. The rationale for the court’s inception, mandate, and role is inextricably linked to the goal of achieving inclusive social justice and shoring up the importance of human rights. Its first session was on 15 February 1995 concerning the constitutionality of the death penalty and whether or not capital punishment infringed upon “the right to dignity and the right to be free from torture and cruel punishment.” After three days of argument, the court handed down its judgment: on 6 June 1995, the Court unanimously found that the death penalty was indeed unconstitu­ tional (https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/about-us/history Accessed 13 February 2021). Additionally, this court was mandated with authorisation of the final con­ stitution and upholding its terms in the future. The Court played a crucial role in the adoption of the final Constitution of 1996. The Constitutional Court had to certify that the new text, passed by the Constitutional Assembly, complied with the 34 constitutional principles agreed upon by the negotiators of the interim constitution. (https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/about-us/history Accessed 13 February 2021) The decision to create this regulatory mechanism was profoundly political: the terms for its structure and organisation laid out in the Interim Constitution. It is explained in these words: In 1994, the judiciary was overwhelmingly white (and male) and therefore limited in its legitimacy and its capacity to draw on the sense of justice of communities and both sexes. It was agreed that a new court, more representative of South Africa’s diverse population, should be established to protect the Constitution and the fundamental human rights it entrenches. (https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/about-us/history Accessed 13 February 2021)

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The new Constitution was adopted (May 1996) by President Mbeki whose carefully crafted speech “I am an African” marked the occasion. The Constitution was signed into law on 10 December 1996 and came into effect on 7 February 1997 safeguarded by the Constitutional Court. The Bill of Rights as stipulated in the Constitution safeguards democracy, individual, and collective rights and obligations along with delimiting institutional power.4 Civil rights are further safeguarded by the operations and the office of the Public Protector, mandated as independent of government and invested with powers to hold government accountable.5 The terms of the Constitution – its operations, agency, and apparent gaps between guaranteed rights and life as it is experienced – act as a constant reference point for Sibikwa’s programmes and plays such as Chapter 2 Section 9: Equality. The third cornerstone of the transition to democratic governance – the TRC – addressed the “urgent drive to define the basis for South Africa’s unity as a people” (Chipkin, 2007, p. 174). Over the next two decades the project of nation-building was formally and institutionally implemented developing from this third pillar of the transition. Archbishop Desmond Tutu (appointed Chairman of this Commission in 1995) used the metaphor of the bridge be­ tween past and future to express the Commission’s function in enabling a transition from a history of systemic violations of human dignity and rights to a society based on equality as asserted in the Bill of Rights. It is beyond the mandate of this chapter to critique the achievements or failings of the TRC which has generated a substantial body of literature. The objective, rather, is to provide a rudimentary understanding of its form and operations in order to lay a foundation for demonstrating how profoundly this institution permeated contemporary discourse and creative expressions in South Africa and to locate Sibikwa’s work within a repertoire of texts that proliferated during and after the work of the commission.6 The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 which authorised the TRC was signed into law by President Nelson Mandela. Hearings began the following year on 15 March and were originally mandated to end in 1998 but the period was subsequently extended to 2003. The first six volumes of the report were submitted to President Mandela (1998). The final volumes of the report were released in 2003. In order to appreciate the impact of the TRC Hearings on creative texts that proliferated in its wake it is im­ portant to understand the goal, form, and operations of these public hearings as variously these informed the way in which texts were developed at Sibikwa and by others. A 17-member body of commissioners was appointed to grapple with “the competing demands for justice, reparation, acknowledgement, mourning, healing, reconciliation, and the promulgation of public memory” (Cole, 2010, p. x). As a mechanism for a “transition from authoritarian to democratic rule” (Cole, 2010, p. ix) and an institutional project of social reconstruction, this Commission was mandated to investigate and document violations of human rights that had taken place during two and a half decades of apartheid rule

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(1960–1994). It was a forum for uncovering multiple details of undisclosed and actively repressed truths of the past rather than prosecuting perpetrators and structured to do so from the dual perspective of victims and perpetrators – in two separate forums – in which they would be provided with a public plat­ form to present their testimonies. Cole briefly compares what distinguished the South African formal variation on global templates of the previous 16 commissions that had taken place to conclude that it was “One of the most significant, most celebrated and most discussed examples of state transforma­ tion in the late 20th century” (2010, p. x). Unlike globally established models, in South Africa hearings were open to public audiences in “town halls, churches, and public venues throughout the country” (Cole, 2010, p. xii). Proceedings were also broadcast by television and radio media (1996–1998). The Commission processes,coverage and revelations captured the imagination of intellectuals and artists alike. The tripartite structure of this momentous undertaking established three separate areas of public hearings. As Cole (2010, p. xii) claims as it “put the voices and words of thousands of ‘ordinary people into the public record.”7 The Human Rights Violation Committee was presented with just over 22,000 statements by individual “victims.” The Amnesty Committee processed 7000 plus applications, undertook 2500 hearings, and granted 1500 “perpetrators” amnesty. The Reparations Committee was to make recommendations for implementing social justice and redress. Additionally, the Commission un­ dertook to present a report with recommendations for circumventing future human rights violations. Human rights violations included torture, killings, disappearances and abductions, and severe ill-treatment suffered at the hands of the apartheid state. Conditions for amnesty were unequivocally clear: full total disclosure of the crimes perpetrated had to be publicly declared along with proving that these were politically motivated rather than acts of gratuitous violence. As Chipkin (2007, pp. 178–187) points out, the taxonomy of identifying persons testifying as “perpetrators” and “victims” was not without complex contradictions as categories of race and ideological alignment did not always conform to expectations: the category of “victim” was not exclusive to black South Africans but included white victims, while perpetrators, although largely functionaries of the State, also included some black members of the ANC, IFP, and PAC. The archival task of collating multiple invisible and untold histories for the public record was predicated on defining “truth.” The commission adopted four different forms of truth: forensic or factual truth which could be sub­ stantiated by material data; personal or narrative truth which was predicated on subjective experience or witness and presented as testimony; dialogic or social truth; and finally, healing or restorative truth. The interplay of these nuanced variations nonetheless allowed for the predominance of personal truth which depended on intertwined operations of memory and oral storytelling. In the words of Walter Benjamin: “Language shows clearly that memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its’ theatre. It is the medium of past

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experience” (Cole, 2010, p. xiii). Testimonies, presented in person, had the persuasive power of performance: To listen to one man relate how his wife and baby were cruelly murdered is much more powerful and moving than statistics which describe a massacre involving many victims. The conflict of the past is no longer a question of numbers and incidents; the human face has shown itself, and the horror of murder and torture is painfully real. (Alex Boraine, Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, as cited in Cole 2010, p. 165) Notwithstanding their subjectivity, individual testimonies were affirmed in their validity because of being lodged in individual cultural positions, “per­ ceptions, stories, myths and experiences, especially from those who had been largely ignored or were voiceless in official discourse” (Cole, 2010, p. 164). The burden of truth-telling and the mechanisms for doing so were adopted by diverse theatre-makers who had different strategies for ensuring the integrity of the work that they made. In addition to the seven-volume report (which became “source material” for some theatre-makers), a substantial body of literature has developed with the TRC as its subject: multiple texts abound. They range from memoirs, legal analyses, to documentations of its structure and implementation methods as a template for application elsewhere in the world. Narratives and images along with the formal features of the TRC, as goal and process provided theatremakers with a rich repository of departure points for innovation. The hearings themselves were frequently referred to via the vocabulary of theatre by both participants and the media: the inherently theatrical aspects of these public events with their incorporation of ritual, dramatic, and theatrical elements were manifested in multiple ways. But these hearings were ultimately not aesthetically framed or presented as forms of crafted cultural expressions or semi-structured improvised performances. The emphasis on veracity and authenticity was additionally infused with the associated process of the therapeutic value of “sharing personal trauma” as a mechanism for healing and affirmation. The central motifs of the hearings and the appeal of the interplay between confession and forgiveness – along with the narrative arc of a personal journey rewarded by public affirmation – have considerable dramatic purchase. These formal properties correspond with the cachet and escalating dramatic experiment in verbatim theatre. But adopting these strategies in theatre-making risks neglecting the care with which ethical concerns and protocols were addressed during the hearings. Social workers, counsellors, or “Comforters” played an important role in each hearing – tasked, as they were, with supporting testatees who experienced distress or trauma through revisiting and retelling horrifying past experiences. The imperative of promoting the delivery of oral testimony in mother tongue necessitated the presence of interpreters who – rather like actors

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assuming another persona – were required to adopt the first-person singular in relaying statements being delivered. This process had the effect of inserting an incongruous conflation of interpreter and the story being told. What was at stake was the provision of containment or psychological processing which (as an ethical imperative) was, to some degree at least, incorporated into the way in which the hearings took place. The affective impact of accounts of har­ rowing experiences extended to include professional journalists reporting on proceedings as Antje Krog, journalist, poet, and writer, describes: Week after week; voice after voice; account after account. It is like travelling on a rainy night behind a huge truck – images of devastation breaking in sheets on the windscreen. You can’t overtake, because you can’t see, and you can’t slow down or stop because then you’ll never get anywhere. It’s not so much the deaths, and the names of the dead, but the web of infinite sorrow woven around them. It keeps on coming and coming. A wide, barren, disconsolate landscape where the horizon keeps dropping away. (Krog, 2002, p. 32) If the impact on audiences and reporters was deeply affective, it was equally charged for those whose role in proceedings was considerably more partici­ patory, as recounted by Cole: Because the interpreters were not directly employed by the commission, they did not automatically receive the counselling services the commission provided. Chairperson Desmond Tutu, in his preface to the TRC’s summary report, notes that “it has been a gruelling job of work that has taken physical, mental and psychological toll. We have borne a heavy burden as we have taken onto ourselves the anguish, the awfulness, and the sheer evil of it all.” He singles out the interpreters who had undergone the trauma of not just reading or hearing about the atrocities but have had to speak in the first person as a victim or perpetrator. To underscore his point, Tutu offers two direct quotes from testimony: “They undressed me and opened a drawer and shoved my breast into the drawer which they slammed shut on my nipple!” [and] “I drugged his coffee, then I shot him in the head. Then I burned the body. Whilst we were doing this, watching his body burn, we were enjoying a braai [barbecue] on the other side”. Such graphic details were daily fare at the Truth Commission. (Cole, 2010, p. 75) These statements signal the potential repercussions of the theatrical re­ production of documented testimonies. As Both Klotz and Ndaba are keenly aware, ethical, and moral concerns apply to formal experiments in personal

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monologue in which the action re-stages past personal trauma according to quasi-therapeutic objectives. Beyond the implications of re-staging personal violations, the ethical considerations of appropriating individual biographies (or an over-zealous infringement of private or personal sensitivities) in the name of theatre-making verge on being morally and ethically questionable, especially when the need for an inbuilt mechanism for containment or a framing device to establish aesthetic distance is disregarded or mishandled. Klotz and Ndaba deftly avoided what was at stake in representing docu­ mented testimonies, but nonetheless contributed to discourse around the proceedings of the TRC through their commitment to dramatic narratives that were based on direct and lived experience of the actors and the local community. With one notable exception, Chapter 2 Section 9, rather than dramatizing or restaging personal testimonies and the TRC cases in particular, they embrace the fabrication of fictional treatments of known experiences and issues. The effect of affirming subjective experience is thus retained but viewed through the prism of storytelling as established by the collaboration with young actors in D.E.T. Boy’s High. The cabaret-style Kwela Bafana (1992) – so different in its vibrant rhythm and buoyancy – continued to evolve through a series of iterations to interweave different medleys and energetic dance se­ quences as a testimony to the capacity of an emerging generation to overcome past sacrifices through paying tribute to the past. The TRC template of multiple narratives intertwined as a cohesive whole bears the hallmark of the TRC as a project, a process, and a dense layering of diverse or even dis­ connected experiences. Klotz anchors her personal position regarding staging the testimonies of others or an autobiographical performance in her philosophy of theatre-ineducation: As a drama teacher that follows Bolton and Heathcote, I am very aware of people’s emotions. You want that drama to emerge, not as a personal story, but have to be very respectful of individuals and their emotions. I would never expect to have a rehearsal just to get a story out. Developing Behind Closed Doors is an example. You can’t get people to tell their stories and then ride roughshod over that. […] Some companies [that adapt Boal’s techniques] don’t always process the issues that have surfaced in appropriate ways. Audience participants who have told their story – had it acted out – have cried. But the company leaves without processing what they have triggered. That kind of attitude doesn’t sit with me. I have seen people leave having gone through a difficult emotional journey left without support and care. […] Any play that delves into personal experience – like Behind Closed Doors – with all the abuse it explored, has meant that I ensure there is a trained drama therapist present and information about where people can go is directed to audiences. (Interview 3 10 February 2021)

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Interactive discussion with an audience after performances of Behind Closed Doors was a variation of the practical activities structured into Trash Truck to process. Structured discussion and question and answer sessions are a tool for containing or alleviating emotional or psychological reactions to the abusive situation and experiences played out on stage that this audience has just witnessed. Ndaba describes his process of generating narrative from personal experi­ ence rather than working with an extant script. He stresses a social focus. This outwardly directed, inter-personal focus as a method for arriving at character identities and narrative details places less focus on the psychology of the character and focuses more on behaviour, choices, and consequences. The method does not explicitly exclude the subjectivity of the performer, but an introspective focus does not form the primary point of entry characters or events. His method stresses the way in which truths do not necessarily require a basis on specific authentic testimony. The shared experience of situations, dialogic interaction, and observation – both looking and listening – is central to crafting the play and also the actor-training method. He observes: Before we start working on a play, I teach my students how to observe people’s behaviour wherever they are, how to do research and experiment on any subject put before them. So … the research and observation completed, our synopsis done, we start working on the play, I will take D.E.T. Boy’s High as an example. We went to Daveyton’s higher primary schools for information about teenagers who smoked dagga [marijuana] in the school toilets. Many pupils were addicted. Because of the State of Emergency there were school boycotts in the 80’s and many pupils did not go to school, so they had very little to do with themselves and became addicted. We were entertained by the stories told by the pupils about the school toilets. We collected the cast’s own experiences about the subject, we compared it to the research we conducted in schools and came up with the best out of it. I would ask each one of them to think and choose any boy or girl they know who resembled the character in the play. Act him or her out in our play. That would be their source of reference when portraying their characters. To me this method worked. I remember in the late sixties I watched a workshop of Julius Caesar directed by Benjy Frances in Fordsburg. Caesar was a mayor in Soweto and Brutus and the rest were the councillors. The actors were so good because in their minds they were portraying the mayor and councillors that they knew in Soweto. The first source of reference is observation of people. If the students wish to voluntarily talk about their own experiences, they are welcome. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) Ndaba’s emphasis on observation is significant: the observer cannot but be aware and respectful of distinctions between self and other. A reference point

52 Sarah Roberts

is a useful point of departure but aspiring to embody or reproduce a re­ cognisable fellow member of one’s community is a different matter entirely. What seems crucial to affirm is the evident care and respect afforded to young actors whose agency and imaginative capacity is fostered via a structured and disciplined method. Authenticity and truthfulness do not always have to be founded on verbatim personal testimony. The actor’s performance is consequently a synthesis of personal subjectivity and observed behaviour rather than purely dependent on reliving personal experience and self-expression derived on revisiting past events. And the play devised ac­ cording to these principles incorporates analysis and commentary in line with Brecht’s notions of storytelling and historicism and acting. Sibikwa’s output during the TRC period, and afterwards, showed little need for transforming the established model of storytelling which already depended on being anchored in lived, subjective experiences within the community and which presented the audience with frankly fictionalised testimonies of truthful experiences which were intertwined with the inherent capacity to overcome trauma. The heady euphoria of the first five years of democratic governance under Mandela’s leadership was blighted by the escalation of the HIV/AIDS epi­ demic and diverse responses to this socio-medical crisis that challenged a nascent democracy under President Mbeki’s leadership. Sibikwa’s modest, yet highly instrumental and efficient model targeted at local communities will be juxtaposed with the spectacular splash of more prominent and problematic measures in the next chapter.

Notes 1 See The Penny Whistle Boys (Jürgen Schadeberg) in The Finest Photos from the Old Drum edited by Jürgen Schadeberg (1987, pp. 46–47). 2 A prison, otherwise known as Johannesburg Correctional Centre, located in Johannesburg South. 3 South Africa would host the 19th FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010. 4 In 1998, the Constitutional Court invalidated the sodomy laws in the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others. The gap between constitutionally guaranteed rights and violations of these rights is the subject of Sibikwa’s play Chapter 2 Section 9: Equality. 5 As Public Prosecutor, Thuli Madonsela was to prove pivotal in her investigation and report on allegations of State capture during Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president. The Zondo Commission of enquiry was appointed to investigate levels of corruption which fostered a culture of impunity. Called to testify at this commission, Zuma declined to appear. The matter of his defiance was referred to the Constitutional Court and he was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment in June 2021. 6 These included books, documentary films, verbatim theatre, drama, puppet theatre, and musical treatments. Best known titles include Country of My Skull (Krog, 1998); There Was This Goat (Krog, 2009); The Unfolding of Sky (Krog,1999); Red Dust (Slovo, 2000); Rewind Cantata (Miller, 2008); The Story I Am About to Tell (Khumalo, 1999); Truth in Translation (Lessac and Masekela, 2006); Ubu and the Truth Commission (Kentridge, Taylor and Handspring Puppet Company, 1998); and Nothing but the Truth (Kani, theatre 2002, feature film 2009).

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7 Cole records that “for every case heard by the HRVC, nine others were not selected” (2010, p. 5) and the public hearings represented “a small fraction of the commission’s work” (2010, p. 5).

References Chipkin, I. (2007) Do South Africans Exist? Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Cole, C. (2010) Performing South Africa’s Truth Commission: Stages of Transition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Interview 3: 10 February 2021 Johannesburg. Krog, A. (2002) Country of My Skull. Johannesburg: Random House. The Star; 11/5/1994. Mandela, N.R. (1990) First Public Address on Leaving Victor Verster Prison, Cape Town. https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2020-02-11-in-full-nelson-mandelas-february11–1990-speech/ Mandela, N.R. (1994) Inaugural Address, Union Buildings, Pretoria. https://www.sanews. gov.za/south-africa/read-nelson-mandelas-inauguration-speech-president-sa Schadeberg. J. (1987) The Finest Photos from the Old Drum. Johannesburg: Bailey’s African Photo Archives, pp. 46–47. TRC Final Report, vol 1. Available at https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/ volume_1_1.pdf

4

“The Trouble with Freedom”: Mbeki’s dream of an African Renaissance, nation-building, and issues surrounding HIV/ AIDS in South Africa Sarah Roberts

We are assembled here today to mark their victory in acquiring and exercising their right to formulate their own definition of what it means to be African. The constitution whose adoption we celebrate constitutes and unequivocal statement that we refuse to accept that our Africanness shall be defined by our race, colour, gender, or historical origins. It is a firm assertion made by ourselves, that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white. It gives concrete expression to the sentiment we share as Africans, and will defend to the death, that the people shall govern. (Then Deputy-President Thabo Mbeki: I am an African, Cape Town, 8 May 1996)

Mark Gevisser, in his magisterial biography, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred (2007), offers a thorough account of the leadership and governance style of the New South Africa’s second president and addresses issues that were to predominate during the next five years of democracy that contextualised Sibikwa’s continued development and expansion. Mbeki’s public persona was that of visionary orator and intellectual, committed to the project of selfdefinition as a political and existential imperative – as his carefully crafted poem, I am an African, so clearly asserts. The subsequent launch of the ideal of an African Renaissance served the vision of this lyrical public address and discussion of this text provides a means of understanding the drive towards identity formation and nation-building. It also offers an intertextual reference point for one of what Klotz has described as one of Sibikwa’s most ambitious theatre projects, Isizwe Sethu (1998), which will be contrasted with Ndaba’s work with street children which operated in a very different key and without any public fanfare. Projects geared towards social reconstruction and national development operated at macro- and micro-levels although the outcomes and impact of both were not always apparent as signs of transformation. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was first mooted by the ANC government during Mandela’s presidency as a mechanism for addressing inequity by relieving dispossession and poverty. As Deputy President DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-5

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Mbeki was instrumentally involved with the RDP and also with shaping economic policies to stimulate growth and development, his strategic vision for GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution neo-liberal macro-economic policy) was subsequently modified to align with the way he embraced the continent of Africa as the crucible for cultural and spiritual identity and building economic ties: NEPAD to advance trade on a continental axis. During Mbeki’s term of office, the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa reached its zenith. Global concerns with the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its implications had already surged to generate considerable activism, research, and scholarly publications which probed issues of stigmatisation and the phenomenon of moral panics which undergirded responses and permeated public discourse. HIV/AIDS discourse comprised educational and artistic projects conveying messages regarding a range of issues informed by sociological studies on moral panics and stigmatisation, to reflections of representational practices in publications such as Sontag’s Aids and Its Metaphors (1990). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to address this extensive body of information or indeed the impact of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa or even in South Africa itself. Nor would such an undertaking be appropriate to the focus of this introduction to Sibikwa’s work. Rather, it seems more appropriate to address the theatre productions developed in South Africa and contrast this with other HIV/ AIDS-related theatre projects on the one hand and activist projects on the other to sustain the case for the efficacy of grassroots activism which developed exponentially from modest beginnings. In contrast with Sibikwa’s work, Sarafina II for instance (controversially commissioned in 1995 as discussed later in this chapter) triggered a major scandal and serious allegations of government corruption. Although the HIV/AIDS crisis straddles the terms of office of both Mandela and Mbeki, contentions escalated during Mbeki’s leadership because of his controversial stance regarding the cause of AIDS and its effective treatment, along with the delayed rollout of ARVs. It verges on impossible to reflect on how the first decade of democracy ended without addressing what appears to be a delayed and misguided response to a widespread, immediate, domestic crisis being experienced across all sectors but in particular, adversely affecting women, youth, and children. The legacy of failures to address urgent social issues persists. Responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis played out in Sibikwa’s theatre output and theatre-in-education programmes. Mbeki was the “patrician” statesman, foreign affairs diplomat, and economist, with an avowed love of Shakespeare and Coriolanus in particular, whose goal was to shape a New Plan for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) which was launched in 2001 and aimed to promote pan-African economic partnerships, trade, and allegiances, thereby breaking with the legacy of colonial economic practices. These visions of macro-economic policy seemed, however, to have little impact on arts and culture practices, arts education, and skills development and appeared to do little to promote this sector through increased financial investment. The focus on continental partnerships in economic policy nonetheless undergirded a shift in alignment and expression to feature core

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aspects of Mbeki’s vision of a transformation along pan-African lines. As statesman too, Mbeki’s investment as diplomat centred on much lauded peacekeeping initiatives on the African continent. His domestic objectives were embedded in the over-arching project of nation-building with a concomitant dedication to forging a sense of national identity. The discourse of “nationbuilding” gained traction, permeated public and social practices, and undergirded much of Sibikwa’s activity and output of the time.

Towards an African renaissance and the nation-building initiatives Gevisser describes the launch of the African Renaissance project through a range of details in visual styling which emphasised ethnic diversity but all of which are distinctively African in texture: In August 1988, Thabo Mbeki officially launched his African Renaissance at a made-for-TV banquet broadcast from the upmarket Gallagher Estate in Midrand. Although the then Deputy President was resolutely corporate in his formal clothing (the most Afro he will go is a Cuban shirt), the event was served up with the style that has come to signify the Renaissance – an attempt to brand a confident new identity for empowerment with the imagined iconography, palette and texture of Africa: ivory and darkwood, kente and German-print; the bridal wear of Xhosa maidens re-imagined as haute couture; Nehru collars and Madiba shirts floating beneath the finest Armani and Hugo Boss twill; culture indeed, no longer a weapon of struggle once so powerfully wielded by the Black-Consciousness movement, but now the design for place-settings at the table of victory. (2007, p. 322) This African Renaissance Project, as Gevisser explains, was first mooted as a not-for-profit company committed to advancing black economic empowerment. The company name, “African Renaissance Holdings” subsequently mutated as the concept of a “rebirth” gained currency in public discourse. Initially the term African Renaissance was neither a “policy [nor] an instrument for social change but the name of a black empowerment company” (Gevisser, 2007, p. 587). It subsequently came to stand for the need to embrace an African identity while promoting political, economic, and social renewal. Mbeki’s poetic declaration “I am an African” (along with the occasion on which this speech was delivered) had asserted the pivotal significance of selfdefinition and pride in African cultural heritage. In his address, the rights of individual and of a heterogeneous body politic are affirmed through expressions of agency and autonomy. Significantly, along with celebrating a descent from African warriors of South African ethnicities, identity is continentally aligned to embrace affinity with Ethiopians, Ashanti, and “Berbers of the desert.” Beyond

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this geographical sense of a pan-African kinship, Mbeki contrives what Gevisser calls an equally historically founded “inclusive, hybrid and syncretic” notion of what it means to claim an African identity (Gevisser, 2007, p. 326). As if in direct challenge to the systemic indexing and categorisation which operated as a tool of divisive segregation, in I am an African, Mbeki incorporates descendants of diverse ethnic and cultural groups to celebrate diversity and the heterogeneity of the body politic in the present. He jettisons the plural “we” in favour of the singular form of the personal pronoun: I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me. In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done […] I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves at St Helena and the Bahamas, who sees in the mind’s eye and suffers the suffering of a simple peasant folk, death, concentration camps, destroyed homesteads, a dream in ruins […] I come of those who were transported from India and China, whose being resided in the fact, solely, that they were able to provide physical labour, who taught me that we could both be at home and be foreign, who taught me that human existence itself demanded that freedom was a necessary condition for that human existence. Being part of all these people, and in the knowledge that none dare contest that assertion, I shall claim that – I am an African. (Mbeki, extract from I Am an African 1996, n.p.) Who is the “I” of Mbeki’s text? The individual subject as citizen and being? Or is the poem a more abstract expression of the body politic in which the use of the first-person singular executes a symbolic gesture of fusion and unity? One possible interpretation is that the grammatical shift signifies the way in which collective is privileged over individual and that an entire nation is personified as ethnically diverse peoples (and the culturally pluralities embodied by these groupings) become a single amalgam. The customary “I” might refer to a single subject as citizen: but, in my view, the “I” (denoting individual subjectivity) is rejected to denote – or at least underscore – the inter-connectedness of individuals and groups. This insoluble bond of inter-personal interdependence is not dissimilar to how both Ndaba and Klotz (along with multiple others) make up Sibikwa in a pronouncement of an adherence to the values of Ubuntu. Throughout the speech, the complex historical tensions of South African history and present circumstances are intertwined and the ideas being advanced are open to a reader’s interpretive slant. Chipkin (2007) uses extracts of

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this text to launch his chapter “The South African Nation” in Do South Africans Exist? His objective is to probe – via the lens of the political sciences – what national identity and citizenship mean vis-à-vis the politics of a National Democratic Revolution (NDR). On my reading, while Chipkin remains (regrettably) immune to the cadences of image and rhythm, he does home in on the text productively in his explication of the logic of Mbeki’s argument – and the ambiguities or even contradictions – embedded in the propositions embedded in this landmark text. In some ways this analytical framework, even if it seems dismissive of rhetorical strategies and the affective properties of image and lyrical cadence, is productive in offering three specific reference points: first, commonality is defined in spatial terms via occupation of a specific territory or place; second the shared temporal dimension of a shared history serves to bind individuals and groups even though discrepant experiences of the past might seem to fracture relations between different sectors; finally – and (most importantly) the quintessential aspect of the definition of African identity is a participatory understanding of racist discrimination that informs what it means to cohabit a region with full cognisance of continuities between past and present. It is this experiential or “embodied knowledge,” as Jonathan Jansen would term it, that, crucially, is linked to a set of cosmological, spiritual beliefs and that which pronounces specifically human (rather than material or strictly scientifically verifiable) values. As Chipkin puts it: An African has seen the effects of the destruction of self-esteem and the way minds are corrupted when race and colour are used to perpetrate veritable crimes against humanity. An African has experienced the concrete expression of the denial of the dignity of a human being resulting from systemic and deliberate oppression and repression. (2007, p. 101) As Chipkin observes, Mbeki avoids the explicit use of the terms colonialism and apartheid although both operations historically undergird continental and national social formations, which (in my view) intensifies the emphasis placed on the profundity of defining humanity in excess of a secular socio-political being operating within specific systems and formations. Chipkin is uneasy with the contesting claims and unresolved tensions of Mbeki’s propositions and points to the way in which self-definition repeatedly – and seemingly problematically – “slides” between the continental and regional reference points of African and South African. From a cultural perspective, however, Mbeki’s deliberate interplay of the terms aligns with what Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1993) so perceptively terms “moving the centre” (as both book and chapter title) a strategy of decolonisation: Europe and Western hegemony is displaced by emphasising the African continent to affirm allegiances with countries of a single land mass and shared political history of imperialism and colonisation. Chipkin takes issue with contrapuntal tensions between indigene and

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immigrant: both are assimilated within a framework of national accord leading him to question the assumption of an underlying hierarchical ordering of citizenship based on the issue of origins and belonging. Even more problematic, for Chipkin, is the notion that “African” as a term, in Mbeki’s formulations, “includes both the perpetrators and the survivors of the colonial ‘crime against humanity’” (2007, p. 101, italics per the original). The social scientist reaches towards conviction and a conclusion, however, when he demonstrates the nuances of Mbeki’s position that has compelling contemporary resonance with intensified calls for decolonisation on student campuses in the wake of #rhodesmustfall (9 March 2015) and #feesmustfall (October 2015 onwards) campaigns. He writes: What Mbeki does here is situate “being African” in the context of the struggle against colonialism. The nation, in other words, is produce in and through the struggle for democracy. This is precise. […] What is important to note is that during the course of the speech the meaning of “being African” changes. We hear that in the course of the struggle against injustice, “being African” meant effusing to allow “a few” to describe one as barbaric. Indeed, it meant refusing to be defined in terms of race, colour, gender or historical origins. Being African meant not belonging to a group or class defined by others. With the advent of democracy, however, being African is not simply about refusal: it means being able to define for oneself who one is and who one should be. (Chipkin, 2007, p. 102) He then cites the first line of the epigraph of this chapter in which Mbeki sets out a solemn sense of occasion and collective undertaking or purpose. The individual as a psycho-social subject is conceptualised in terms of a place within a community and set in reciprocal inter-dependence with fellow members of that community as per the principles of Ubuntu. Mbeki’s vision and philosophy had significant cultural outcomes. Active promotion of memorialising people and what they represented was yoked to the retrieval of the rich heritage and repository of African people whose legacy needed to be publicly reclaimed along with details of more recent socio-political history. In 2002 the repatriation of the remains of Sarah (Saartjie) Baartman from France, as formally requested by President Mandela in 1994, had symbolised the imperatives of restorative dignity with a single gesture. In the public domain, monuments and sites were dedicated to significant figures of the struggle as material artefacts. Less tangible forms of performance corresponded with the same drive but the ephemerality of performance along with the challenges that the medium presents in terms of storage, documentation, and archiving meant that these equally significant moments of a specific period in history are less visible, perhaps less prominent and risk being forgotten. Cultural projects that are dependent on live presentation and reception tend to depend on recordings or print for their preservation but the shift in medium does not always reproduce

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or retain the integrity of the original expression or its affective impact. The written record may describe or comment on the work and its achievements as this book aims to do at the risk of losing much of the energies and aesthetic properties of the performance as an expressive form. Hindsight offers one distinct advantage of being able to make connections or trace correspondences between the context and artistic expression, or what Raymond Williams calls the “structure of feeling” and the text (1976, p. 9). The cultural and literary theorist introduces the term to account for shifts in convention, subject matter, its treatment, and style and makes the observation that retrospective commentary or analysis has one advantage over what he calls the “flux of present experience” (1976, p. 8). These shifts in expressive forms can be more readily perceived and acknowledged. If the immediacy of access is somewhat diminished and details are rendered elusive, over-arching propositions can be advanced because of increased distance.1 Archiving and acknowledging the painful stories of the past – and what they have produced as a living present – as a cultural imperative played out in diverse ways. Projects that took several years in formulation and construction proliferated. The Apartheid Museum, where Sibikwa was to hold its 20th anniversary, opened in 2001. The year 2002 saw the completion of an important public monument in Pretoria which celebrated the role of thousands of women in anti-apartheid activism: in 2000, President Mbeki unveiled a non-figurative monument at the seat of government, the Union Buildings (Pretoria) to commemorate the Women’s March of 1956. It stands in the amphitheatre in a foyer between the west and east wings and represents a hand grinding stone mounted on metal, symbolising the power of women. (https://www.sa-venues.com/attractionsga/womens-monument.php. Accessed 13 February 2021) The monument stands in permanent recognition of the march that Klotz and the Vusisizwe Players commemorated in theatrical idiom. You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock reproduced the anthem of that significant day as the title indicates. The link between historical events and theatrical treatment and the role of women in South African history argues the case for revisiting the March and its commemoration annually as a public holiday and in public monuments: Women from all parts of the country arrived in Pretoria, some from as far afield as Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. They then flocked to the Union Buildings in a determined yet orderly manner. Estimates of the number of women delegates ranged from 10 000 to 20 000, with FSAW claiming that it was the biggest demonstration yet held. They filled the entire amphitheatre in the bow of the graceful Herbert Baker building. Many of the African women wore traditional dress, others wore the Congress

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colours, green, black and gold; Indian women were clothed in white saris. Many women had babies on their backs and some domestic workers brought their white employers’ children along with them. Throughout the demonstration the huge crowd displayed a discipline and dignity that was deeply impressive. (https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1956-womens-marchpretoria-9-august. Accessed 13 February 2021) It was not until 2016 that the four leader activist activist leaders were memorialised in the Women’s Living Heritage Monument. The figures of Lillian Ngoyi, Sophia Williams-de Bruyn, Helen Joseph, and Rahima Moosa stand – cast in bronze – in Lilian Ngoyi Square in the Pretoria city centre. The tableau was unveiled by President Jacob Zuma on Women’s Day, 9 August. (https://www.brandsouthafrica.com/people-culture/womens-living-heritagemonument. Accessed 13 February 2021). However laudable the sentiments behind this initiative might have been, the sustained commitment to what this monument represents is questionable: the monument remains closed. Disputes between service providers and concerns for public safety have rendered the facility unusable as the complex, a “multimillion rand facility,” has been declared a fire hazard (https://www.sabcnews. com/sabcnews/city-of-tshwane-wants-control-over-the-womens-livingheritage-monument/. Accessed 13 February 2021). The Tshwane Municipality is pitted against the Provincial Department of Sports, Arts, Culture, and Recreation which denies accusations of neglect. These four life-size figures and what they represent would seem to be vulnerable to the vicissitudes of time and vagaries of bureaucratic control in ways that contrast with the resilience of the play dedicated to their cause that was made by Klotz before Sibikwa was founded and re-presented on the 30th anniversary of the March. Mbeki’s vision of an African Renaissance underpinned a proliferation of heritage sites celebrating the struggle for liberation and African identities. In 2002 the Hector Pieterson Museum opened in Soweto in tribute to the 16 June 1976 student uprising and the role of youth in the struggle for freedom. Situated in Orlando West, barely two blocks away from the site where the young schoolboy was shot and killed on 16 June 1976 (on what is now annually celebrated as Youth Day). The museum archives the Soweto Uprising, where just over 170 protesting school children were killed. In Johannesburg, the Old Fort (completed June 1899), later used as a prison (and declared a National Monument in 1964), was fittingly repurposed. Dedicated to the Constitution and all that it represents, the site attests to past violations of civil rights and freedoms and their antithesis, liberation, and the commitment to social justice. Those imprisoned within these precincts included Mahatma Gandhi (1906), Albert Lutuli, Robert Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, and Bram Fischer. The site of the Constitutional Court with its collection of South African artworks, opened as Constitution Hill Museum in 2004. The Flame of Democracy burns in its courtyard.

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Like the keystones of Sibikwa’s mission and operations, all these monuments – dedicated to democracy, the role of women and youth in the struggle – celebrate resilience and collective determination rather than individual suffering to serve as reminders of a past that must not be forgotten, dismissed, or neglected. Sibikwa’s macro-view attests to the “facts” of the past and the will to overcome. The emphasis on inter-personal social relations and community infra-structures as nurturing and supportive interlaced with episodes that celebrate vitality and humour contrasts with the sustained, harrowing intensity of narratives of victimisation. In subject matter, form, and tone, Sibikwa’s plays resisted overt alignment with any specified therapeutic programme. Klotz describes the important 1998 multi-media production of Isizwe Sethu via its alignment with national efforts at commemorating shared histories in a register that corresponds to Mbeki’s poem. It was a mammoth production with about 30 in the cast and costume changes like you’ve never seen. It had no spoken words but a band, and singers. […] The best way to describe it is like a penny arcade with its viewers through which you see a picture. That was how we represented the history of South Africa from the big bang through physical theatre with about 600 slides which were projected on screens […] Apartheid, CODESA, the Constitution and democracy. We were saying to people: “here we are, in a particular place and time, but where do we come from? What are we celebrating now?”. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) These reflections echo the sentiments of Mbeki’s address in spatio-temporal terms and do so by placing lived human experiences of different constituencies at the centre of a sweeping epic narrative in which the audience is challenged to grapple with the key issue of self-definition, nation, and identity. Without explicitly setting out to conform to policies and their implementation, Sibikwa’s work thus redefined the notion of an African Renaissance in strictly everyday community terms to contribute productively to the task of nation-building. The legacy of poverty and dispossession was countered through training and development programmes that were structured to offer arts education and supplement (or, indeed, support) conventional schooling. Regular weekly classes were accompanied by productions which functioned as a form of situated learning in which skills could be developed and applied in order to celebrate individual and collective achievements. Special projects, with donor-funding dedicated to these programmes, also featured as community development and transformation. A brief account of Smal Ndaba’s work with street children (1995–1996) is an important example of non-theatrical and unassuming proactive community intervention that is quietly and profoundly committed to restorative goals and targeting a specific constituency of the dispossessed. He remembers it this way:

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The relaxation of the influx control and the banning of pass laws in the early nineties was hailed as a major achievement in the liberation struggle. It came with a negative impact though in the lives of ordinary people in the black communities. When people were allowed to go anywhere without being asked to produce passes or permits, they flocked to the centres of urban towns like Benoni, to spend their time, hoping for a better life. This in turn resulted in criminal offences been committed, crimes like car hijackings, shoplifting, drugs and glue sniffing, and many other unlawful activities. The young started settling and sleeping in all corners of the town and never went back to the township where they come from. The situation was becoming worse day by day. It was during this situation when a lady known to us by the name of Moira, started an institution known as Kids Haven, where she accommodated young boys and girls who were homeless, starving and sniffing glue in the streets of Benoni. Some of the kids were abandoned by their parents and others had run away from home because of violence occurring in their homes. Those were enrolled by Moira in schools and provided with anything the school required. There were those who were living like animals, without purpose, confused in life and who smoked dagga and sniffed glue. Working with kids who are substance abusers needs patience and time. I did not try to stop them as soon as they joined Sibikwa. I had to learn their habits first, know who the bullies were. And of course, those who take substances and I warned them of the dangers they may encounter in the long run. I would ask those who understand quicker to help those who are slow learners. Always praising those who are excelling in learning. In the long run I would see the results and the increase in the number of those who are weaned. Moira never liked my approach. We always argued. I could understand, she was a staunch Christian. I knew if I took Moira’s approach the children would not change but only stay away from Sibikwa. I believed if you really wanted them to stop, tell those stories of black legends, talk to them about black artists who are honoured around the world. And ask them if they sniff glue. Encourage them when they listen and try. Those were the children Sibikwa targeted. They were children not only from Daveyton. Some were from Soweto, others from informal settlements, rural areas, and the West Rand. They came to Sibikwa, and we gave them light and they gave themselves a purpose for living in acting, dancing and drumming. A short TV documentary was made about this group and was flighted on SABC. The documentary focused on Princess, who was a bright, talented young woman of about 17. Unfortunately, Princess died a few years later from AIDS. Freddie Zwane was with the first group. He showed great talent in dance. He was trained at Sibikwa and later became a part time dance teacher on our Saturday Arts Academy and taught in prisons. He participated in Sibikwa’s Bhuto programme initiated by Boas and Annike Barkan from

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Denmark which performed at Dance Factory and later at the Grahamstown National Festival. Freddie went to Denmark to work with the Barkans to advance his Bhuto skills. When I look back, the programme worked: some went back home with fresh thinking, some found jobs and others continued at Sibikwa. Our goal was to reunite the street kids with their homes. (By e-mail 07.02.2021) Sibikwa thus actively promoted a sense of community, security, and continuity in strictly local terms and consistently articulated the values laid out in the Constitution and the rights enshrined in that all important symbol of a democratic society and the value of the rule of law. Individual dignities and rights were however compromised by the insidious impact of HIV/AIDS and delayed equitable access to affordable treatment and care. The most vulnerable community remained those dependent on state provision for their well-being. Within this constituency, the safety, well-being, and dignities of women and very young children – sectors that Ndaba and Klotz have so consistently championed – were doubly compromised.

Activism in a new key as a response to the emerging social crisis of HIV and AIDS In a comparison between the presidential personae of the first two presidents of the newly democratic South Africa, Mark Gevisser writes: The overriding legacy of the Mandela presidency – of the years 1994–1999 is a country where the rule of law was entrenched in an unassailable Bill of Rights, and where the predictions of racial and ethnic conflict did not come true. These feats alone guaranteed Mandela his sanctity. But he was a far better liberator and nation-builder than he was a governor. In contrast, Mbeki marketed himself as the technocratic, truth-telling antidote to the madness and the magic – the scattershot celebrity – of the Mandela era. (2007, p. 699) This assessment is borne out in the respective positions adopted by Mandela and Mbeki regarding the issue of HIV/AIDS and methods of addressing the escalating crisis in South Africa. For Mandela, AIDS became a human rights issue rather than simply a domestic health matter. He did not hesitate to mobilise his global celebrity status to boost awareness of the local crisis and garner widespread support from international stars. For Mbeki, the “dissident” or denialist,2 the battleground and strategic position was defined first by his opposition to giant Western pharmaceutical firms conjoined with a profound mistrust in the reliability of ARVs which he regarded as toxic. For him the real cause of mortality had roots in entrenched socio-economic inequalities. His stance in relation to global AIDS discourses was hardened by his perceptions of

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stigmatisation embedded in the racist and discriminatory Western myths of the African origin of the virus amplified by the equally prejudiced European misconceptions of black male sexual stereotypes. His stance towards HIV/ AIDS was, arguably, to become one of the definitive features of his tenure as the new democracy was confronted with a profound and far-reaching set of fresh challenges and a grave threat to human life and ways of living. Gevisser documents the scale of the HIV/AIDS crisis in terms of what it costs in human lives: In 1999, in the year that Thabo Mbeki became president, an estimated 25% of all pregnant women in the country were already HIV positive. By the time he began his second terms five years later, these figures had risen to nearly 30%, and the death rate among women between the ages of 25 and 34 had more than quadrupled (that among men had merely doubled). In 2005, a government national survey estimated that 10,8% of all South Africans – about 5 million people – were living with HIV; international health agencies estimated that, in that year alone, 320,000 South Africans died of HIV-related illness; about 800 a day. (2007, p. 729) These statistics are a grave audit of how the HIV/AIDS crisis escalated and how ineffective government strategies proved in terms of strategic intervention and control. Sibikwa’s theatre-making would respond to the AIDS crisis energetically and vigorously as per its established modus operandi of more constrained levels of community intervention, and, in so doing, refine its commitment to issue-based activism directed towards the well-being of young people and their futures. The instrumentality of their approach – its scale and deliverables – contrasts with other means of addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis which offer a yardstick for comparison. The modest scope and pragmatism of Sibikwa’s AIDS-awareness and AIDS-education projects was predicated on its origins from within the community and its emphasis on instrumental outcomes in terms of messages about lifestyle choices and their implications. Two other South African theatre projects featured prominently on international and national platforms in relation to the AIDS pandemic: their objectives, trajectory, and outcomes offer points of comparison for Sibikwa’s local and regional successes. Mandela had the personal capacity to harness celebrity appeal to mass culture with a series of 46664 Concerts with a clear fund-raising agenda dedicated to poverty relief. It may be that he adopted the high-profile one-off alternative of promoting a stadium concert for an audience of thousands because he was attuned to the impact of similar rock concerts with global headline artists and how productive these might prove in serving the dual purpose of raising awareness and fund-raising simultaneously.3 Gevisser offers an account of how Mandela, from his retirement, instigated a range of highly productive relief programmes and funding measures:

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Mandela snapped into action. He set up his 46664 campaign, the largest international AIDS awareness and fundraising venture yet; he teamed up with Clinton to promote the Global Fund Against AIDS, TB, and Malaria; he focused his Children’s Fund on the plight of orphans, and through his foundation, he funded programmes that proved, counter to the Mbeki government’s scepticism, that antiretroviral therapy could be effectively administered in poor South African communities. (2007, p. 721) These grand-scale fund-raising projects throw the equally ambitious Government-mandated production, Sarafina II, into sharp relief. The debacle of this project directly implicated the artistic director and political figures involved alike. None would emerge unscathed from the ensuing scandal which might well stand as the first insidious instance of nepotism and corruption in the “new” South Africa. In 1995, Health Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma contracted Mbongeni Ngema, a celebrated theatre director and producer, to build on the national and international recognition of the globally celebrated musical Sarafina! He was commissioned to develop a sequel that would insert the importance of discussing sexual matters – choices and responsibility – into discussion and debate among the youth to counter-cultural practices that prohibited public airing of such conversations. Sarafina II opened in Durban on 1 December 1995 – World Aids Day – barely months later. The premiere, in the hall of the ML Sultan Technical College, was to launch a 12-month nationwide tour that had been planned and put into operation at absurdly short notice. The production – with all the technological infrastructure and personnel supporting the large cast – was set to travel to small towns, townships, and cities. The Minister of Health was present at the premiere and declared her satisfaction with the outcome as Steve Collins, the technical director, reported to me. As stated on the public record: [Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma] was quoted as saying, “Mbongeni Ngema is the best for this job, and I challenge anyone here and abroad to attract our youth.” Ngema himself confirmed the minister’s conviction. In a newspaper interview he said that “when the Minister had this idea, it was very clear in her mind that she wanted me to do the play. There is no one else with an international track record and there was no one else who could produce this kind of play and draw in crowds of black people to the theatre”. (https://www.sa-monitor.com/dlamini-zuma-sarafina-ii-originalnkandla-bdlive-8-april-2016 Accessed 15 February 2021) Mired in financial controversy and media hype, the production closed within three months with the contract terminated and no further funds paid out. By 1997, Selby Baqua, the Public Prosecutor, was investigating procedural violations and financial mismanagement. From its inception allegations of

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financial mismanagement and corruption surfaced and discrepancies over figures were publicly debated. The scandal centred on the cost of Dlamini-Zuma’s investment and Ngema’s flamboyantly lavish spending along with deeper issues regarding the source of that funding along with neglect of tendering protocols. Much hinged on the precise terms of foreign donor funding: the EU, Germany, the United Kingdom, the USA, and Sweden had financed multiple development initiatives in South Africa but denied any authorisation of this project, as the following report attests: The EU had allocated R48m to HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, and the Department had claimed this was the source of the money. But the EU objected. A representative later stated: “We have itemised budgets, listing every project and activity that the EU is supporting. An AIDS theatre project is not among them, nor was Sarafina II ever discussed with us as it would have had to be.” In response, the Department argued that “although the play was not specifically mentioned on the list of projects we submitted to the EU, it was our understanding that we could use it to fund other projects as they came up.” Dlamini-Zuma said in response to a question whether there was no EU line item for such a play: “That is true. In the contract that was signed between me and the EU in January there was not Sarafina II. The idea of a play called Sarafina II had not been decided at that point, but as soon as that was decided the EU was informed”. (https://www.sa-monitor.com/dlamini-zuma-sarafina-ii-originalnkandla-bdlive-8-april-2016. Accessed 15 February 2021) As earlier documented and stressed by Klotz (who was well acquainted with applying and accounting for foreign aid) these funding bodies set out the specific terms of their donations and required scrupulous adherence to these terms. By 1998, cases were being made against both Ngema and Dlamini-Zuma for the multimillion-rand production. Despite relentless media interrogation of the judiciousness and ethics of her conduct as Minister, Dlamini-Zuma remained uncensored. The sham tender process emerged in the press, including evidence that one applicant had been given just 24 hours to apply and that the lowest competing bid was in fact just R600,000.00 […] the ANC first revealed its true attitude towards accountability and consequence.4 (http://sa-monitor.com/dlamini-zuma-sarafina-ii-original-nkandlabdlive-8-april-2016/ Accessed 15 February 2021) The competing bid at R600,000.00 might conceivably have been a viable production budget for Sibikwa to submit had they been alerted to a tender process but no widespread call to submit proposals had been circulated.

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Exonerated for her role in the Sarafina II debacle, Dlamini-Zuma’s political credibility continued more or less intact despite her controversial advocacy of an equally problematic aspect of the AIDS crisis: she supported fast-tracking production of the drug, Virodene. Gevisser (2007, p. 732) describes this antiretroviral as “dubious, homegrown […] made of toxic industrial solvents.” As Minister of Health, Dlamini-Zuma had thus elected to battle AIDS on two fronts: at the level of behaviour modification with its message – as ambiguous as it might have been – relayed through the musical and at the level of medicinal intervention. Neither proved effective. Gevisser concludes: Both Sarafina and Virodene were rash, ill-informed, and ultimately unlawful. But both arose from a sense of desperation about the encroaching epidemic, and the state’s seeming inability to do anything to stop it. And into the squall of the second scandal – the advocacy of Virodene – DlaminiZuma swept Mbeki himself, so became a patron for the drug’s development. (2007, p. 732) The complex issues bound up in Mbeki’s AIDS denials undergirded the delay in ARV rollout and exacerbated Government’s management of the crisis through the Department of Health in the injudicious pronouncements of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang from 2002 onwards. Appointed minister in 2000, Gevisser describes her as “more impressionable and politically vulnerable than her predecessor, she had become a fervent believer in Mbeki’s position on AIDS, and particularly in his doubts about ARVs” (2007, p. 732). For Tshabalala-Msimang, neither behaviour modification nor ARVs offered solutions: for her, the nutritional properties of beetroot and garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and the African potato offered remedial therapy. Her advocacy of the curative or palliative properties of these products triggered widespread ridicule and discredited her stature as Minister of Health. Two health ministers in succession and a president had failed to make efficient interventions in a worsening crisis which was aggravated by the deeply disturbing myth surrounding the curative effects of sex with a virgin, accounts of which proliferated in the media: In 2001 there were 11 cases of rape perpetrated on babies under a year old reported. The depravity of abuses inflicted on nine-month-old Baby Tshepang (Upington) is the most widely publicised case. (https://www.news24.com/w24/selfcare/ wellness/a-community-raped-20051025) Child abuse, gender-based violence, and rape culture escalated over the course of the next 15 years and will be addressed as social issues in their own right in the following chapters rather than an HIV/AIDS-related issue. The continued subjugation and marginalisation of women is a social injustice that Sibikwa has always prioritised.

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Countering the divisive and unsupportive measures of official leadership, however, collective activism revived in the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) formed as early as 1998 by the staunch ANC activist and human rights advocate, Zachie Achmat. Achmat’s interview in 2004 details the achievements of the TAC’s effective and instrumental AIDS activism: the organisation could now boast 8,000 activists across the country addressing systemic and social problems associated with HIV and AIDS: In 1998, Achmat and ten other activists launched the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and immediately took a stand to bring down the high drug prices that made it impossible for lifesaving treatments to be brought into South Africa. For his work, Achmat has received numerous awards, including the Jonathan Mann Award, the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, and amfAR’s Award of Courage. (https://www.amfar.org/articles/around-the-world/treatasia/older/aninterview-with-zackie-achmat—aids-activism-in-south-africa--lessonsfor-asia-/ Accessed 16 February 2021) Like Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and FW De Klerk – all recipients of the award – Achmat and his peers were nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Achmat’s evident appreciation of how cultural positions, beliefs, and value systems are crucial departure points for instrumental intervention as his public statements attest: If you’re an African man who has sex with men, a migrant worker, or a woman, you are at a much greater risk […] One thing that is central to our work is treatment literacy – making people aware of what medicines exist, how to deal with opportunistic infections, and issues affecting our lifestyle and behaviour. Now, with the possibility and probability of HIV treatment in South Africa, it is very important that people who are directly affected understand why it is important to take the pills at the same time every day. Unless an individual takes control over her or his life, there is no way we will succeed in providing treatment. (https://www.amfar.org/articles/around-the-world/treatasia/older/aninterview-with-zackie-achmat—aids-activism-in-south-africa--lessonsfor-asia-/ Accessed 16 February 2021) Achmat’s grass-roots perspective – like that of Ndaba and Klotz’s empathetic commitment to treatment literacy – crucially undergirds strategies for intervention to ensure that they gain traction, persuasive force, and ensure productive outcomes. The TAC joined forces with international activists to succeed in reducing drug prices thus advancing affordability and distribution. Their key objectives guided their operative strategies and have much in common with the pedagogical practices of Sibikwa which inculcate the responsibility for the self through making informed and responsible choices. Among the declared aims

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of the TAC are (first) inculcating the need to be as informed as possible and taking proactive choices regarding prevention and treatment options; (second) addressing the impact of stigmatisation and its negative impact on self-worth to counter shaming; and (third) pressurising government to provide treatment. Achmat stresses the value and scope for individual agency when he recounts that friends who had returned from the 1996 AIDS Conference in Vancouver told him of an HIV-positive man who was better informed regarding treatment options than most qualified medical doctors. As on record, the TAC was deeply critical in denouncing inadequate policies and strategies: The South African government is shamefully delaying the HIV treatment plan announced in November 2003. In a country where each day 600 people die and there are 1600 new infections. (https://www.amfar.org/articles/around-the-world/treatasia/older/aninterview-with-zackie-achmat—aids-activism-in-south-africa--lessonsfor-asia-/ Accessed 16 February 2021) Cabinet had met for a dedication session on AIDS policy (17 April 2002) in the wake of the Constitutional Court ruling that “Nevirapine had to be provided to HIV-positive pregnant women as an interim measure” (Gevisser, 2007, p. 756). Mbeki was confronted by rebellion within his own Cabinet – with Pregs Govender (Parliamentary Committee on the Status of Women chair) resigning and publicly criticising the president. Mbeki, advised by several ministers, withdrew from the debate and the statement issued finally declared that policy would be premised on acknowledging that “HIV causes AIDS” (Gevisser, 2007, p. 757). It was not until 2006 and the brief temporary tenure of Deputy Minister Noziwe Madlala-Routledge that HIV/AIDS was rigorously addressed to counter ineffective prior public pronouncements and theatrical spectacles. She had the courage to speak publicly about AIDS and family losses, she took an HIV test publicly, praised the TAC, and criticised her superior’s advocacy of nutritional therapies (Gevisser, 2007, p. 760). Her actions chimed with creative proactive and visible strategies used by the TAC: One of the things TAC has used is our tradition of political songs. We adapted our songs to sing about drugs like fluconazole and AZT, to sing about drug companies, to sing about our president’s denialism. Those songs became part of our mental and cultural vocabulary. (https://www.amfar.org/articles/around-the-world/treatasia/older/aninterview-with-zackie-achmat—aids-activism-in-south-africa--lessonsfor-asia-/ Accessed 16 February 2021) The efficacy of sustained activism within a specific target community – largely independent of State support or funding – also largely characterises the operations of Sibikwa.

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At Sibikwa, Ndaba set about developing a project that would address AIDS in specific and local terms. Acknowledging that he no longer recalls the funding source, he tells of how he began to work on a theatre-in-education production to tour local schools and, rather than grappling with questions of sexuality and behaviour, he arrived at a creative solution that fused scientifically based understanding with performance. Unlike Sarafina II (mandated to achieve little more than depict discussion of sexual activity among teens and by so doing insert the scope for emulating such open conversation into teenage behaviour), this untitled theatre-in-education project was guided by the need to impart understanding of how the virus was transmitted. Ndaba recalls: We started rehearsal and realised that we can’t talk about HIV without knowing the parts of the body and how the body works to fight disease if we were going to perform for children in school. So, we started by naming the parts of the body that get involved with fighting disease. We began with a character called red blood cell, then developed others, the white blood corpuscles. We would see them onstage coming into contact with the virus. We tried to make it clear to kids what causes infection and how the body fights it. We tried to show what happens […] that should be clear for kids. […] we took it to some schools. It worked well. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) Klotz chimes in to stress two important points: I clashed head on with the head of AIDS Education in Gauteng. The department was playing the numbers game. They were allowing people to go into the schools with very little research done and misinformation. I refused to be part of that. So, we didn’t get money from government. I think that a good education theatre programme has to be ongoing and have many elements to it – the performance element is one aspect, workshops with teachers is another aspect and post-performance discussion or children doing their own plays is yet another aspect. They were having none of that. They wanted quick fixes. They expected you to tear around the schools. Tell them that you have seen 6000 children and they’d be happy. What the children might remember was not an issue for them. The other issue […] we were specific about body parts – the vagina and the penis – and this made the teachers at Grade 7 level very uncomfortable. How they were teaching about AIDS without being explicit about the main form of transmission being sexual activity beats me. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) These testimonies attest to the radical difference in approach: Sarafina II set out to entertain and the HIV/AIDS “education” angle risked being eclipsed through spectacle and song. The Sibikwa project firmly founded along Theatre-in-Education principles depended on presenting carefully researched

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and considered information to learners. The discomfort underlying the reaction of school teachers that Klotz speaks of remains disturbing and suggests the extent to which avoiding public discussion of sexual matters operated as a powerful taboo. Two theatre productions that directly focused on sexual behaviour and HIV transmission were The Stadium, which Klotz readily admits was “a flop,” and Behind Closed Doors.5 A visually and acoustically dense production, The Stadium experimented with shadow play to resolve staging sexual encounters. The production was rich in visual imagery and the through line was largely articulated through action rather than words. This celebration of mise-en-scène perhaps compromised the clarity of its message. As Klotz puts it: “I loved The Stadium. It was so rich: the screens, image, shadow-play. But it lacked audience appeal.” She confirms that “We didn’t play it very much. Just at Sibikwa and Grahamstown. It got poor houses” (Interview 3, 10 February 2021). The central storyline of The Stadium focuses on a young girl seeking material support from a “sugar daddy” in return for sexual favours. The disconcerting material confronted the audience with the interconnectedness of poverty and behaviour choices which play out as a relentless series of consequences. The reception of the production, as Klotz’s brief phlegmatic words acknowledge, does not necessarily align with personal aesthetic sensibilities or what one values but that should not mean devaluing what the project intended or achieved. In contrast, Behind Closed Doors has its focus on the dilemma of an impoverished mother, dependent on a man for support who can only look on in profound despair as she witnesses what might happen to her child, had wider public appeal. Behind Closed Doors, on the other hand, was a very focused production. Very evocative. The set was so evocative […] with all those candles. It was very clear about what it was saying. Highly visual. That was the period when I couldn’t believe that words – language – dialogue could say enough. Maybe that was a time that we were all going through? All these words. People talking and talking and talking. The production evolved. We took the first version to Norway and had long discussions there. Then you and I started to talk about TS Eliot and those choruses of Murder in the Cathedral. Those intense expressions of extreme dread. It wasn’t based on a personal story. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) The partnership with a Dutch company provides a fitting conclusion to a review of this period in which local endeavours partnering with either continental or international companies has been a prominent theme. Bells of Amersfoort emerged from a three-way partnership between Sibikwa, Zakes Mda, and Die Nieuw Amsterdam (DNA) in the Netherlands. It began with three young Dutch actresses arriving to work at Sibikwa with three male counterparts. In 2002, four Sibikwa actors travelled to Amsterdam to rehearse

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for about ten weeks prior to the extensive tour of the Netherlands. It affirmed the continuation of Sibikwa’s international partnerships and simultaneously introduced a new local collaboration. Klotz’s description of the production suggests gains and losses in mounting Mda’s play in partnership with international collaborators:6 Zakes looked for link between South Africa and the Netherlands. He found it in the place name of Amersfoort in Mpumalanga and Netherlands. It is the story of woman, a South African political activist who leaves to live in Netherlands. The production had a Dutch director and a mixture of South African and Dutch actors. It played in Netherlands and all over SA. […] We have found that in partnerships and collaborations – we’ve seen it with the Swedes too – the work turns into a majority European production that loses that South African edge. (Interview 3, 10 February 2021) Mandela had stressed hope in his Inaugural Address. As the turn of the millennium approached, his message, like the rainbow, had faded. Behind Closed Doors (1999) staged the futility of hope for a vast constituency – particularly women – whose lives had not changed significantly since 1994. This first decade of democracy was marked by further key issues within the public sphere and in debates. These included the arms procurement deal – a hotly deliberated issue which was critiqued for excessive expenditure for military hardware – in addition to acts of bribery which implicated then Deputy President Jacob Zuma; and the implementation of GEAR. This policy of fiscal restraint – GEAR – met with intense opposition from unions on behalf of workers as the proliferation of public protests for higher wages and strike action attested. But initiatives that followed from Mbeki’s African Renaissance ideals to explicitly affirm African culture and languages continued into the next decade and would permeate the work of Sibikwa.

Notes 1 The work of compiling this historical overview of Sibikwa’s operations and outputs tests Williams’ propositions. The goal of providing a comprehensive and reasonably objective account of this extensive body of material is compounded by my quasi-participantobserver status in the plays made at Sibikwa. 2 Two Mbeki aides both died of AIDS-related illnesses: Presidential spokesperson, Parks Mankahlane (died 2000) and Peter Mokaba – Head of ANC Youth League (died 2002). 3 In 1985 Bob Geldof had produced the first LIVE AID concert for famine relief in Africa. Mandela adroitly followed this example and solicited many of the key players to a new cause. The first concert was held in 2003 at Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town and the concerts would take place annually through to 2008. 4 This article details selected line items of the budget. 5 The production was presented locally at the Grahamstown Festival; Baxter Theatre, Cape Town; and Liberty Theatre on the Square, Sandton. 6 Mda’s play is available in print: Fools, Bells and the Habit of Eating: Three Satires (WUP 2002).

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References Chipkin, I. (2007) Do South Africans Exist? Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Gevisser, M. (2007) Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred. Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball. Gqola, P. (2017) Rape: A South African Nightmare. Johannesburg: Jacana. Interview 3: 10 February 2021 Johannesburg. Jansen, J. (2009) Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past. Cape Town: UCT Press. Mbeki, T. (1996) I am an African. available at https://soweto.co.za/html/i_iamafrican.htm Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1993) Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. Oxford: James Currey. Sontag, S. (1990) Aids and Its Metaphors. London and New York: Penguin. Williams, R. (1976) Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 1–14.

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Issues of governance, policy, delivery, and accountability escalate: Sibikwa responds to developments in arts and culture policy documents and continues theatre-in-education projects Sarah Roberts

Sibikwa during the last 15 years (2005–2020) Our young democracy has achieved much that should make us proud to be its citizens, but realising our potential requires tough, open conversations about our performance of the last eighteen years since our amazing birth as the new South Africa. We need to be honest about what we have done well and why. Equally, we need to confront what we have not done well, reject causes for our failures and face up to the reasons for failed policies, failed implementation, and failed accountability. (Mamphela Ramphele, 2013, p. 16)

Five aspects of Sibikwa’s expansion urge discussion in relation to the outcomes of the last 15 years. They are: first, issues pertaining to the long genesis of a national co-ordinated arts and culture policy and the place of community arts projects within that policy; next, the rationale for (and outcome of) mounting theatre-in-education productions which dramatise school set-works for matric learners as will be discussed in this chapter. Beyond these concerns, if to some extent inseparable from them and discussed in the chapter that follows, are first, the drive towards an intensified focus on women’s issues, specifically gender-based violence; next, the continued and accelerated commitment to promoting the use of African languages, specifically isiZulu; and finally, the role played by Sibikwa in facilitating the exchange of ideas and strategies with other community projects. The review of these aspects of the work within the ever-changing political and civic landscape allows for reaching some conclusions about the achievements and sustainability of Sibikwa as an organisation independent of Ndaba and Klotz as founding individuals. DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-6

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Political promises and failures in delivery: A critique of a decade of ANC governance by Mamphela Ramphele Reflecting on the extent to which the lives of the majority of South Africans remain unchanged and the ideals of the Freedom Charter largely unrealised by March 2021, Klotz had this to say: On a national level, I think South Africa has maintained a democracy. A very active, virile democracy. Even if the State was captured, people had the freedom to protest. There is the ongoing Zondo Commission and there has been considerable [exposure of and] activity against corruption.1 We are, unfortunately, in the middle of a great deal of corruption. But we can say we don’t want this corruption in South Africa. We want it to end. What hasn’t happened in South Africa is that the people who are corrupt are not being held to account yet. We live in the hope that they will be. At Sibikwa what has impacted on us the most is the fact that the poor have remained poor. Our target market, in terms of economic development, has not moved an inch. That means that we still must find a lot of money for transport and to meet the daily needs of learners and interns. Participants in the short skills courses and even the learnerships receive stipends. They get accommodation provided too. A lot of our fund raising actually goes to support the learners in these ways. So, I think the inability of the government to educate is a key concern. In all these years we’ve not had improvements in any form in education. We are always dealing with the dropouts of the educational system. We are not dealing with those kids who have the ability to go to university and apply for those qualifications. That’s not our target market. We are looking at young people who have – maybe – got a Grade 12. But even that qualification is so bad that it is not worth the paper that it is written on. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) This view expresses a complex sense of the unfolding state of the nation since 1994 in general and specific terms. Sibikwa’s operations remain committed to addressing structurally embedded inequities. If anything, the achievements of this non-governmental, not-for-profit community arts centre throw into sharp relief the failures of the first decade of ANC governance (1994–2004) in respect of socio-economic transformation. In broad terms these failures were evident across intertwined aspects of economic delivery, rehabilitation, or social redress and arguably remain so at the time of writing. Impoverished young people and black women remain largely oppressed, lack agency and access to instrumental empowerment opportunities and justice. As per Sibikwa’s regular strength and weakness audits, it seems crucial to contextualise their operations through an interrogation of what ten years of freedom had produced. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of 1994 had committed to socio-political transformation in the lives of a dispossessed majority. It aimed to address abject poverty and radical income disparities,

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living standards, and infrastructural access. Envisaged as an integrated and sustainable programme it was designed to meet basic needs, develop human resources, and build the economy as a people-centred process that prioritised safety, security, and the nation-building project of democracy. The ambitious objectives are broadly described in clause 1.4.2 of the RDP policy document under the heading “Meeting Basic Needs”: The first priority is to begin to meet the basic needs of people – jobs, land, housing, water, electricity, telecommunications, transport, a clean and healthy environment, nutrition, health care and social welfare. In this way we can begin to reconstruct family and community life in our society. In this chapter, achievable programmes are set out for the next five years. These include programmes to redistribute a substantial amount of land to landless people, build over one million houses, provide clean water and sanitation to all, electrify 2, 5 million new homes and provide access for all to affordable health care and telecommunications. The success of these programmes is essential if we are to achieve peace and security for all. (“The Reconstruction and Development Programme,” n.p.) The ideals embedded in this political promise triggered wide-ranging expectations of comprehensive transformation. A decade later, the gap between policy and failures in delivery according to these commitments may well have been exacerbated by frustrated expectations in addition to demonstrable failures in infrastructural management intertwined with increasing government corruption and lack of accountability. The RDP policy framework document is explicitly committed to developing training and supporting the arts and culture sector, as clause 1.4.8 stipulates: An arts and culture programme is set out as a crucial component of developing our human resources. This will assist us in unlocking the creativity of our people, allowing for cultural diversity within the project of developing a unifying national culture, rediscovering our historical heritage, and assuring that adequate resources are allocated. (“The Reconstruction and Development Programme,” n.p.) But the ways in which this commitment was upheld offered no direct support or benefits to Sibikwa to enable Ndaba and Klotz to promote or expand operations at the start of this second decade of democratic governance despite reasonable expectations that acknowledgement and support would be forthcoming. The irony of Sibikwa being excluded as a beneficiary of governmental aid (given its demonstrable achievements at the time) is further aggravated by the fact that Klotz, as an individual and as Sibikwa’s representative, had been an active party throughout the development consultations for community arts centres, their practices, and training programmes.

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In 2014, ten years into a democratic dispensation and Sibikwa, a vibrant community arts centre with a proven record of 16 years of achievements, remained largely unacknowledged and reliant on the success of funding proposals and applications to the private sector and a shrinking pool of internationally based funding organisations. Sibikwa’s record of accountability and delivery on its self-defined autonomous mandate was readily visible and available. Ndaba is phlegmatic in reflecting on these circumstances: What is important for us is that we are able to sustain Sibikwa despite all the problems that we have had. For instance, when we get money, we try to make sure that we account for it and that we deliver the work we committed to. We have had to survive through depending on the support of funders. […] Some organisations are unable to deliver because they do not account for funds received and show the outcome in the ways expected by funders. We were able to survive through [compliance]. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Reflecting further on the need to meet expectations with professional delivery – both comprehensively audited and documented in terms of quality deliverables or outputs – Klotz adds to the guidelines that they have adopted: Whatever we do, we try to deliver on quality in training. We try to get the best teachers and the teachers are there working to schedules that have been worked out. Our constituency of learners come from dysfunctional schools. So, rigid timetables are adhered to. Expectations are met. When we do short courses, it is a requirement of CATHSSETA that we sign a contract with the learners which states our deliverables and our outcomes, our responsibilities, and the responsibilities of the learners. We adhere to that really strictly. Whatever project we are doing we try to get the best people for the job. A lot of people who work for us do so knowing that we cannot offer the best fees but that if we say you will get x amount per month and be paid on the 25th as per agreement we will adhere to that. We care about people. We can draw on a large pool of people who will work with us even if the rate is less compared with other organisations because they know we are dependable, and they love the support that we provide as well. We support them. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Scrupulous adherence to best practice, meeting contractual commitments and regular auditing have ensured Sibikwa’s integrity, credibility, and sustainability. Elsewhere, at government level and among other arts and culture NGOs and institutions, rigorous adherence to professional demands of financial management and visible accountability has not always governed operations. RDP delivery in terms of promised housing, electricity, health care, and education was assured with a proviso that suggests allowances might need to be made for understandable delays in the ambitious fusion of reconstruction with

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neo-liberal policies of economic growth. The exculpatory clause 1.2.11 in the policy document concedes to the scope and potential problems in delivery as the outset: To reach the RDP’s objectives we face many obstacles, and we are setting ourselves a great challenge. Each and every expectation will not be realised and each and every need will not be met immediately. (“The Reconstruction and Development Programme,” n.p.) Beyond the sphere of arts, culture, and community projects, 2005 was a year of industrial action on the part of organised labour in a series of strikes and rolling mass action in protest against the efficacy of neo-liberal policies of GEAR and ASIGA which had failed to address poverty and radical inequality as envisaged by the RDP of 1994. The primary goals of GEAR (1996) had not materialised. The tripartite objectives of GEAR – the economic policy harnessed to the RDP project – had been to stimulate a “competitive and fastgrowing economy,” to promote job creation schemes, and to ensure the “redistribution of income and opportunity” (“South Africa’s Key Economic Policies Changes (1994–2013),” n.p.). These opening observations profit from being considered in relation to propositions of former activist and influential public intellectual, Mamphela Ramphele (cited in the epigraph above). The statement comes from her publication of 2012, a year that is roughly the midpoint of this last phase of Sibikwa’s evolution and the work of Ndaba and Klotz as activists, educators, and theatremakers. This point of departure is productive as Ramphele audits and accounts for the living conditions and experience of the lack of transformation and failure of economic policies may be comprehended in human terms regarding the youth constituency that Sibikwa is so consistently determined to serve. Ramphele’s Conversations with My Sons and Daughters is a rich template of participatory inter-generational dialogue which has clear parallels with operational modes implemented at Sibikwa. Her concern, like those of Ndaba and Klotz, is with how everyday living realities impact on an emerging generation and some of the key issues that she describes at the outset are a succinct articulation of consequences of ongoing conditions of poverty and deprivation. For Ramphele, gender equality is a crucial aspect of social justice and an equitable society that underpins issues that youth are obliged to grapple with and, for her, “the legacy of traditional male dominance shared by all South Africa’s diverse cultures has not been addressed in a proper way” (2013, p. 20). She exposes the model of the two-parent nuclear family as a fallacious, largely Western middle-class assumption: migrant labour had long burdened mothers and further entrenched “emotional absence” on the father’s part with significant consequences for the sons deprived of the guidance of a positive role model. She writes: Single mothers, especially African mothers, who loom large (emotionally and figuratively) in desperately poor socio-economic settings, also

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underestimate the powerful figures they cast within families, communities, and societies across the continent. Women’s roles as anchors during critical moments, and as reassuring presences in times of uncertainty and fear, leave indelible memories in their children’s’ lives. Many black women have against all odds learnt not only to survive poverty and discrimination, but to do so with an inner core of strength that radiates dignity. It is this powerful image that provides many girls and women with positive role models, however poor their mothers may be. (2013, p. 22) In contrast, young boys and sons are positioned adversely as Ramphele (with considerable nuance) explains to establish what is at stake in the domestic world in which role models, ideals, and values are so crucial in formative years. Her claims begin to account for the escalation of gender-based violence addressed in this chapter and should be briefly identified. She writes: The reality of the lives of many black men in our patriarchal racist society has left a debilitating legacy for young black men in particular and gender relationships in general. The expectation that they should be the head of the family, its provider and protector is often not met because many poor black men lack the capacity and capability to fulfil these roles The psychosocial dissonance that is set off in such men and their families by the failure to live up to the dominant male role model requires more attention than we have devoted to it. Such men live in a twilight world of pretending to be in charge when they know they are not, and their families know it too. It is a make-believe world that often breeds resentment and anger against the self and those close to them. (2013, p. 23) These insights urge consideration: Ramphele goes on to emphasise the scope for perpetuating “abusive social relationships” because of being deprived of positive male role models within the home and posits that an unintended consequence of initiatives to redress gender inequity through accelerating programmes for girl children has correspondingly (and inappropriately) neglected the needs of boys and young men. It seems reasonable to suggest that among its unrecorded achievements, Sibikwa offers a template that extends beyond that of its objectives of arts pedagogy in the positive role models of Ndaba and Klotz and other staff, who through their presence and conduct mitigate against what Ramphele describes. Beyond the seriously disturbing issue of gender-based social crises, Ramphele advocates the need for an audit of macro-outcomes on a national scale and explicitly denounces what has been perceived by many as an escalation in a culture of impunity at national, provincial, and municipal levels. In contrast, this book aims to chart what Sibikwa has achieved within its local ambit, so it is far more limited in scope. The issues addressed at Sibikwa are nonetheless located within that broader national context and some sense of the macro-climate is crucial.

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Ramphele insists on the importance of critical “self-reflection” and rigorous confrontation with the gains and losses of the first decade of democracy. She writes: Over the last decade or so South Africa has been showing signs of decline in its performance as a well governed country. State capture in the political, economic, and institutional dimensions is becoming a reality in society. One need look no further than the Government’s own National Planning Commission Diagnostic Report. (2013, p. 8) For her, multiple issues undermine the achievement of liberation and transition to a democratic society. They include “rising corruption weakening of state and civil society institutions, poor economic management; skills and capital flight; politics dominated by short-termism, ethnicity or factionalism; and lack of maintenance of infrastructure and standards of service” (2013, p. 3). She observes that the 2009 election campaigns could not ignore pressing demands for social justice that required urgent redress. Among the cluster of issues that are detrimental to social transformation is the deterioration in basic education due to lack of professional competency and commitment on the part of many teachers; continued unemployment, especially among youth, inadequate infrastructure, and public service delivery; and high levels of crime which compound the insecurities across all groups but impact with greatest severity on the lives of the poorest. The year 2010 data reflects that among 15to 24-year-olds the unemployment rate was 51.3% and as Ramphele observes are also neither at school nor in training. Among 25- to 34-year-old persons, unemployment was recorded at 29%. According to Ramphele’s estimates: “Over 3 million young people between the ages of 15 and 35 are neither in schools nor employed” (2013, p. 24). It is this most vulnerable group that has been least adequately served by government and who also lacks agency in asserting its rights. In her view, the entrenched culture of impunity and lack of accountability within government is gravely problematic. She offers this perception: The Thabo Mbeki presidency embedded the culture of non-accountability of the ruling party to the citizens of South Africa. He seemed to believe in the values of central control and command rather than those of the participatory governance that was envisaged for our democracy. (2013, p. 105) Participatory governance is a core on which she expands. Throughout her publication Ramphele strongly advocates the need for an engaged, informed citizenship in which the agency of individuals and groups is actively mobilised. She emphasises the way in which values underpin moral and ethical notions of “appropriate behaviour, practices and attitudes” declared in the

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Constitution to “guide our conduct as citizens and as a nation” (2013, p. 61). But, as crucially, these values need to permeate social relationships, ways of being, and what it means to be a social subject and citizen. In all aspects of its operations, Sibikwa has functioned with a firm sense of values: issues of empowerment and accountability are routinely inscribed in its administration and operations. Regular strength and weakness assessments are facilitated through participatory dialogues on an ongoing basis as a tool for shaping strategies for growth and development. Ramphele (2013, p. 14) directly critiques a culture of entitlement when she describes the “outsourcing democratic responsibilities to a government or a political party [as] reckless.” She reiterates her concern regarding pervasive manifestations of passive or inert citizenship when she asks: To what extent people are genuinely and meaningfully participating in their own governance? […] Is it meaningful to be engaged beyond election periods or are you succumbing to the temptation that seems to have found many takers of being a sleepless shareholder in your country’s affairs. (2013, p. 17 my emphasis) For Ramphele, the debilitating outcomes of Mbeki’s mode of governance laid the foundations for Zuma’s leadership (2009–2018) which she subjects to equally harsh critique.2 She holds that the ANC inculcated a widely held view that political loyalty prohibits any critique of the party as an index of support. As she puts it: “Many are dependent on social welfare and are easily misled into believing that ‘delivery of services’ is a favour that only party loyalists are entitled to” (2013, p. 115). In her view, the right to exercise freedom of choice is eroded by tendencies towards a one-party state which is a disavowal of a multiparty democracy.3 For her, true empowerment, transformation, and upliftment depend on the assertion of agency and autonomy. Similarly, Sibikwa’s efforts home in on developing the understanding of what it means to exercise rights, agency, and autonomy in the constituencies of youth – girls and boys – and women. The core of Ramphele’s concern, however, is what she (2013, p. 117) describes as a “failure to transform the socio-economic landscape.” She traces the expectations of transition to a “better life for all” and lack of delivery in these terms: South Africa rightly prides itself on the success of the TRC process. But despite the heroic efforts by those citizens who contributed to the ritual forgiveness processes, the depth of resentment and mistrust in our society remains substantial. […] The fact that five strategic reasons for the TRC process excluded violation of socio-economic rights left a huge burden of unresolved inequities on the poorest among us. There was no direct redress for individuals who felt wronged beyond token amounts of not more than R30, 000 paid out to a fraction of those impoverished by

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apartheid’s inequities. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) that was to have provided housing, water and sanitation, education and health care for poor people was neither successful nor sustained enough to adequately address the vast needs left in the wake of so many decades of neglect. (2013, p. 120) She points to failures and corruption in the RDP housing initiatives, the lack of delivery of basic services – water, electricity, and sanitation; inadequacies in departments of health, education, and social development; a dysfunctional public sector hamstrung by lack of competency and skills; and (significantly) a lack of economic growth and regional economic integration (2013, pp. 117–132). It is within these broad parameters that work in arts, culture, community development, and arts education should be approached vis-à-vis policy development and, crucially, where Sibikwa’s achievements can be recognised. Within a circumscribed set of parameters Sibikwa can measure its outcomes as proactive responses to the challenges of generating employment opportunities, expanding training and skills development programmes along with fostering interactive and reciprocal engagements within an extended community. During the years 2013 to 2020 further events have amplified concerns with the culture of impunity that Ramphele raises. These events include the abuse of power and force as in the Lonmin Marikana mine massacre;4 financial mismanagement and use of public funds for the renovation of President Zuma’s Nkandla homestead and allegations of State capture, in addition to the residual impact of Zuma’s trial for rape; and the rise in hate crimes of genderbased violence and xenophobia. These have added persuasive force to Ramphele’s insistence on the need for an objective audit of the state of this nascent democratic nation, its ideals, values, and their implementation. Many readers of this book – from different positions and perspectives – might reasonably be assumed to be broadly familiar with the events of the last 15 years. For these reasons, rather than identifying particular events and their significance, a broad overview contextualises developments at Sibikwa during this period. Ramphele’s social interventions and projects operate at the level of grassroots cross-generational dialogue about life as it is lived and experienced. A similar modus operandi has characterised Sibikwa and its commitment to development, training, and healing.5 Ramphele’s overview of socio-political achievements – and the lack thereof – also frames issues specific to the arts and culture sector in the White Paper on Arts and Culture (Draft 3 of 2017). This focus lays out the framework for focusing on how Sibikwa has been instrumental in outreach and training programmes, in fostering participatory dialogues and – in partnership with the European Union – through hosting national conferences to address Community Arts policy development and practice. As Ramphele insists, evolving issues of leadership and governance, the gap between policy and its

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effective implementation and finally “grassroots” solutions are inseparable from advancing the agenda of decolonisation and social reconstruction.

Problems with policy and delivery: The evolution of an arts and culture policy document Ramphele’s ideas prompt reflecting on national policy development and Sibikwa’s alignment and engagement in driving policy formulation. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer anything other than a brief chronology of Arts and Culture governance and the slow evolution of a policy document. The simplified table below charts the chronology of formulation and revisions that began with acknowledging the need for a policy to determine the use of public funds, transformation, redress, access, and human resource developments. Table 5.1 A chronology of Arts and Culture governance and the evolution of policy documents 1994

1996 1997 2002 2015 2016 2017

Dept. of Arts, Culture, Science, and Technology formed – Minister Ben Ngubane. Later reconfigured as Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC). Arts and Culture Trust (ACT) founded. Arts and Culture Task Group (ACTAG) formed – mandate to consult draft White Paper. 4 June – first draft of Arts and Culture White Paper tabled. National Arts Council of South Africa formed (NAC). Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) founded. Formation of Department of Arts and Culture (DAC). 17 March – Revised Arts and Culture White Paper tabled. 14 November – 2nd draft of Revised Arts and Culture White Paper tabled. 1 June – 3rd draft executive summary of White Paper tabled. 27 October – Revised White Paper 4th draft tabled.

The third draft of the White Paper on Arts, Culture, and Heritage was tabled for discussion in 2017 as a refinement of the earlier 1996 draft document.6 The policy document aims to be inclusive and diverse and is founded on the principles of the National Development Plan of 2011 (with its goals of social cohesion, nation building, and sustainable development). It incorporates a cultural economy or ecosystem of the full gamut of “cultural and creative industries” in terms of policy directives, their implementation, funding, maintenance, and evaluation mechanisms. In other words, its purview embraces Theatre, Dance, Music, Visual Art, Audio Visual, Heritage, Museum, Archives and public records, Libraries, Language, Literature and Publication, Community Arts, Culture and Heritage, events, technical, and production. Three aspects of this White Paper should be signalled out. First, its long gestation (1996–2017) and multiple revisions which suggest a commitment to consultation and the need to reach wide consensus in policy formulation. Second, policy builds on and modifies many of the resolutions taken prior to

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1994 in ANC-driven conferences in Gaborone and Amsterdam (dealt with in Chapter 1). Finally, iterations have evolved and expanded in the interests of inclusivity to incorporate both heritage and community arts. But, as Ramphele has commented, the gap between policymakers, administrative bureaucrats, or elected officials from conditions experienced on the ground may apply to all that this White Paper represents – it remains largely a product of policymakers rather than experienced workers in the field. As a governing document and articulation of policy, Klotz reflects on the current latest draft of the White Paper with its achievements and limitations: The great gain in this White Paper is that for the first time, community arts has been mentioned and there is a brief outline of what is expected. It is laid down that it doesn’t really look at arts centres exclusively. [… rather] it also acknowledges or refers to programmes that groups are doing. That is a great step forward. For the rest, the ANC manifesto said there would be an arts centre in every single municipality. A ridiculous statement and an unrealisable dream. That is not going to happen. I don’t think – you can take the White Paper in isolation. What matters as much is the issue of who is going to be responsible for implementing policy. It is organisations like us who are training artists and employing professional artists. We do this at every level. We are the ones implementing policy. The Department is not. That is the problem. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Addressing the relations between DSAC (DAC), the National Arts Council (NAC), and the other portfolio committees (with authorisation over particular fields of work in arts and culture) with their respective mandates in relation to policy implementation, the oversight of projects, and funding distribution, Klotz continues: First, DSAC is a national department that is there to drive policy formulation. It is not there to fund individual organisations. That is why we have got the NAC and NFVF, BASA and other organisations. That is the first misnomer in the White Paper as far as I am concerned. At national level they should focus only on policy. Then parastatals allocate funding. The problem, as I see it, is that, initially, in the evolution of the White Paper, the idea was that the NAC was supposed to be an armslength body comprised of individuals nominated by the [appropriate arts] community itself. Then it was changed. Currently, people nominate or apply to be appointed but ultimately the power rests with the Minister. That’s why we are in trouble. The power doesn’t rest with the community appointing its own. It rests with the minister who appoints the chair. That chair is not an elected representative of the relevant constituency. There’s too much government interference. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021)

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Perhaps as a failure of attempting to be too all-encompassing in serving too many disparate fields of production while simultaneously acknowledging the specific needs of each, the White Paper does not entirely resolve tensions in defining the sphere of arts activities, which is perhaps a consequence of attempting to be too all-encompassing in serving too many disparate fields of production while simultaneously acknowledging the specific needs of each. The document oscillates between a dependence on the term “sector” and an alternative conceptual framework for its operations as implied by “industry” and “economy.” Both terms are introduced with substantiation as though acknowledging a need to account for grappling with nomenclature. The ambivalence is telling. It not only hints towards bureaucratic distance on the part of the writers of policy from operational conditions and concerns but also points to underlying implications that this field of operations lacks capacity for income generation. The dependence on subsidy from the national fiscus combined with or as an alternative to reliance on patronage from private sector partnerships points to distinct tensions around the economic viability and financial autonomy of arts and culture initiatives. Perhaps the urge towards industrial alignment results from the need to be taken “seriously” as a market-related commodity in order to be valued in the same way as other fields of material productivity, income generation, and trade. The use of the imported term “creative industries” and “economies” requires explanation. The explanation is provided as part of the draft White Paper as though no finality has been arrived at regarding the precise field of activities and at the risk of contradicting the coherence and mandate of all that the document encompasses: The term “creative industries” broaden(s) the scope of engagement and align discussions with the broader international debates about the creative economy and the core role of creative industries in this regard. […] The term “creative economy”7 is an evolving concept based on creative assets potentially generating economic growth and development. (White Paper 2017 Draft, p. 36) In the interests of arguing how art and culture contribute actively to social development the term “creative economy” offers three ways to link cultural and creative practices with economic development and upliftment in ways that the term “sector” does not. The paper spells these out: 1 2 3 4

It can foster income generation, job creation, and export earnings while promoting social inclusion, cultural diversity, and human development. It embraces economic, cultural, and social aspects interacting with technology, intellectual property, and tourism objectives. It is a set of knowledge-based economic activities with a development dimension and cross-cutting linkages at macro and micro levels to the overall economy. It is a feasible development option calling for innovative, multidisciplinary policy responses and inter-ministerial action. (White Paper 2017 Draft, pp. 36–37)

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These principles seem to provide a way of assessing Sibikwa’s deliverables on all counts. This draft White Paper commits to inclusivity, participatory access, funding mechanisms, income generation, and advancing African knowledge systems and languages. From the inception of Sibikwa both Ndaba and Klotz have anticipated these core objectives of this most recent document. What remains to be discussed is how Sibikwa addressed “job creation,” “human development,” gender equity and promotion of African languages, and linguistic diversities in the expressive forms of storytelling, acting, dance, and music.

2006–2009: Sibikwa’s theatre-in-education projects with productions for high school learners In line with the White Paper’s objectives of training and job creation, Sibikwa’s model blends skills development with opportunities for income generation through productions which simultaneously go some way towards resolving income generating imperatives. Theatre-in-education productions are, after all, marketed to a ready target audience. The trio of productions, Maru (2006), Julius Caesar (2008), and Animal Farm (2009) were created for presentation to school audiences. These are all examples of situated learning and skills development which also generated income for Sibikwa. Reflecting on these projects provides insight into the broader issues addressed above and demonstrates how Sibikwa’s operations to some extent anticipated policy and implementation issues. Its relative autonomy and scale of operations ensured both freedom of expression, sustainability, and growth. The productions served two constituencies simultaneously: high school learners were introduced to texts incorporated in the formal curriculum, and a fresh constituency of actors were introduced to a steady market for their work. Ndaba explains the process of empowering the learners who come to Sibikwa through participatory discovery and enjoyment: We are doing a lot of training. We see the results. We see young people come to Sibikwa to get certificates and they get inspired to grow more. In training, they become aware of how to build their future in the long term, not just in terms of immediate results like getting a job. We inspire them to work on harder. Some just come there for nothing but enjoyment. But they change. They learn to make something out of what they’ve got. They start to realise that they have a choice to push on. They decide: “let me do that”. Through training they find themselves discovering the options – like learning about different jobs such as directing or stage management. Before they come, many are there just to while away time. Some arrive because their friends are there. We change them. Make them look forward. The process of training introduces them to career options. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021)

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Ndaba stresses experiential learning and its outcomes attached to training and discovering previously unknown career and employment options. What is striking is that learners are encouraged to assert their decision-making responsibilities and develop a sense of agency in the ways that Ramphele advocates. The need to commit to a process of committing to continued development and growth is a crucial pedagogical outcome or observed deliverables. In addition, learners and interns may be employed as cast members of Sibikwa productions which not only provide in situ training but also expand the understanding of alternative managements and theatres. Klotz’s explanation of these three productions not only substantiates this model of operation but re-inscribes the way in which training, development, and operations are impacted on by an unexpected range of seemingly unrelated issues, namely the broader socio-economic issues introduced at the outset. The three productions follow age old theatrical tradition of bringing in young emerging actors, or actors still in training, many of them interns, to work with seasoned professional actors. For production purposes, we are classified as eligible for company funding from the NAC which provides an opportunity to fuse training with income generation. Also, productions like Maru (which was staged at the State Theatre, the Market Theatre as well as at Sibikwa) generated a lot of income. We did Animal Farm twice. The second time was not as successful financially because the teachers were on strike. That season coincided with a difficult time in terms of school routine being interrupted. Kids couldn’t come to the theatre. That directly impacted on us. Not at policy level – a lot of issues impact on Sibikwa’s operations all the time. At a day-to-day level, a wide range of socio-economic issues impact on Sibikwa all the time. A taxi strike? We are in trouble! A teacher strike? We are in trouble! People are toyi-toying, burning tyres in Daveyton or protesting against lack of water? It has a direct impact on us! All these things affect the work. People are impacted on continually, on a daily basis. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Klotz also stresses the importance of entry to the professional workplace and the need for contractual employment to be offered to graduates or emerging trainees as apprentices refining their craft alongside established professionals: Julius Caesar had a target market. We gave a young director – Clara Vaughan – the opportunity to direct that. We had young actors. Some had recently graduated from Wits [University of the Witwatersrand] and have gone on to make big names for themselves. Some had not graduated but were working as young actors coming up through the ranks and have gone on to make big television and movie careers. We are very proud of that. A lot of people have gained an opportunity to emerge, to get some

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experience. Because there are not companies [attached to State subsidised performing arts council theatres] like there used to be. There are no companies where young people can audition and, [if they are successful, find reasonably secure, annual employment for a limited term]. Even if 12 were taken a year as junior actors … that professional training ground [would address skills development and employment needs]. We just don’t have that anymore. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) The significance of this kind of layered observation is that it points to how Sibikwa serves both training and professional constituencies in ways that the White Paper does not appear to make allowance for. To the extent that Sibikwa provides opportunities for emerging theatre practitioners to hone their skills, the primary area of development is in actor training (with rarer instances of directorial opportunity). Advancing other aspects of theatre practice such as stage, costume, and lighting design is comparatively neglected, although current initiatives in this direction are being actively pursued. Unlike the reasonably easy operation of ensuring that young actors can learn from experienced actors in an ensemble while a director may be provided with a mentor from full-time staff, training internships in all aspects of design – largely a more solo and independent aspect of theatre-making – does depend on the availability of a mentor. Developing design skills also requires the facilities and equipment along with presupposing some prior expertise on the part of the interns being appointed. It may be that established theatre complexes as architectural landmarks in various urban hubs, along with transformations within those institutions, are being renamed, redefined, and transformed. Operations, repertoire, and audience demographics have likewise shifted considerably. The task of chronicling these shifts lies outside the focus of this chapter other than stressing a tension that is perhaps unique to theatre as a medium. Theatre relies on an interplay between presenting subsequent performances (or new interpretations or adaptations of extant texts from a cultural or even world repertoire) and devising or staging new works. As strategies for determining a new project both are equally open to serving the issue-based, specifically local narratives that Ndaba and Klotz have long favoured.

Notes 1 Klotz’s topical reference addresses the authority of the Zondo Commission of Enquiry into Allegations of State Capture. Zuma refused to appear before the Zondo Commission and subsequently elected not to appear before the Constitutional Court when the matter was referred to the highest legislative authority of the land. He was sentenced in absentia to 15 months in prison on 29 June 2021 for contempt of court. 2 The Zuma presidency has already shown even more worrying evidence of continuing the approach to govern as a right of the ANC rather than as a responsibility to citizens […] Every rule was broken to make sure that Jacob Zuma did not face his day in court to

90 Sarah Roberts answer serious allegations of corruption that had sent his business partner and sponsor, Shabir Shaik, to jail (Ramphele, 2013, p. 112). 3 She cites examples of President Zuma’s tendency to insert this agenda into public discourse: “As custodian of our national constitution, President Zuma has made some extraordinary public statements: ‘The ANC will rule until Jesus Christ returns’” (Ramphele, 2013, p. 113). 4 The Marikana massacre resulted in as many as 47 people’s deaths. This unexpected display of force urges some objective evaluation of “how far we have come.” The events at the Lonmin mine have been described as … the single most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since 1960. The shootings have been described as a massacre in the South African media and have been compared to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. Controversy emerged after it was discovered that most of the victims were shot in the back, and many victims were shot far from police lines. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_ South_Africa Accessed 10 March 2021) 5 Her project, the Letsema Healing Circle, is a grassroots organisation, not unlike Sibikwa in its inception, while the premise of her publication is the urgent matter of engaging in dialogue with young people. 6 Earlier revisions appeared in 2015, 2016 ahead of this current 2017 draft. The document is accessible at http://www.dac.gov.za/sites/default/files/Revised%203rd %20Draft%20RWP%20on%20ACH%20FEBRUARY%202017_0_0.pdf Accessed 10 March 2021). 7 The term “was first used in 2001 by the British writer and media manager John Howkins, who applied it to 15 industries extending from the arts to science and technology. This term was later formally adopted by the UK government in 2006 to capture the wider contribution of creative industries to economic and social life” (White Paper 2017, p. 36).

References Arts and Culture White Paper (2017). Available at http://www.dac.gov.za/sites/default/ files/Revised%203rd%20Draft%20RWP%20on%20ACH%20FEBRUARY%202017_ 0_0.pdf. Accessed 10 March 2021. Interview 4: 6 March 2021 Johannesburg Ramphele, M. (2013) Conversations with My Sons and Daughters. Johannesburg: Penguin. ‘South Africa’s Key Economic Policies Changes (1994–2013)’. Available at https://www. sahistory.org.za/article/south-africas-key-economic-policies-changes-1994-2013. Accessed 10 March 2021. ‘The Reconstruction and Development Programme’. Available at https://www.sahistory. org.za/sites/default/files/the_reconstruction_and_development_programm_1994. Accessed 10 March 2021.

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The struggle for social justice in confronting gender-based violence and strategies of intensifying an African cultural heritage as the project moves into the future Sarah Roberts

Sibikwa during the last 15 years (2005–2020) My ambitions are, I think modest – they scarcely go beyond the desire to serve God and my neighbour, both at full stretch. But contact with people is the very breath of life to me. (Albert Luthuli, Let My People Go, 2006, p. 24) I have walked the long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended. (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1995, p. 751)

In everyday experiences of life in South Africa, persistent embedded inequities converge at the intersections of race, class, gender, and lifestyle choices. From a contemporary perspective, it is clear that the persistence – and even acceleration – of abuses that scar this young democracy and regrettably cannot remain excluded from this survey of the field of interaction in which this resilient community project has operated. It remains, however, beyond the scope of this chapter to probe cause and effect relations of the gross adversities confronted by youth and women other than very briefly address notions of socio-political leadership or role models – irrespective of gender – in abstract terms. Rather, it seems appropriate to probe how Ndaba and Klotz, as principals of Sibikwa, have continued to expose ways in which Constitutionally enshrined rights need to be safeguarded and are disturbingly, if variously, violated. DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-7

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The recent surge in incidents of domestic gender-based violence during Covid-related lockdown conditions provides a lens through which to reflect on the grim rise of xenophobic and homophobic outbreaks which so flagrantly flouted the rights of others in recent years. These disturbing trends diminish the assured sense of cultural achievements and active assertions of decolonisation that are exemplified, for example, in announcing African names for places and streets as an affirmation of local identity and languages. Tensions between what can be rightly acclaimed and what needs to be renounced in the strongest terms thus persist. The continued vulnerability of women to domestic violence and intensified efforts towards socio-cultural transformation have both generated a substantial body of local research and of writing in the last decade to support the interrogation of two core themes: Sibikwa’s continued commitment to the ongoing struggle for the safety and dignity of women, and the continued affirmation of African culture, languages, and experiences. Additionally, some conclusions about a managerial strategy in producing theatre that merits retrospective overview are the template of festivals which Sibikwa inaugurated as an alternative to the largely commercial Western model of mounting seasons lasting several weeks or months for any individual production. The role of festivals has undergirded this historical narrative throughout and might well prove a viable forum through which live theatre might return in the testing conditions of a post-Covid economy.

Issues of governance and leadership at macro and micro-levels The simple statements by two great and revered male African leaders cited above as epigraphs signal two crucial aspects of leadership and governance. Inspirational leadership, as embodied by Luthuli, is not anchored in selfpromotion but focuses on serving others and is reflected in the respect and appreciation of these services accorded to a leader or an authority figure. The hallmark of integrity and greatness as a statesman and as an individual – as Mandela writes – is the readiness to concede to mistakes and the recognition that one’s lifework is never entire and complete. These modes of being operate at both micro and macro levels as probed on an abstract level by 19th-century social philosopher Georg Simmel in his essay “Domination” (see Levine, 1971, pp. 96–120). Simmel sets out distinctions between “authority” and “prestige” in terms of relationships between leaders and followers and, despite his adherence to scholarly conventions of the time and slightly archaic expression, offers much to any interrogation of celebrity culture, influencers, political operations, or routine organisational structures in which different forms of leadership play out. Simmel emphasises the dispositions of those who either elect or are obliged to follow any particular leader as crucial to both the model of leadership and its efficacy. For Simmel, the distinction is clear:

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The higher, cooler and normative character of authority is more apt to leave room for criticism, even on the part of its followers […] prestige strikes us as the core voluntary homage to the superior person […] In the face of authority we are often defenceless, whereas the élan with which we follow a given prestige always contains a consciousness of spontaneity. (Simmel in Levine, 1971, p. 100) Smal Ndaba, like Klotz, offers his own unique and modest model of leadership at Sibikwa, and echoed the sentiments of both Luthuli and Mandela in a 2013 interview: “I always feel that there is something good that one can do. There’s nothing like ‘I’m giving up’. I see more opportunities. We haven’t done enough” (Roberts, 2015, p. 35). Jointly, in 2021, retirement from the project that they have founded and nurtured is imminent for Ndaba and Klotz. With some foresight they have both committed to the need for succession plans at levels of administration and management, artistic development, pedagogical continuity, and development at Sibikwa leaving the legacy of a lifetime’s commitment to others. Sibikwa’s past resilience to the vicissitudes of socio-economic tensions is inseparable from the trajectory of social issues of the last 15 years and seems likely to define the matrix of future operations.

Women’s issues and gender-based violence: Two Sibikwa plays In 2015, Pumla Gqola, like Ramphele wrote that “the romance of a new country is gone, and the children that should have inherited Mandela’s dream continue to live under the brutalisation of raced, gendered terror” (2017, p. 56). In Rape: A South African Nightmare, she systematically sets out the entrenched history of “violent masculinities” that undergird a culture in which rape and domestic violence against women continues to be perpetrated or, as during lockdown in 2020 has shown, has been exacerbated. Gqola following Helene Straus (2009) as asking two crucial questions: To what extent is it even possible to resist and transform the social languages into which we are born? More to the point, how does one challenge the gendered norms that lead to the formation and sanctioning of patriarchal and violent masculinities? (2017, epigraph) What is at stake in these questions is the issue of inculcated “social languages” that perpetuate traditional and received value systems uncritically. Interventions are needed to reset perceptions and received assumptions regarding how women regard themselves and the extent to which they are treated by men as equal as per the Constitution and the law; additionally, male assumptions and behaviours urge critique and reconstruction. Like the seminal

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You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock, Klotz’s more recent plays deal explicitly with women’s struggles and women’s rights. They are also all collaboratively devised and demonstrate the determination to identify new expressive forms. The similarities end there. Malindi – the Sex Strike (2010) urged the recognition of women’s agency within a largely heteronormative framework in conjunction with advancing women’s socio-political agency. Chapter 2 Section 9: Equality (2014) is a radical departure in subject matter, formal experiment, and political tone. These plays reveal the mechanisms of gender discrimination, expose innate bias and prejudice in terms of both attitudinal issues and structural (or systemic) denial of rights, equal opportunity, and respect irrespective of gender and sexual orientation. The focus on plays about women, made with women, is decidedly different from each other giving credence to Klotz’s claim to seek out new forms of expression and theatrical style as well as storytelling idiom. She stresses the constant need for innovation even if this strategy risks alienating or even losing established audiences. Addressing the ideal of women’s empowerment in order to stress its limitations, Gqola (2017, pp. 63–67) identifies four issues that mitigate against the goal of liberation for all women. First, issues of “class, homophobia, race and xenophobia mediate women’s access to power” to preclude real inclusivity (2017, p. 63). Second, in instances where women do access positions of office and authority, they are, as she puts it (quoting Ramphele), granted the status of “honorary men” because their behaviour is perceived and interpreted as masculine (2017, p. 64). In addition, Gqola submits that politically, female representation of women’s perspectives will depend on a dual presence of both “poor women within the state, as well as a strong feminist movement outside the state” (2017, p. 64). Finally, in so far as some constraints against gender discrimination may operate within the public domain these do not necessarily persist in the domestic sphere. As she puts it: A completely different set of rules, framed in direct contradiction to the ostensible “women’s empowerment” discourse continues to govern the “private” world of the home, and other spaces in between: public transport, the streets, clubs, restaurants, shebeens [places of alcohol consumption] etc. (2017, p. 64) Gqola argues that not only do these factors undercut any drives towards the empowerment of women but, more dangerously, an insidious and pervasive “cult of femininity” (2017, p. 65) is embedded in multiple cultural expressions. This “cult of femininity” equally undermines efforts at gender equality because it persists and circulates to re-inscribe and reinforce subjugation and tends to do so across diverse matrices and groups to which women might belong. Klotz’s “women’s plays” stage these concerns within a specific context in which the intensified impact of poverty and adversity on women – and girls –

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in these communities is revealed. These plays resist perpetuating a “victim narrative” and set out to show how, despite all odds, role models of female leadership can be celebrated for affirming visionary capacities of women which fuse agency, empathy, and fellow feeling. Importantly, these messages are not addressed exclusively to a female audience. Gqola argues that “psychological liberation” is required of both men and women (2017, p. 69). She proposes: Gender-transformative work requires that masculinities – black, white, straight, queer – be radically revisited in the interests of a country that is not just gender-equitable on paper. (2017, p. 65) In her view, it is because gender disparities have been naturalised and established as so irrevocable and normative that gender-based violence has been assimilated and even condoned. Gqola explains what she terms “the female fear factory” (2017, pp. 78–99) which subjugates, silences, and marginalises women with the effect of rendering patriarchal strategies of oppression and abuse invisible and unchallenged. She claims that the objectification of women produces loss of self-esteem which simultaneously inculcates a sense of shame. Deference (on the part of women) abnegates the right to claim equal status with men. Gqola writes: It’s not for nothing that the idealised feminine body in white supremacist capitalist societies is one that looks tired and bears evidence of being worked on. Tired, hungry, distracted women are easier to control. And they are already trained to work on themselves and blame themselves for inadequacies even in the absence of sexual violence. (2017, p. 40) As veteran theatre-maker, Klotz looked to the model of robust classical comedy around which to structure a play to stage women’s determination and capacity to straddle both domestic and public spheres through the counterappropriation of rights over their own bodies with Malindi – the Sex Strike. The adaptation of Aristophanes’ classical comedy proposes an “unthinkable” transactional solution to war that is instigated and contrived by women who understand the power of proclaiming control over their bodies. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was originally performed in 411 BCE as a political satire during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta: women of both sides join forces in a bid to end the war by withholding sexual privileges to their men. Led by the bold, intelligent Lysistrata who has a confident sense of her own individual and social responsibility, the women of both warring parties rally together to challenge their men. Despite the rigidly patriarchal values of Athenian society and their own difficulties in adhering to their pledge, the women hold to their solemn vow of abstinence with outrageous results: a

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succession of male characters ultimately appear entirely unable to disguise their rampant desires. Lysistrata’s strategy works. The war ends and peace is reinstated. Ultimately the play is neither feminist nor pacifist although it may be considered available for interpretations according to these readings. The inscription of patriarchal stereotypical notions of women is indisputable in characters who are variously irrational or in need of protection from themselves and others. Lysistrata is a singular exception and her persona contrasts vividly with the demeanour of her allies whose personalities and behaviours create a complex tapestry of female identities. Klotz makes no claim to have staged Aristophanes’ play per se but stresses the adaptation and rewriting required in an address to an inter-generational local audience. Its appeal for contemporary treatment is clear but some details of the interplay between text, presentation, and reception in terms of the gender politics suggest the battleground identified by Gqola. Klotz emphatically declares a position of challenge and public responses to that challenge: If women choose to take power, they can. It is not that they can’t. We incorporated music […] It was a South African interpretation. It was great fun. Audiences liked it. It is not really for school audiences. Maybe highschool kids. We presented it very successfully at Sibikwa and then we took it to the Grahamstown Festival in 2010. It flopped there. It’s a long story. It really flopped. It was not only our fault, but somebody came to see it and said it was rude. This reviewer did not know the context. But at Sibikwa it was successful. We had audiences and people enjoyed it very much. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Lysistrata/Malindi depends on explicit heightened representation of men’s sexual appetites: the phallus is visibly declared in a succession of swollen erect penises which deform and cripple the men. The outrageous and unfamiliar spectacle is not, however, the dramatic focus or political focus of the play or its message. Ndaba accounts for the dividing line that appears to be drawn between those who recognise the purpose of this spectacle of absurdity and those who consider the display disrespectful, insulting, and undermining the status of men in society. That dividing line is generational, gendered, and, as he adds, undergirded by religious beliefs – specifically those anchored in Christianity with its inculcation of prudish constraints and taboos associated with the body and female sexuality: Some people when they watched the play took it like mocking them. But most of the people really enjoyed it because they recognised that if women took over, then they would laugh at some of the situations, laugh at the men and say: “you can be so stupid”. But then there are men who

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feel challenged by that. We see that in the problems we have today with increased gender violence. Some men in the audience – like that critic in Grahamstown – couldn’t get past the mocking. But young people laughed at it because they enjoyed it. Especially girls. The play was hard for a certain kind of audience: like the men who are proud of themselves. They see it as an insult to me. Young people enjoyed it. They didn’t find it disgusting. […] I watched the audiences. With Malindi, we had those people … for instance religious people, Christians, who didn’t like to see this. Because it does not fit with what they believe, and it is wrong to perform such things. For them, humans belong to Jesus. Then with the other play, Chapter 2 Section 9: Equality, they hate to be exposed. Again, they don’t believe in this way of life […] But they would actually cry. And sometimes a person like that would come and see the play again because they have gone back home downhearted at what men do. So, it wasn’t something that I had expected. Because that play was not entertaining. But it triggered pity at what women face: hitting them, stabbing them […] I think the guy who does that, who abuses his wife … when he sees that, he doesn’t want to face that something that is hidden in him. But watching the play he must face it. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) What emerges consistently through these observations is how theatre operates as a form of public dialogue, a confrontation, and encounter with the audience (as per Grotowski’s formulations).1 This proposition holds that theatre functions as a potent medium for challenging perceptions, hence the significance in being sensitively attuned to audience responses to the play rather than solely the intentions and the form, style, and tone of the production. Audiences are challenged across a matrix of values to which they subscribe. Audiences may well resist confrontation and exposure of beliefs and attitudes that they hold dear. It is these public responses that reveal much about social attitudes to the place of both women’s and men’s bodies, roles, and needs. Challenging the legacy of patriarchal discourses – within traditional African culture in addition to the legacy of colonialism – has been central to the struggle agenda and, inserted into the process of self-definition, has long been central to defining a new democracy. The rights of women urged radical redefinition and redress in ways that strongly contest traditional patriarchal norms.2 Violation and violence both aggressively flout the rights of women to respect and dignity equal to that of men. As do lifestyle and sexual choices. A later project, Chapter 2 Section 9: Equality (2014), urges evaluation in terms of

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subject matter and audience response to the presentation of rape culture and homophobia. Klotz describes her sense of the play and its underlying politics: For me it is about the Constitution, implementation, human rights, and the negative connotations of what happens to people who choose to live their lives according to their values which are not harming other people. We are not talking about criminals who choose to rob and kill or maim people. That’s the lifestyle that they have chosen, we are talking about women who have chosen or have a “different” sexual orientation. Why should they be discriminated against? Our very Constitution says they shouldn’t be. They are. Once again, we see the population of South Africa lagging behind what is declared in the Constitution which was mainly drawn up by people who had been in exile for years and didn’t understand the people of this country in many respects. The “violence” in Chapter 2 only surfaces directly at the end but the notion of violence [and violation] is always there in the subtext. What was incredibly interesting was when we performed at Wits [University of the Witwatersrand] and the Festival, we played to mixed audiences, but they were predominantly young, black, and female. When we performed it at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, a big contingency of white lesbian women came. What I already knew from my research was proved. In the main, black women, black and white lesbian women have very little contact with each other. It seemed to be an eye opener for white lesbian women to see what black lesbian women endure and how they are treated […] It was quite painful to overhear comments from women acknowledging that they simply didn’t know or imagine what was happening. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) The victimisation of lesbians – and black lesbian women specifically – profits through reflecting on all that the late Brenda Fassie stood for. Celebrity culture has gained traction in conjunction with the ubiquitous use of social media so the influence set by individual lifestyle choices proliferates and circulates speedily. An iconic figure in popular culture, Brenda Fassie died in 2004. As Ndebele suggests in his 1996 essay, “Thinking of Brenda,” Fassie became a role model of lifestyle and being. He suggests that she embodied the freedom of self-definition in terms that are both intensely subjective and also political in a clear antithesis of conforming to any heteronormative stereotype of femininity and sexuality. As an inspirational black woman, her public persona was that of a woman who is unafraid of success or failure and always ready to experiment in asserting her right to choose. The way in which Ndebele accounts for her mode of being and lifestyle choices anticipates the intensity with which identity politics would become entrenched by 2020:

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Long before the issue of sexual preference became a burning constitutional issue, Brenda (Fassie) had widened the doorway. But there is yet another way that Brenda touched a significant chord in a national context. Here we are looking at the impact of the politics of culture in creating a national identity. (Ndebele, 1996, n.p.) But the story of a lesser celebrated figure – a victim of alleged rape whose sexuality is immaterial to the merits of the case against then Deputy President Jacob Zuma – also undergirds appreciating the urgency of the issues addressed in Chapter 2 Section 9 because the trial has become the subject of considered analysis. In 2005 Jacob Zuma was accused of rape and acquitted in 2006 after a much-publicised trial. The charges against Zuma (played out in the public court “theatre” of the trial along with its outcomes) brought issues of moral values, integrity, and rape culture to the forefront of public concern and debate. Gqola claims “what transpired inside and outside the court was instructive of how we deal with rape, why rape survivors make certain choices, and the fraught ways in which the legal system responds to and treats rape complainants” (2017, p. 101). The emphasis on “inside and outside” the court points to the crucial interplay between the due process of formal legal proceedings and the powerfully affective socio-cultural repercussions that are inseparable from those proceedings. Public opinion, allegiances, and values are instrumental in perpetuating traditional prejudices. Public opinion is also the matrix in which “psychological liberation” from entrenched custom gains leverage. Gqola’s analysis of the trial focuses on media coverage and public impact. From the outset of charges being laid, as she pointedly declares, print media played a significant role throughout, starting with the violation of the complainant’s rights: “South African law says a complainant may not be named, and this is with a view to protecting her privacy and also mindful of the enormous stigma that continues to attaches itself to survivors of rape” (Gqola, 2017, p. 101). Rather than the minutiae of the trial itself, Gqola’s emphasis (2017, pp. 100–124) lies in media reportage and the visibility of the support groups of both parties. As she observes, her survey cannot possibly interrogate the extensive media coverage and scholarly debates triggered by this trial. Her interest lies in exposing the “fallacy of journalistic neutrality” (2017, p. 103), partisan reportage, and public commentary. Zuma’s accuser was “a wellknown HIV positive activist, lesbian daughter of Zuma’s late comrade” (2017, p. 102). Her supporters, like Gqola, resisted identifying her by name, Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, on principle, opting, rather, for the name by which she became widely known: Khwezi. Khwezi’s role and rights throughout the proceedings, however, were largely eclipsed by Jacob Zuma’s supporters. She was, unusually, placed in witness protection, she and her mother took up

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asylum in the Netherlands in 2007 but returned to Africa in 2012 and she died in 2016 aged 42. Khwezi became a rallying point around which activists would continue to insist on the need for accountability. The tenth anniversary of the Zuma rape trial was commemorated on a highly visible platform: the outcome of the 2016 Municipal Election results was broadcast live from the headquarters of the Independent Electoral Commission in Pretoria (Saturday, 6 August 2016). As President Jacob Zuma mounted the dais, four young women dressed in black, entered to take up a position and stand in silence in the space between the stage and seated attendees. Each young woman held a placard of approximately A3 size on which handwritten red letters reproduced key slogans, including the statistical likelihood of being a rape victim: “I am 1 in 3.” These “silent” placards reproduced the struggle protests in their use of slogans and handheld posters in a visible reminder that the struggle continues. The play exposes levels of disturbing pejorative community-based judgements made about individuals who adopt lifestyles that do not conform to traditional heteronormative expectations. It also explicitly addresses genderbased violence evident in the brutal consequences of an aggressive escalation in rape culture targeted towards a particular constituency. The implications of the alleged rape, the identity, and consequences for the “victim” situate Chapter 2 Section 9 within the larger discourse of contemporary rape culture in this country. The production was partly a response to rape culture but also honed in on other forms of institutional discrimination and violations directed towards lesbian women. Klotz’s experiment in post-dramatic forms fused traditional African storytelling with Western avant-garde and theatre-in-education participatory modalities. Multiple narrative fragments – personal micro-histories – are spliced together in a grim montage that testifies to a range of abuses to which lesbian women are subject within family, community, and society. The production sets out to expose the gap between rights declared and preserved by the Constitution (in Chapter 2 Section 9 of the constitution’s Bill of Rights) and their flagrant violation. In doing so, it redefines both the focus and the register of South African protest theatre. In tone, the production was quiet, sombre, and profoundly disturbing. The four actresses made no sustained attempt at “characterisation” and none of the verbatim accounts were enacted. Rather, these performers adopted the story-telling register which declared the “pastness” of multiple individual experiences rather than their representation in an ongoing unfolding present. Ethical constraints urged resisting re-staging the abuse and brutalities recounted in testimonies that had been garnered through interviews. These diverse testimonies of abuse and “corrective rape” at the hands of “violent masculinities” unfolded through succinct and intense descriptions of real experiences. In South Africa corrective rape presupposes heterosexuality to be an undisputed norm to “legitimise,” sanction, or endorse

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the erroneous and abusive notion that sexual preferences can be forcibly corrected. As Gqola puts it: “curative/corrective” rape is about “punishing” women who lie within the sexual eligibility window for heterosexual male consumption, but they “dare” not to be available – hence the belief that they deliberately choose to make themselves “unavailable” to male sexual gratification and can therefore be punished or violently recovered. (2017, p. 9) In Chapter 2 Section 9 nothing is fictional. Multiple vignettes attested to experiences of abuse. These were relayed in a setting that juxtaposed clauses of the Constitution that had been scrawled across floating protestor’s placards with shrines that silently honoured the names and identities of women who had been brutally killed for defying norms. The presentation required audiences to grapple with complex messages that fused personal and political aspects of social justice. If the audit of the last 15 years requires unflinching confrontations with continued challenges to human rights, this same period is marked by a range of achievements which pronounce an African sense of being and belonging, selfdeclaration, and linguistic communication. The subjugation of female visibility along with the silencing female voices and perspectives invites turning to the corresponding suppression of mother-tongue and indigenous languages – a primary mechanism of colonial control.

Advancing African languages, heritage, and culture In “Imperialism of language,” Ngugi wa Thiong’o writes: Every language has two aspects. One aspect is its role as an agent that enables us to communicate with one another in our struggle to find the means for survival. The other is its role as a carrier of history and the culture built into the process of that communication over time. (1993, p. 30) In line with these sentiments (and perhaps even informed by ideas articulated in Ngugi’s Decolonizing the Mind (1986)) with its core proposition that language is “the collective memory bank of a people” (Ngugi wa Thiong’o 1993, p. 30), the 1987 CASA Festival/Conference had tabled the need to promote the use of meaningful symbols and urged for intensifying the use of African languages in creative expression. Sachs’ memorandum records: the idiom of this democratic culture must strive for authenticity and be accessible to the masses of our people by speaking to them in language and symbols that they understand. (Gaborone memorandum, n.p.)

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Neither Ndaba, Klotz, nor the project known as Sibikwa needed to be alerted to this injunction: these principles had underpinned their work from the outset. President Mandela’s Inauguration in 1994 celebrated the formal acknowledgement of 11 official languages, the new South African flag, and an interim national anthem that had replaced Die Stem. These signs augured well for wider cultural transformation. But, nearly 25 years later, public reaction to the proposed name change of Grahamstown to Makhanda (2018) reflected the slow pace of change: polarised reactions as to what this name change represented similarly signalled resistance (in some quarters) to the imperatives of socio-cultural transformation. The even more recent name change of Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha in 2021 continues the gradual process of re-imagining the relationships between places and inhabitants. In a 2018 article: “Change the names to rid SA of its colonial, apartheid past” the Mail and Guardian staff reporter wrote: The continued existence of so many untransformed place names is an affront to the dignity of the majority of the people of South Africa. It is visible and tangible evidence of the old power relations in our society. Although it is true that changing names will not create a more equal society, it will at least signal some visible change in society. If the outward manifestations of those old power relations change, then perhaps the transformation of the substance of those stubborn vestiges of those old power relations will not be far behind. (Mail and Guardian, 2018, n.p.) The urgent need to address the agenda of decolonisation had been vividly declared by student activists on the campus of the University of Cape Town in 2015 with the #RhodesMustFall and subsequent nationwide #FeesMustFall protests. Memorials and markers of both the colonial and apartheid regimes are declared by place names of cities, towns, suburbs, and roads; they are announced in the names of public buildings from airports to hospitals and further entrenched in statues positioned in the public domain. Name changes have responded to the interplay of three factors: they may be imbued with offensive connotations or commemorate figures who embody oppression and subjugation; they are corrected to reflect correct African spelling that had been anglicised or appropriated; and they are changed to reflect democratic values. Working in conjunction with name changes are two other crucial developments in respect of heritage, and the restoration of traditional legacies: the erection of museums and public sites to commemorate resistance heroes and efforts, and accelerating the use of African languages as epitomised by the relaunch and rebranding of the public radio stations and television channels. Widespread use of all 11 official languages has been gradual. It was only in

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2009 that court proceedings in a trial were conducted entirely in isiZulu at Msinga as part of a pilot project to offer “access to justice for all.” It was not until 2016 with Sibikwa’s production of iLembe that the Grahamstown Festival offered its first isiZulu production on the main programme. But as the list of Sibikwa’s productions and their titles so vividly announces, African names and play titles have been integral to the work produced from the outset. The interplay of English, isiZulu and vernacular idiom has long been a distinctive feature of the dialogue and songs just as it has been integral to daily operations in the Liverpool Road premises. Addressing the value and inevitable recourse to mother-tongue expression as an organic outcome of context and goals rather than in the interests of implementing policy, Ndaba makes the following observation in relation to everyday operations, classes, rehearsals, and scripts: We used to do issue-based plays, like the Aids Project and Trash Truck. When we rehearse and when we perform, because we are dealing with our own community, we use everyday language. We want people to change. So, we need to talk the language that they understand. Properly understand. Then with the other plays, we found that actors could get into characters and situations because they understand properly when they are speaking in isiZulu. When you explain something in mother tongue, then it is really understood. Then real growth can happen. The actors express themselves in a way they choose to express themselves. There is no problem with language. It is easier for personalities to come out. If they are working in another language, they have to memorise the lines and characters. And that takes much more time. People must understand in mother-tongue first. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Globally, critical theory, cultural studies, and postcolonial theory have emphasised the interplay between representational practices and the meanings and discourses that are generated to circulate insidiously in daily life. The languages in which we speak, sing, and write complement other languages that we use to express our identity and sense of belonging. How we dress, our movement patterns, dance vocabularies, reliance on objects or things as markers of who we are, also form a sign system with its own grammar governing combinations and rules of use. Crucially, in a society committed to transformation and decolonisation, these operate as sign systems for a declaration of an African heritage and identity. The repertoire, as Sibikwa’s plays demonstrate, includes our history, narratives, and myths that explain ideals and values which are potent signifiers of a people. In subject, theme, and treatment, iLembe (2016), although unpublished is a dense meditation on cultural identity, a specific tribal history, and varying forms of archival storage and dissemination: the written record and its

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perspectives are juxtaposed with orally transmitted living histories passed down within villages and communities. Like many of Sibikwa’s plays its legacy is accessible only via access to working rehearsal drafts of the script and in the memories of those who worked on the production. As discussed in an earlier chapter, the heritage sector has made a demonstrable impact on the cultural landscape through erecting public memorials and ensuring that appropriate public repositories of cultural history have been constructed. Sibikwa’s 20th-anniversary celebrations were held in 2008 at the Apartheid Museum in a declaration of the interconnectedness of disparate cultural networks and the scope for further partnerships between heritage sites and work in arts, culture, and community development. As Klotz puts it: We were very fortunate to secure that venue. We were even more fortunate in our timing because our celebration coincided with a Steve Biko exhibition in that space that we used. It was all highly symbolic for us, and we felt very comfortable there. The Marimba bands were playing as people arrived and they were met and then escorted in by young Sibikwa students. During the evening these young students went round from table to table telling their stories of Sibikwa. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Multiplicity and diversity are continually embraced along with the dynamism of languages and cultural identity. Interpersonal communication is a current that readily assimilates and adapts: the emergent hybrid is accommodating. Klotz explains her personal experience of a multi-lingual workplace: To talk of the significance of symbols and language at Sibikwa … I am white and grew up under apartheid, so I speak some Afrikaans. Coming from the Western Cape, isiXhosa was not something I was familiar with. Once I started to work in the townships, my ear started to get attuned to isiXhosa […] At Sibikwa, isiZulu is the predominant language. Smal is Zulu, so we follow that from respect. When we work with other groups – Sesotho or Setswana or other languages, it really is not an issue: languages flow and interchange the whole time. And of course, it is very important to us that people are free to express themselves as naturally as possible. I have a working knowledge of Gauteng Zulu which is not the same as isiZulu 101. I can understand but when I need to, I ask for translation. Think about Gauteng: one person will speak in Setswana. The reply might be in Zulu. That’s Gauteng. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Ndaba’s play, iLembe (2016), is a nuanced manifestation of the kind of retrieval that commemorative exercises may take. This project went beyond reliance on

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isiZulu as the dominant language for expression: the way in which it was made, was anchored, referred to the organic and collective narrative record of Izibongo [praise poems] in which collaborative and collective or communal authorship is crucial. The script intertwined written records with oral history to offer a multi-perspectival account of the life and legacy of King Shaka. Like the history that it examined, the play probed and staged the problems embedded in assuming that any single fixed perspective might offer up categorical truth: the relativity of perception is lodged in cultural perspectives. The play grapples with belief systems, received wisdom – or as the White Paper puts it – African knowledge systems with its emphasis on oral transmission of ideas and values across generations, while grappling with the unavoidable consequence of socio-cultural intersection and borrowing. Diverse perspectives, different narrative strands, and sources are interwoven into a unified whole or tapestry within dramatic idiom. The underlying rationale or principle of embracing pluralities and multiplicities seemingly contributes to Sibikwa’s hosting conferences and workshops with similar community projects and the presentation of multiple productions through the format of a festival.

Festivals, fostering partnerships and dialogues: Outreach and conferences Sibikwa’s 30th anniversary was an all-day celebration. The event intertwined speeches, performances, and feasting at the Liverpool Road premises. The landmark occasion emphasised community participation in many ways: from formal tributes to performance contributions of returning alumni who embodied the spirit of generational skills’ transfer and continuity through their facilitation of student presentations. Inclusivity appeared to be an organic and uncontrived outcome of how participants valued all that Sibikwa has stood for across the years. The chronicle of Sibikwa has largely been via the lens of productions made by Ndaba and Klotz partly because that is how they themselves map their journey, but other aspects of presenting productions also point to significant aspects of their work. Encounters and exchanges between individuals and groups have long featured as part of the Sibikwa calendar. The imperatives of community outreach and partnership with similar arts training and community projects in Gauteng and across the entire country have emerged as a significant outcome of Sibikwa’s growth and sustainability. As Klotz has observed, languages do not have to continue to represent barriers in communication. During an interview she claimed: “I’ve never seen language as a barrier. It can always be a tool that brings people together” (Interview 4, 6 March 2021). A range of performance languages have achieved this goal at Sibikwa particularly with the various festivals which Klotz consistently stresses. From inception, the various festivals at Sibikwa have emphasised inclusivity and diversity. They range from single-day events to competitions with prizes that take place over two or three days. Their thematic focal points reinforce retrieval and

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promotion of diverse forms of African culture. They include storytelling, dance, women’s poetry, the play competition, drumming days, and Heritage Day celebrations. There are, broadly speaking, two areas of operations: first, outreach programmes which interface with other community projects situated outside of Gauteng that share Sibikwa’s methods; second, the partnership in co-hosting national EU-sponsored conferences. Both attest to organisational and marketing capacities and an extended outreach network. For example, the Dance Explosion attracts a wide range of participants even if it requires that companies participate at their own cost and payment of a R200.00 registration fee. Not only has it been consistently well-subscribed, but it also provides audiences with sustained diversity in the line-up of emergent performance modalities. The annual storytelling festival (2005–2016/17) has attracted participants from as far afield as Malawi, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. Despite the eagerness on the part of some storytellers to translate stories into English, Ndaba and Klotz urge mother-tongue expression in the interests of authenticity. The Women’s Poetry Festival – an all-day event at Sibikwa – has subsequently been presented at Baseline in Newtown. The driving principle is consistent: Sibikwa initiates and promotes partnerships. Ndaba makes two points about the festival programmes and what they achieve as forms of inter-generational transfer of African knowledge systems and traditional forms of expression. He stresses how important they are as vehicles of cultural identity with reference to cautionary tales and dance forms: We started with the storytelling festival. It is part of our culture. Our grannies used to tell us stories. Stories that can make us aware of the dangers in life. So, they are very important for young people so that they learn how to behave. And about traditional dancing: some kids in the townships in our community have never seen Pedi dancing or Zulu dancing because it is not there. But they want to know about these dances that are never done. As it is, everything is changing. But these young kids are interested and moving towards these forms of dancing now. They are proud of their cultural traditions. They are proud of cultural dances. Seeing and learning these dances is helping them to know who they are instead of learning hip-hop or what is not part of indigenous culture. They are becoming fuller versions of themselves. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) In addition to facilitating convergence at Sibikwa with festivals, the generative impact and influence of the project’s outreach programmes is directed towards enabling and advancing operations within other community arts and education centres. In their individual capacities, Ndaba and Klotz have been active in promoting training and teaching. Sibikwa actively forges connections, promotes dialogue through sharing strategies, methodologies, and exchanging

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insights and problems encountered. This initiative creates a sense of extended community and responds to the need for spanning engagement beyond specific and local communities. They also bring individuals to Sibikwa to facilitate skills transfer in clear demonstration of embedded commitments to the goal of developing. Ndaba offers this insight: First, around Sibikwa there are many other venues like Sibikwa where they do drama and arts training: at Tembisa and Springs, for example. But in many cases, they don’t have the “backbone” like Sibikwa. We should not be selfish and save these things for ourselves. We try to assist them to be on par with us through capacity building so that they can sustain their own organisations. They must know how we do things. We share that information so that they are also effective in their work and are able to run projects like Sibikwa does and enjoy success like us. When they get money, they must be able to administer that successfully. Our view is … let’s share knowledge. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Klotz explains the rationale for the models of vocational training outreach that they have adopted. Despite the willingness to adopt a dual aspect approach through models of working with other projects in their own environments, or alternatively at Sibikwa, she clearly favours the latter: We like to bring people to Sibikwa for vocational training. For example, arts administrators come here for a short skills art administration learnership for 2 or 3 weeks. They then go away and implement what they have learnt. They come back to Sibikwa to report. Coming to us makes people focus, they don’t have to worry about daily chores. We host young artists from theatres in KZN, one or two in the Free State, one in Northern Cape … there are not a lot of theatres. It is better for us to be at home where we have the resources: a theatre, a dance studio, lights, sound. We have everything that is needed to support training on hand. Before Covid, we would take these young artists to see other productions – plays, dance, art – to broaden their horizons. Again, away from the home environment they can focus and devote themselves entirely to training. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Both Ndaba and Klotz have travelled as guests of the European Union to see community arts centres in Europe and Ireland and Sibikwa has hosted three EU-SA dialogues in this country. This partnership is the outcome of successful application to the invitation circulated by the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) in around 2017, some four years ago. Klotz’s application was followed by a formal interview with the selection panel at which the board of selectors were hearing presentations from short-listed candidates representing other community programmes. Sibikwa’s successful pitch for the contract has

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proved productive even if Klotz is ambivalent about the outcomes. The dialogues remain ongoing with one final national conference to be convened by Sibikwa. I am proud but also sad that Sibikwa, on a national basis is considered the country’s foremost community arts centre. There is no other centre like this one. That’s a crying shame. There should be at least one other centre like it in every single province, even if the metros and provinces do not value what we do. The dialogues are about promoting community arts centres. They are about promoting access to the arts. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Klotz expands on the reasons for seeking out alternatives to relying on the DAC for support for Sibikwa and the need to reposition itself within national, regional, and local government structures: The DAC, although they partnered with the EU financially with these SA-EU dialogues, this DAC has not followed up on the outcomes and recommendations that have emerged from the conferences. Like establishing task teams. They have just not done that. Great pity. But we do now have a champion in government: COGTA (Corporate Governance and Traditional Affairs) along with SALGA (South African Local Government Association) and South African Cities Network. We are working with all of them now. We have signed an m.o.a. with COGTA. I have changed my sense of where Arts and Culture should be positioned. Arts and Culture started out as an oppositional movement during apartheid. And we remained on the outside of a transformation and development programme for a long time. But the time has now come for us to shift radically. Unless we get Arts and Culture on the municipal agenda as part of the Integrated Development Plan, it is never going to develop or gain support. It can do with COGTA’s district development plans. We are trying to position arts and culture on provincial and city level agendas. Municipal agendas. It must be part of “what they do and budget for”. Toyi-toying at the DAC is an expression of powerlessness. Our power, in arts and culture, has to be within government structures forcing them to place us on their agenda. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) In one respect, the position declared in this statement is a profound indictment of policy development, implementation inadequacies, and inept governance. Alternatively, the conclusion drawn suggests integrating arts and culture, and its training, within the project of social development is a forceful and generative strategic proposition that resolves some of the inherent contradictions and tensions in the draft White Paper.

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The spirit of Sibikwa As an outsider of long-standing and varied associations with Sibikwa, I marvel at its sustainability and growth. The passionate commitment and dedication of Ndaba and Klotz are inseparable from these achievements. Together they have inculcated and advanced core values that have ensured success, growth, and continuity. These core values may be consciously declared but are also unconsciously implemented in everyday operations in which sharing and serving a local community is pronounced. Programmes are characterised by constant emphasis on inclusivity, accessibility, and growth. But the attempt to account for the spirit of Sibikwa requires probing beyond an audit of deliverables to probe a work ethic in terms of an established manner, customs, and tone of interactions. Joyful celebration, rewarding creative play, enjoyable spontaneous expression, and pride in achievements are all central to everyday routine experiences at Sibikwa. Most crucially, a culture of respect – in self, for others, for collective efforts – is embedded in all that Sibikwa does. Ndaba’s selfless dedication to capacity building in others – individuals and groups – is clear. His constant emphasis is on accountability. Informed professional practice as a work ethic depends on proactive attitudes, development, and commitment to informed best practice. Skills transfer is a paramount objective. Klotz’s tribute to him is straightforward: “He has a lifelong dedication to others.” His own sentiments modestly bear out his continued pastoral care, as he says: “Partnerships share information. That’s important. Moving together, we can know what we all need” (Interview 4, March 2021). Klotz credits Sibikwa’s success story in pithy conclusion to two crucial attributes: “Integrity and pride. These are the values that have carried us through.” She lists six crucial qualities as contributing to notions of integrity and pride: “authenticity,” reciprocal respect, nurturing an aspirational ethos, delivering on expectations, flexibility, and inclusivity. Authenticity refers to multiple aspects of the project, its process, and creative outputs which emerge organically or derive naturally from the context. She claims: Sibikwa is authentic. It is what it is. It is an authentic centre. What we produce is authentic. The productions are authentic. Authentic to our target market. Not overlaid with pretentions. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) The term “authentic” has lately achieved such purchase and currency that its meaning and value risk clarity. It seems reasonable to understand Klotz’s use of the word as an affirmation of a gritty determination to announce an identity and mode of interaction that is not modelled along the lines of the work of others although it may draw, selectively, on what is productive in other projects. The premises, its output, and aspirations continue to be firmly rooted

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in what is local and specific. Beyond these organic characteristics, the connotations attached to “authentic” incorporate or imply an honest expression of remaining true to heritage in a synthesis with the present in a nuanced resistance of essentialising cultural identity as a fixed or immutable phenomenon. At Sibikwa “authenticity” is made visible in the gritty pragmatism that continues to anchor all that the project (in its entirety) unapologetically aspires towards. Respect and dignity are markers of interpersonal relations at Sibikwa and act as crucial mechanisms for building confidence in the reliability of the project with its assurances of delivery. In Klotz’s words: The students know that we respect them. They come to us, clearly sceptical. Then they get a schedule – so trivial – but subsequently everything goes according to that schedule. It starts to build respect for the institution. We respect them. We expect them to rise to the occasion. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) The work is rigorous, neither patronising nor deferential. Challenges are set out and participants are constantly urged to respond to tasks fearlessly with the aid of guidance and supports provided. Klotz categorically refutes the strategy of accommodating failure. The pedagogical encounter with a person who has failed matric is not met with concessions: We are not about: “Oh shame, that child does not have a matric … so what they are doing is just fine.” We never take that attitude. We might approve and encourage, saying that’s OK. But we raise the bar. We have expectations all the time. For instance, Smal working with kids of mixed abilities: in ten days they can go on stage. There they are. Not good. But starting. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021) Innovation is linked with proactive attitudes towards inclusivity and making this community centre attractive to participants. The innovative energy is harnessed to the status of the institution with its flexible or dynamic operations, as Klotz suggests: Everyone is given a chance. You could come and say you would like to do ballroom dancing. We will never say “no”. If you want to do it, we will find out what it entails and make it possible, if we can find the money. We can turn around very quickly. We are not a government organisation. If we want to do something, we don’t have to fill in a million papers and get Board approval. We write the proposals – providing it is within our mandate – and get the money. (Interview 4, 6 March 2021)

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Conclusion: “… the struggle of memory against forgetting” This multi-perspectival narration of the long journey of Sibikwa has navigated the unfolding of time and events of recent history. Work continues in the Liverpool Road premises that Ndaba had identified decades ago. Its location and first impressions retain markers of its past. Major investment in upgrading and refurbishing the premises have accomplished much. The courtyards, classrooms, theatre, and offices are bright, airy, welcoming, and whimsical spaces creating an inviting and open atmosphere in which to congregate, play, work, and create. Klotz remains an indefatigable fund-raiser directing much of the undiminished formidable energy to fundraising and planning. Ndaba, with his endless patience, continues to work quietly and modestly with youngsters to nurture and develop confidence and skills through close and careful mentoring. Klotz has also been highly active as board member of both the State and Market Theatres and is thoroughly versed in their programmes, management and operations, asset registers, and funding allocations. Both continue to support the productions staged by young artists as regular audience members – in person and online – of emerging new works in dance, music, and drama. Sibikwa thrives independently of the need for a reciprocal interest from many urban theatre practitioners. As at the outset, the Benoni project never did depend on this constituency. But Sibikwa is more than a place, an infrastructure, and its creative projects. It is the expanding community of a participatory audience that gathers to proclaim its collective identity and ensures its continued strength. Many urban cultural institutions – or theatres – might envy this people-centred accomplishment. During his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden (20.01.2021) emphasised the theme of unity to a deeply divided nation fractured by “anger, resentment, hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness, hopelessness.” This event took place 232 years after George Washington had taken the oath of office as the first president in 1789 rather than the mere 27 years since President Mandela was sworn in. For Biden, unity and collective action are the crucial underpinnings for delivering transformation and healing a splintered society. He turned to a philosophical theologian to identify what might promote unity and collective action: “Many centuries ago, Saint Augustine, a saint of my church, wrote that a people is a multitude defined by the common objects of their love.” He then posed the question and listed people-centred values: “What are the common objects we love that define us as Americans? Opportunity. Security. Liberty. Dignity. Respect. Honour. Truth.” The values chime with values upheld collectively in South Africa with its 27-year history of democracy and considerably longer commitment to Ubuntu values. Ubuntu prioritises social cohesion, human rights, and justice, which remain fundamental to the ongoing project of transformation in the country.

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In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), expatriate Czech novelist Milan Kundera coined the memorable – and even autonomous phrase – “the struggle of humanity against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” The phrase is frequently, if partially, cited. It aptly defines the process of generating these contextual chapters in collaboration with Ndaba and Klotz in our joint efforts towards remembering. There has been much that has triggered laughter. There is much that we have forgotten. Our joint subjectivities predispose us to the highly selective process of remembering – and omitting events – which a reader might consider pivotal to a socio-political history. Selection has been inevitable. Omissions are unintentional and regrettable. We have tried to recall core aspects of continued struggles against various manifestations of power as an ethical commitment to shared humanity. Crucially, Kundera’s statement in its entirety sums up all that Sibikwa can rightly celebrate as its past accomplishments and vision. “The struggle for humanity and everyday social justice” continues.

Notes 1 Grotowski’s influence on emergent South African Theatre and drama training is profound but not unproblematic. His method has clear appeal as does the message of his key text Towards a Poor Theatre the title of which appears to have triggered and promoted misreadings which are repeated without working through the rationale for this style of theatre. Arguably, it is dangerously naïve and reductive to conflate “poverty” with reduced reliance on the accretions of costume, scenery, lighting, and technology in order to dispense with the importance of financial resources. Poor theatre, per Grotowski’s formulation, is unapologetic and acknowledges no deficit. His model explicitly eliminates accretions in order to celebrate the uniqueness of the theatre medium as an audienceactor encounter. A more productive understanding of Grotowski’s ideas would be to describe such theatre, in which playwright, narrative, and even character might reasonably be dispensed with, as “actor-centric.” 2 He continues: “I observed in 1999 that: [A]n increasingly familiar commercial and industrial landscape has progressively drawn the population into a unifying pattern of economic activities. A replicated landscape of major commercial chains throughout the country has, over the decades, become a feature of how the land is imagined. Spatial familiarity of this sort renders the land familiar, less strange and more accommodating wherever you may be in the country. This kind of familiarity may have a binding effect, which cuts across the particularising tendencies of geographic and ethnic location” (Ndebele, 1996, n.p.).

References Biden, J. (2021) Inaugural Address. Available at https://www.politico.com/news/2021/ 01/20/joe-biden-inauguration-speech-transcript-full-text-460813 Constitution of South Africa. Available at https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/ pdf.html Gqola, P.D. (2017) Rape, a South African Nightmare. Johannesburg: Jacana. Interview 4: 6 March 2021 Johannesburg.

The struggle for social justice 113 Levine, D.N. (1971) Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ndebele, N. (1996) ’Thinking of Brenda: The Desire to Be in Njabulo S Ndebele’s’. Fine Lines from the Box: Further Thoughts about Our Country. Roggebaai: Umuzi, 2007. www. umuzi-randomhouse.co.za Roberts, S.E. (2015) ‘The Pioneers’, in Middeke, M., Schnierer, P. and Homann, G. (eds.) The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre. London: Bloomberg Methuen Drama, pp. 17–41. Roberts, S.E. (2021) Unpublished interview 4 held with Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz on 6 March 2021 in Johannesburg. Sachs, A. (1982) The Gaborone Memorandum. Available at https://www.sahistory.org.za/ sites/default/files/file%20uploads%20/memorandum_on_the_culture_and_resistance. pdf. Accessed 2 February 2021. The Mail and Guardian. ’Change the Names to Rid SA of Its Colonial, Apartheid Past’. Accessible at https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-21-00-change-the-names-to-rid-sa-ofits-colonial-apartheid-past/ Wa Thiong’o, N. (1993) Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. Oxford: James Currey.

Appendix 1: A chronology of major political events, cultural developments, and Sibikwa plays 1 Sibikwa during the Apartheid Years (and the years leading up to the foundation of Sibikwa) 1970 1972 1975 1976 1977 1978 1983–1994 1984–1989 1989–1994 1980/1984/1986

5–9/71982 August 1983

SASM (South African Students’ Movement) founded Black Consciousness Movement founded Inkatha Freedom Party founded 16 June Soweto Uprising Stephen Bantu Biko dies in detention FUBA founded by Benjy Francis and Sipho Sepamla TRI-CAMERAL PARLIAMENT President: P W Botha (National Party) President: F W de Klerk (National Party) UN Resolution 1980, 35/206; USA disinvestment; Economic sanctions (UK and Europe) extended (trade barriers, tariffs, and restrictions on financial transactions) Gaborone Botswana – Symposium/Festival. United Democratic Front (UDF) formed at Mitchells’ Plain Cape Town (https://www.saha.org.za/udf/origins.htm). Dr Allan Boesak “We cannot accept a ‘new deal’ which makes apartheid work even better. We cannot accept a future for our people when we had no say in it. And we cannot accept a ‘solution’ which says yes to homelands, the Group Areas Act, to laws which make us believe that we are separate and unequal” (January 1983).

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FUNDA founded in Diepkloof, Soweto. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. (Chief Albert Luthuli was honoured with the same award in 1961.) 15/8/1985 PW Botha – Rubicon Speech; 16/8/1985 Oliver Tambo /ANC response to Rubicon Speech. 1985 COSATU established on the dissolution of FOSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) 20/7/1985–March State of Emergency declared – specific magisterial districts. These 1986 conditions were to last for 9 months. 1986 You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock (Klotz and Vusisizwe Players) 14–19/12/1987 CASA – Amsterdam: Culture in Another South Africa. 1988 Sibikwa founded So Where To? 12/6/1986–June National State of Emergency declared to last four years 1990 11/2/1990 Nelson Mandela released from Robben Island after 27 years of imprisonment. First public address Cape Town. 1989 Albie Sachs presents “Preparing Ourselves for Freedom” at ANC inhouse seminar on culture. 1990 ANC unbanned. (It had been founded 8/1/1912 and was banned 8/ 4/1960 by President Swart.) 14/9/1991 National Peace Accord. Nadine Gordimer wins Nobel Prize for literature. 1991 Sibikwa begins to operate from premises in Liverpool Street D.E.T. Boys High 29/11/1991 Codesa 1; Codesa 2 at Kempton Park. Boipatong massacre Bilateral negotiations ANC and NP The term African Renaissance enters the public domain. Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) gains momentum. Equity policies are implemented. 17/3/1992 National Referendum (whites only) on ending Apartheid. 85.08 % turnout of registered voters. Result: 68.73% in favour. 1992 Kwela Bafana 1993 Interim Constitution approved in Kempton Park. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 200 of 1993. East Rand violence: Katlehong, Tokoza, Vosloosrus 31/3/1994 Natal – State of Emergency 27/4/1994 First democratic elections and Interim Constitution came into effect. 10/5/1994 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Inaugurated as the first democratically elected president of South Africa. 1994 Ubuntu Bomhlaba

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2 Democracy the first Decade: The Mandela-Mbeki years (1994–2005) 1994–1999 1999–2008 1994

1995

1995/6 1996 1996 1996

1997

1997 1998

1998 1998

President: Nelson Mandela (2 deputies – F W De Klerk and Thabo Mbeki) President Mbeki (1999–2008) – Zuma as Deputy. Interim Constitution in effect; the Constitutional Court was officially opened on 21 March 2004 on Constitution Hill. South Africa was readmitted to United Nations; readmitted to Olympic Games. Reconstruction and Development Programme signed off as policy. (February) Capital punishment abolished by the Constitutional Court in its first hearing. The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 is signed into law 1 October: The Public Protector’s Office (with Selby Baqwa as the first Public Protector) is established. The Street Children Project Ghamka Uhambo – The Journey 15.4.1996: TRC hearings started. They were to continue to 2002, although originally mandated to conclude 1998. May: Mbeki accepts the draft of new Constitution and delivers his “I am an African” address. The National Party withdraws from the Coalition Government giving the ANC full political control. 10.12.1996: The new constitution is signed into law. On the resignation of Chris Liebenberg, Trevor Manuel is appointed Minister of Finance. Growth, Employment and Redistribution macro-economic plan (GEAR) is announced (as a refinement of economic aspects of RDP) 7.2.1997 the Constitution with its Bill of Rights comes into effect. A combined version of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and Die Stem van Suid-Afrika is first performed as the National Anthem. Mbeki is elected president of ANC. He articulates core elements of an African Renaissance: social cohesion, democracy, economic re-building, and growth, i.e., cultural, scientific, and economic renewal. Key Speech delivered the following year April 1998. Flower Of Hope The Constitutional Court invalidates extant sodomy laws. Nelson Mandela receives the Truth and Reconciliation Report. Mbeki attempts to block the publication of the report which he rejects because it details ANC crimes in camps in Angola in mid-80s. National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) begins function as per mandate outlined in Constitution. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is launched by activist Zachie Achmat. Isizwe Sethu Red Shoes Bleading

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1999 2000 2001

2001 2002

2002 2002 2002 2003

2004

2004 2005

Sarah Roberts Judge Edwin Cameron, human rights advocate and Constitution Court Judge announces that he is HIV positive. The Arms Procurement Deal and the loan agreement to pay for the equipment. Behind Closed Doors 13th International AIDS conference. Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. November 2001: the Apartheid Museum adjacent to Gold Reef City opened. AIDS denialism: The Department of Health declines the offer of a large donation of HIV test kits. 11 April: Pfizer Inc. agrees to supply AIDS patients attending public hospitals with an unlimited two-year supply of Fluconazole. 12-year-old Nkosi Johnson (the longest survival of child born HIV positive) dies. Rape of nine months old “Baby Tshepang” in Upington. David Potse (23) sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2002. The Stadium New Economic Plan for African Development (NEPAD) is launched. Saartjie (Sara) Baartman’s remains are returned to South Africa from France. Doctors Without Borders begins importing a cheap generic version of patented AIDS drugs into South Africa in defiance of South Africa’s patent laws; March 27: Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang approaches the Constitutional Court to stop the issuing of Nevirapine. 10 October: President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki states that AIDS drugs are dangerously toxic to people and questions whether HIV or poverty is the true cause of Aids. 16 June: The Hector Pieterson Museum becomes the first museum to open in Soweto. At the Union Buildings in Pretoria a monument to the Women’s March of 1956 is completed. Trash Truck Bells Of Amersfoort Fair Wealth South Africa co-hosts the ICC Cricket World Cup; The name of the town Louis Trichardt is changed to Makhado TRC releases final report; 46664 first concert held in Cape Town. Third democratic elections are held and won by the African National Congress. Nelson Mandela announces he is “retiring from retirement.” South Africa announces that it will buy the Airbus A400M transport aircraft Brenda Fassie dies on 9th May. April Fools Child Back Economic Empowerment (BEE) is formally implemented. BEE aimed at redressing past inequities through the substantial and equitable transfer of the management of financial and economic resources to majority Broader based of economic participation (BEE Commission report). In terms of macro-economic policy, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa plan (ASGISA) is signed off to reduce poverty and halve unemployment. Implementation of ASGISA was tentative and the policy had limited impact. Pretoria’s council votes to change the city’s name to Tshwane.

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2008 2009–2018 2018 2006

2006 2006 2007

2008

2008 2008 2009

2009

Schabir Shaik is found guilty and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on two counts of corruption and 3 years on a count of fraud. Jacob Zuma is relieved of his post as Deputy President of South Africa, following the verdict in Schabir Shaik’s; is himself to stand trial in 2006 JULY. Public protests and Strike action: The South African Municipal Workers Union holds a one-day strike during wage negotiations. South African Airways cabin crew workers go on strike over a wage dispute. Workers of Pick ’n Pay, a large supermarket chain store, go on strike. The South African Municipal Workers Union holds a three-day strike. The National Union of Mineworkers goes on strike to demand better pay. The South African Municipal Workers Union goes on strike. Jacob Zuma is charged with corruption by the National Prosecuting Authority. December: The Constitutional Court orders parliament to amend the marriage laws to allow homosexual weddings within a year. 6/12/2005: Jacob Zuma, former Deputy President of South Africa, is charged with rape. South Africa hosts the Rugby world cup. President Mothlante President Zuma President Ramaphosa Jacob Zuma acquitted of rape charges. First load shedding. Koeberg nuclear power station automatically disconnects leaving large parts of the Western Cape without electricity. Erratic rolling blackouts cause around R500 billion in losses to industry. New Economic Plan for African Development NEPAD announced. Adriaan Vlok (a former Cabinet Minister of the National Party) washes the feet of Rev Frank Chikane (Gevisser, p. 783). Maru You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock (Revival) Freedom Park situated on Salvokop in Pretoria opens to commemorate liberation struggle heroes (Steve Biko, Oliver Tambo, Helen Joseph, Albert Lutuli, and Bram Fischer) along with international and continental leaders Mozambican President Samora Machel and Amílcar Cabral. Jackie Selebi suspended as South Africa’s National Police Commissioner as the National Prosecuting Authority states that it will bring charges against him for corruption and defeating the ends of justice Xenophobic attacks in urban areas. Zuma corruption charges dismissed. Mbeki is “recalled” by ANC. Eleven cabinet ministers resign. Julius Caesar Mary and Joseph – a Nativity Play For the first time in South Africa, court proceedings in a trial are conducted entirely in isiZulu in Msinga. The proceedings are part of a pilot project to offer “access to justice for all” National Elections. Jacob Zuma takes office as President. South African economy enters a recession for the first time in 17 years. Animal Farm

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2010

2010 2011

16/8/2012

2013

2014

2014 2015

2010 FIFA World Cup takes place in South Africa. Jackie Selebi is found guilty of corruption, but not guilty on further charges of perverting the course of justice. In the wake of Mbeki being “recalled” by the ANC, the New Growth Plan (NGP) is signed off by President Zuma to stimulate economic development. Malindi – the Sex Strike National Development Plan (replaces NEPAD) and aims to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by 2030. The 14th Dalai Lama is refused a visa (for the second time) and is unable to attend the 80th birthday celebration of fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu. Lonmin mine: Marikana massacre. South African Government commissions inquiry into the shooting at Marikana. Job losses: Anglo American Platinum mothballs its two least profitable platinum mines, sells another and cuts 14,000 jobs. Julius Malema forms the EFF. The government introduced the National Development Plan (NDP) – this economic proposal would be another “blueprint for eliminating poverty and reducing inequality in South Africa by 2030” (see “South Africa’s Key Economic Policy Changes (1994–2013)” https://www.sahistory.org.za/ sites/default/files/the_reconstruction_and_development_programm_1994 Paralympian Oscar Pistorius shoots and kills Reeva Forman on Valentine’s Day. Sentenced to 6 years (2014) and extended (2016) to a further 13 years. Ministers of Police Nathi Mthethwa, Public Works Thulas Nxesi, State Security Siyabonga Cwele, and Defence Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula declare that it is illegal to publish photographs of President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence on which R206 million in public funds has been spent. Confidential preliminary report by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela on public expenditure on President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence is leaked in the press. President Nelson Mandela dies. His funeral was attended by more than 125 heads of state, heads of government, and leaders of international organizations. Over 189 countries and 27 international organizations were represented. In this event, President Jacob Zuma is booed repeatedly by thousands of the attendees. Education: Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga announces a record 78.2% national pass rate in the 2013 matric examinations, achieved by lowering the minimum passing requirement to 40% in three subjects and 30% in the rest. 2014 National Elections take place and the African National Congress remains in power. iLembe Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu Freedom Square opens in Mamelodi Township outside Pretoria in a major boost for township tourism in Gauteng City Region. Cost: R49 million. Revised White Paper on Arts Culture and Heritage circulates. Renewed xenophobic uprisings taking place, mainly targeted towards Africans from other countries.

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2016

2016 2017 2018

2018 2019

2020 2020

Social protest Rhodes Must Fall started in 2015. Drop in its matric pass rate from 2013 to 2014. matric pass rate has dropped to 75.8% after reaching a record high of 78.2% in 2013 #feesmustfall protests on campuses across the country and continue to disrupt tertiary institutions in the years that follow. 2015 crime statistics presented by police commissioner Riah Phiyega and minister Nathi Nhleko, indicate an increase in the rate of murder and violent crime in the country Municipal elections. The ANC holds onto majority vote in most municipalities in South Africa but the Democratic Alliance gain the key metros of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth. At the result announcement a protest by Rape activists commemorates 10 years since Zuma’s acquittal on charges of rape. White Paper: arts culture and heritage draft 2. Women’s Living Heritage Monument Lillian Ngoyi Square, unveiled by President Jacob Zuma on Women’s Day 9 Aug, 8 October 2016 – Khwezi dies. Chapter 2 Section 9 Equality White Paper: arts culture and heritage draft 3 (June) draft 4 October. 9th January: President Jacob Zuma announces a commission of inquiry into allegations of State capture. Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo to head the commission. The commission remains ongoing in 2021 at the time of writing. 13th February: ANC recalls Jacob Zuma as President of South Africa. 15th February: President Cyril Ramaphosa is sworn in. Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) stated that the time had come to discuss the possibility of reinstating the death penalty in South Africa. Supported by National Freedom party. Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture starts. Shadows Of Metsi Xenophobic riots against foreigners leave five dead. Mass protests against gender-based violence and femicide occur after the news of student Uyinene Mrwetyana’s death. Siya Kholisi (b 1991) is the first black captain of the Springboks and leads the team to victory in the SA wins Rugby World Cup Amavuso Project Arrest warrant for former president Jacob Zuma on corruption charges. 5th March: The COVID-19 pandemic spread to South Africa, with the first confirmed case announced on 5 March 2020 by Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize.[7] th 15 March: President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation and announced that there shouldn’t be any gathering which is more than 100 people until further notice to avoid the spreading of COVID-19 pandemic. 23rd March: President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation and announced a 21-day national lockdown effective from midnight 26 March through to 16 April, with the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and South African Police Service (SAPS) to support the government.

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Jacob Zuma refused to appear before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture (initiated January 2018) as one of the outcomes of the report by Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela. The matter was referred to the Constitutional Court which found Former-President Jacob Zuma guilty of contempt of court in a landmark ruling. Zuma was accordingly sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment. Extensive media coverage stresses that this is a civil rather than criminal matter: the length of the sentence imposed is atypical and unprecedented. Zuma announces that he will submit application for recission of judgement on the grounds that he did not refuse to testify, rather that he required Zondo to recuse himself before he would do so. National media debates centre on the Constitutional Court obligation to uphold the right of all individuals to due process: the right to be heard and to defend one’s case remains a cornerstone of the law: Zuma had been afforded the right to be heard by the court but was not heard because of exercising his option not to appear. The Concourt ruling is described as 1) affirming the principle of equality before the law and an affirmation of the independence of the judiciary. 2) it affirms the principles of the Constitution and the role of the Office of the Public Protector as instruments for protecting democracy.

Part II

7

Governance of Sibikwa Arts Centre: A reflection on the agility, progress, and longevity of the organisation Munyaradzi Chatikobo and Caryn Green

Introduction Sibikwa Arts Centre’s resilience in the face of South Africa’s capricious socioeconomic history and political transitions over the last three decades has attracted considerable attention from many practitioners and academics interested in understanding the principles, trends, and best practices for the effective gov­ ernance, management, and sustainability of cultural institutions. Sibikwa’s longevity, significantly attributed to the agility of its cultural governance model in relation to systemic contextual challenges and change, illustrates a respon­ siveness to increasingly formalised policies and procedures, put into practice through multiple legislatures – sometimes non-cultural in their perspectives. Based on a philosophy recognising artistic expression as vitally important in shaping societal cultural practices, and positioning community arts centres as custodians of cultural values, Sibikwa’s approach to advancement and sustain­ ability began and remains centred on collective participation and governance. Over the past three decades, as the country has transitioned and transformed into one that upholds democracy, redress, inclusivity, and equality, so has Sibikwa changed and developed its approach to the management and govern­ ance of its operations. Looking at the history of Sibikwa in relation to sociopolitical contexts, developments in policy and legislation, and their implications on the strategic vision, purpose, and mission of the organisation, it is intended that lessons be drawn from this chapter for the perpetuation of the organisation and the advancement of the broader community arts sector. Considering the key contextual and organisational challenges influencing and impacting the gov­ ernance of cultural institutions, within a view of elements of good governance, emerging trends, and future priorities, this chapter reflects on seven key prin­ ciples of cultural governance to better understand the elements and implications of Sibikwa’s approach on its flexibility, progress, and longevity. The notion of cultural governance, evolving from the universal practice of corporate governance that “deals with the ways in which suppliers of finance to corporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment” (Shleifer and Vishny, 1997, p. 727), reflects the growing importance of un­ derstanding, protecting, and leveraging diverse cultural practices in a changing DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-9

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world (global inter-culturalism), changing arts system (more inclusive interest in culture), changing cultural policy systems (integrated development), and changing arts funding systems (and business models). This chapter focuses on Sibikwa’s application of the five key principles of cultural governance, defined by King and Schramme (2019) as referring to the relationship of the board and management to legislators and stakeholders, as located in concepts of role and power, transparency, accountability, composition, and contribution; along with two additional principles of representation and participation suggested by Joffe et al. (2019) in consideration of the peculiarities and nuances of the South African context. Within the South African context, there are a host of external historical, political, social, and economic factors as well as internal organisational factors that influence and impact the execution of good governance in community arts centres and cultural institutions. External drivers may include precarious political behaviours, changing economic patterns of giving and volunteering, a lack of evidence-based evaluation and decision-making strategies, shifting natures and expectations of communities, digital developments and disruptions, and “cause” competition. Internal challenges impacting sound governance have been iden­ tified as a consequence of limited access to cultural policy and management training, incompatibility of compliance requirements and organisational realities, unsustainable economies of scale, and tensions between boards and management based on different understandings of the business of community arts – all per­ petuating problematic perceptions of sector non-compliance. These challenges significantly affect core practices as mandated by those entities sustained primarily by public funds for the purpose of public benefit. This includes the requirements of participation, accountability, transparency, and equity which necessitate re­ sponsiveness, efficient and effective governance, a consensus orientation, and a strategic vision. Delivering on these necessities may position the sector well in achieving the benefits of long-term and strategic thinking, increased collabora­ tion across NGOs and integration in other sectors, the adoption of technology, increased connection with communities, and organisational agility required for survival, sustainability, and success. Exploring the advancement of Sibikwa as a leading arts centre in South Africa, this chapter aims to ascertain and provide insight into its strategic change management capacities – facilitating and representing multi-cultural interactions and identities, promoting innovative methods of audience de­ velopment, exercising effective strategic leadership, and fostering a sustainable mixed funding system. It will provide an overview of Sibikwa’s cultural governance approach to balance being of service to communities, while producing and presenting quality arts engagements, and complying with leg­ islation. This documentation, interpretation, and analysis of the core gov­ ernance and change management features of Sibikwa’s evolution from a community arts project to a non-profit company and designated Centre of Excellence, will be supported by a review of cultural governance policy and literature, an overview of Sibikwa’s founding and management records,

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corroborated by interviews with directors of the organisation and its board, in order to address four central questions: 1 2 3 4

In what ways was the organisation’s governance shaped by transitions and transformations in local and global contexts? What are the implications of the seven key principles of cultural governance as applied in the organisation’s strategic decisions? What is the organisation’s governance and change management capacity for agility, progress, and longevity? How is the organisation positioning itself in relation to current governance trends and future priorities?

While the story of Sibikwa is documented in a number of research reports, and scholars such as Hagg (2010) have touched on its governance and management, their reference to Sibikwa’s cultural governance model is more anecdotal than empirical, and the need for systematic, substantiated and replicable evidence of the way Sibikwa’s cultural governance model was established, structured, per­ formed, and transformed, will be attended to in this chapter. However, given the expansive nature of governance issues, selective inclusion of certain gov­ ernance issues and exclusion of others had to be deployed to specifically address those governance issues linked to the key elements of Sibikwa’s cultural gov­ ernance approach that have directly contributed to the successes and longevity of the organisation. As such, further research with a more expansive research method, considering the views of all stakeholders, is recommended.

Brief historical, policy, and organisational context (challenges, transitions, and successes) Heeding a call from the community to establish a safe haven for young people amidst the tension and chaos of South Africa’s political and social landscape in the 1980s, in the grip of a national State of Emergency declared by the apartheid regime, Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz, renowned playwrights, directors, and arts educators, affectionately known as Bra Smal and Mam’ Phyllis, initiated the Sibikwa Community Arts Project in 1988, giving young people a channel to express their emotions through drama, dance, and music. The initial venue was Bra Smal’s modest home in Daveyton, and the first budget was R3,000 donated by Dr Mbilaze – a local Daveyton doctor. Ndaba and Klotz recall that We began Sibikwa 33 years ago with a single-minded and sustained commitment to issue-based arts programmes, arts education, inclusivity, and transformation. Set against a backdrop of contested and transforming political, socio-economic, and cultural landscapes from apartheid to a democratic dispensation in which the legacy of systematic discrimination and inequity still persists, the integrity of our work is a consequence of alignment with the struggles of our people and not dependent on crafting

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a message that explicitly promotes a party line. South Africa was a society in progress; there was a need to develop and promote South African forms of cultural expressions and affirm it; and to be socially engaged educators, artists, and administrators. (Interview, Klotz and Ndaba, 2021) In 1990, the Sibikwa Community Arts Project was officially registered as a non-profit company (NPC); and the first Board was instituted. As an entity of this nature, governed by the Non-Profit Organisations Act, No 71 of 1997, which came into effect on 1 September 1998, and Schedule 1 of the Companies Act No 71 of 2008, Sibikwa was further registered as a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) with the South African Revenue Service (SARS), and in terms of Section 30(1) and Section 10 (1)(cN) of the Income Tax Act, No 58 of 1962, and Paragraph 5.3.2.3 of the Tax Exemption Guide, is exempt from normal income tax and provides funders and donors with a taxdeductible Section 18(A) Certificate. Offering so much more than an opportunity to discover and hone creative talents, Sibikwa fostered self-confidence in the people it worked with and built their communication, life, and leadership skills. By 1991, the hub of activity outgrew Bra Smal’s home and, while working tirelessly to raise more funds, Sibikwa found its new home in a dilapidated old school in Benoni – gradually refurbished to stand as a beacon of hope and advancement, inspiring and nurturing the passion and artistic talents of thousands of people from dis­ advantaged backgrounds, who fondly refer to it as Ikhaya Lethu (Our Home) (Figure 7.1). Nonetheless, in the formative years of the transition period from apartheid to a democratic South Africa, the state of governance in the organisation was significantly influenced by the shifting socio-political environment. According to Deacon (2009), the transition to democracy ushered in a period of intensive consultative processes towards national cultural policy. The transition period brought about collective decision-making and a consultative process as a prin­ ciple of governance in many public institutions, as is witnessed in the governance structure of some cultural institutions in democratic South Africa (Joffe et al., 2019). Significantly, long before most South African public and national cultural institutions did so, Sibikwa had adopted collective and consultative processes as integral to its governance structures and systems, and this bolstered its position as an organisation exercising effective strategic leadership. As indicated by Phyllis Klotz in a 2020 interview, the first years of the organisation coincided with the euphoria of transition into democracy when art practitioners enthusiastically responded to the government’s call for active participation in the formulation of what became known as the 1996 White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage. The formative governance structure of Sibikwa was simultaneously influenced by the King Code of Governance Principles and the King Reports on Corporate Governance in SA, which fall in line with the Companies Act No 71 of 2008, and which became effective

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Figure 7.1 Sibikwa Arts Centre. The colourful and vibrant front courtyard of the refurbished multipurpose centre, with multi-coloured window frames, painted tyre pot plants, a staircase with beaded railings, and letters spelling out SIBIKWA on a patch of grass. Located in Benoni’s industrial area, the Centre stands as a symbol of crea­ tivity, hope, access, development, and transformation for community members from surrounding townships (photographer: Herman Verwey).

on 1 May 2011. Like its 56 commonwealth peers, the King Reports, pre­ senting a non-legislative code on principles and practices, were written in accordance with the “comply or explain” principle-based approach of gov­ ernance. This founding and governance history identifies three major stake­ holders to whom Sibikwa’s governing board was accountable – the community, the state, and international funding agencies that had supported South Africa’s struggle for democracy. During the peak period of anti-apartheid activism in the late 80s, Sibikwa, like many other civil society organisations, directly received financial support from Scandinavian countries and hence this implied compliance with international principles of governance. (Interview with Klotz and Ndaba, 2020) As such, during Sibikwa’s early years, its principles and practices of cultural governance were by and large aligned to global perspectives. After democracy, the change of policies by the new administration saw the channelling of foreign funding to cultural institutions through government – a development which

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created a bottleneck in funding to institutions such as Sibikwa. In addition, consideration of the unique historical effects of colonialism and apartheid brought to the fore the need for urgent redress within the country’s new dispensation and cultural institutions’ adoption of additional principles of democracy and collective governance, transformation, inclusivity, as well as ethics of good governance, became key to government’s criteria for awarding and disbursing funds (Joffe et al., 2019). As such, Sibikwa’s foreign and state funding model obliged two layers of compliance conditions and governance systems which influenced many of the organisation’s operations and management practices. Within the context of the constitution of the Republic of Africa; the 1996 White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage and related acts of parliament – passed to ensure good governance, and compliance with policies, systems, processes, and procedures – became critical in the governance of all cultural institutions. Over the years, compliance conditions for government and public institutions have become more stringent, defined, and direct in their corre­ lation to institutional funding, compelling cultural institutions to comply with set governance practices to continue accessing funding and grants from both government and non-governmental funding organisations (Joffe et al., 2019). The need for NGOs to supply compliance documents, such as audited fi­ nancial statements, tax clearance, and B-BBEE (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment) certificates, on demand, requires organisations to have these documents constantly updated, in order, and on hand. Notwithstanding this ever-growing list of requirements to comply with, requestors of such in­ formation also have slightly different qualifying criteria in terms of the need for date-specific Commissioner of Oaths certified documents, and types of in­ formation to be included on legal documents, like board member’s tax numbers or physical addresses written on their ID copies, for example. This, to a certain extent, makes good governance practices an imposition on cultural institutions, and administratively heavy compliance requirements which work for big government-supported cultural institutions, have been seen to severely stretch and strain smaller cultural institutions in South Africa, resulting in their negative growth and external perceptions of non-compliance. South Africa’s system of governance for culture is multifaceted, sophis­ ticated, and elaborate with a strong policy and legal framework and includes explicit national cultural policies (and implicit policies at the local and provincial level), acts of parliament, cultural measures across the value chain, organisational policies, and constitutions. All these instruments determine governance structures, systems, processes, and procedures which ultimately shape the delivery of cultural goods and services. ( Joffe et al., 2019, p. 163) Thus, the governance of Sibikwa, regarded within the broader context of governance of cultural institutions – which according to Joffe et al. (2019) is largely shaped by a mixed economy system characterised by the tensions

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between government interventions to promote equity, free-market forces, and the need to encourage commercial viability of institutions – prompts a dance between the public sector and the corporate world for the governance, growth, and sustainability of the organisation. Although influenced by many factors which range from the historical context under which the organisation was established and the general cultural policy and cultural governance fra­ mework which has also evolved, the role and contribution of Sibikwa’s dy­ namic cultural governance model, in terms of the agility that it allows for the effective strategic leadership of the organisation, plays a considerable role in its survival and resilience, particularly when foreign funding and government funding began to dwindle (Figure 7.2). The specific context for cultural institutions in the early 2000s which still largely prevails today was characterised by a lack of government policy and strategy for community arts centres, absence of an arts education policy and implementation strategy, limited vocational training for arts managers, minimum support from governments, and the withdrawal of foreign donor funding. Furthermore, the new funding mechanisms by foreign governments channelled through the South African government remained unclear, bureaucratic, and increasingly susceptible to corrupt behaviour (Sibikwa, 2020). Under the focus

Figure 7.2 Sibikwa’s Co-Founders, Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz address an audience of stakeholders including beneficiaries, community members, industry peers, gov­ ernment officials, and funding partners at Sibikwa’s 30th-anniversary celebration on 25 August 2018 – extending gratitude for their instrumental support and contribution to the organisation’s unparalleled longevity (photographer: Herman Verwey).

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and priorities of the new state administration, legacy organisations such as Sibikwa – regarded as well-resourced and financially stable – experienced ar­ guable prejudice from government departments and funding agencies alike. Within the transforming political and policy environment, mandates were set making provision for the bulk of public funding to support new, young, and rural enterprises, but insufficient focus was placed on capacity building to ensure good governance, programming, and sustainability of the organisations. This, despite Sibikwa and other legacy organisations’ persistent lobbying for the development of a supportive mentorship-based approach to the decen­ tralised, collective development of the industry, in alignment with the vision of the South African Government’s socio-economic policy frameworks: the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of 1994 and the sub­ sequent National Development Plan (NDP) which was launched in August 2012. This approach, advocating for the need to assist these newly emerging and newly funded organisations in terms of their establishment, functioning, and sustainability through a transfer and sharing of knowledge, experience, and skills, has unfortunately not been taken up by local or sectoral authorities. As a result, many organisations founded through funding from government, have since collapsed and the social impact of such public funding has been limited due to a lack of strategic leadership capacities and business acumen in the sector. Not many cultural organisations were to weather the micro and macro storms of a constantly fluctuating socio-economic and political landscape. This picture is somewhat confirmed by Harding (2014) in her research about factors influencing the sustainability of the NPO (non-profit organisa­ tion) sector in South Africa, affirming that the NPO sector is looking to government as well as the private sector to help strengthen it, to become less dependent on foreign sources for its financial sustainability, and to find new ways to ensure sustainability and stability. This quest for financial resources influences the governance of NPOs in general and cultural NPOs in particular as asserted by Joffe et al. in a 2019 publication on the governance of cultural institutions in South Africa. Prompted to consider a more sustainable mixed funding system, Sibikwa focused attention on approaching corporate sponsors, which comprised its fourth group of key stakeholders. Total South Africa, now Total Energies, was one of the first corporate funding partners that directly funded programmes such as the Total Sibikwa Schools’ Play Festival, the Total Play Competition, the Total Sibikwa Community Festival, and Sibikwa’s Saturday Arts Academy, through its corporate social investment programme (Sibikwa Arts Centre, 2008, 2006; Sibikwa Community Project, 2004). The influence of this key focus on growing a database of corporate sponsors can be seen in slight shifts in Sibikwa’s strategic decisions and communication policies (platforms and messaging) – from B2C (Business to Customer) to B2B (Business to Business) – so as to speak the language and find points of alignment in order to attract investment from the private sector. This move has added an additional layer of governance considerations, based on an understanding of business’ SED

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(Social and Economic Development) points and other mandatory require­ ments, advancing methods and preferences of payment requiring secure online functionalities, and implications of the revised POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act) of 2021. As a registered non-profit company, and as defined in its strategic organisa­ tional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Sibikwa’s vision of offering a vibrant and active arts hub, places as much emphasis on funding as it does on income generation for sustainable development. Generating income through a variety of services and products, such as ticket sales, merchandising, venue hire, and performance bookings, necessitates a further set of governance considerations and requirements. This, to ensure that the correct systems and procedures are accurately managed, reconciled, and accounted for with regard to secure and sound financial transactions, which sometimes occur on a cash basis. Over the years, co-founders Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz have been un­ stoppable in their constant reinvention of the idea of community engagement, building Sibikwa as a destination for the arts, with programming that is re­ levant, responsive, and exciting, yet still maintaining an ethos and spirit of advancement, providing multiple platforms for aspiring, emerging and estab­ lished artists from all provinces in South Africa to learn, create and present work. Built on the personalities and dispositions of its founders, Sibikwa has consistently maintained its promise of providing stimulating and rewarding arts experiences to those experiencing the perpetual remnants of unjust sociopolitical and economic systems. This achievement of managing the multiple shifting adversities characterising the realities and transition from apartheid to democracy, honed Sibikwa’s cultural governance model into an integrated, inclusive, and innovative strategic approach, which persists as pertinently today as was necessary during the struggle years. Now 33 years later, unlike many performing arts organisations that have closed their doors due to erratic global economics and political climates, Sibikwa is still alive and flourishing. This is due, in no small part, to its founders and board, whose tenacity and vision – relentlessly driving the im­ portance of arts engagement, education and advocacy, and the preservation and celebration of South Africa’s cultural heritage – has seen Sibikwa come of age as a facility that personifies sound governance practices. The legacy, commitment, resilience, and success of its cultural governance model, located within its organisational values of Excellence, Creativity Integrity, Life-Long Learning, and Community, is evident in every facet of its being – an accre­ dited educational centre and career launch platform, capacity builder, job creator, recreational centre, community builder, change agent, provider of entertainment, and arts ambassador – ultimately contributing to transforming South Africa into a country where the arts are promoted as a powerful conduit for advancement. With a vision for arts and culture to provide opportunities for the ad­ vancement of individuals, communities, and the sector, and a commitment to providing high-quality arts education and training, while creating and

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presenting world-class productions that preserve and promote the canon of South African theatre, Sibikwa has a solid reputation. This reputation is based on facilitating and representing multi-cultural interactions and identities and promoting innovative methods of audience development and harnessing global networks and partnerships to collectively advocate for investment in democratising access to arts and culture. Specialising in preserving indigenous music, dance, spoken word, drama, and visual arts, within the landscape of national and international festivals, corporate events, arts education, civic engagement, and cultural exchange, Sibikwa’s programmes ignite creativity, education, and sustainability in the creative and cultural industries; lever­ aging the arts for employment creation, transformation, social cohesion, and ultimately community development. Attributing the celebrated longevity and sustainability of the organisation to good governance does, therefore, also account for the complement of Sibikwa’s excellent artistic and creative programming which has helped in transforming raw talent into sustainable opportunities, engaging global cultural exchanges, and advancing the arts and culture sector.

Governance of cultural institutions (conceptual framework) Concepts of good governance, corporate governance, and cultural governance are used in this chapter to describe, interpret, analyse, and explain governance successes and challenges which Sibikwa has experienced over the past three decades. There is, however, a general conflation and loose usage of terms such as corporate governance, cultural governance, and good governance, globally. For the purpose of this chapter, the following definitions are provided to frame the use of these complex terms. According to Shleifer and Vishny (1997, p. 737) “corporate governance deals with the ways in which suppliers of finance to corporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment.” Schmitt (2011) defines cultural governance as the government’s direct or indirect involvement in the promotion and administration of programmes of cultural organisations. Cultural governance can also be defined as the system of processes, policies, principles, and practices of managing private or public cultural institutions. Good governance is simply a practice of corporate or cultural governance. Thus, the primary difference between corporate governance and cultural governance is that corporate governance focuses on protecting the interests of a small number of shareholders, specifically investors, whereas cultural gov­ ernance covers a large number and wider range of stakeholders who often have differing interests (Turbide et al., 2008). In the South African context, the interchangeable use of the terms “cor­ porate governance” and “cultural governance,” which both provide guidelines for good governance, as evident in the application of principles of governance in Sibikwa Arts Centre, can be traced back to the King I & II Reports on

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corporate governance which provided guidance specifically on the composi­ tion, structure, and processes of the board. The mixed and shifting use of corporate and governance principles is also a reflection of changing contexts and the general influence and impact of such changes on cultural institutions and governance priorities. Responding to the limited understanding of roles, functions, and effectiveness of governance processes, policies, principles, and practice in arts organisations in South Africa, owing to the scarcity of in-depth studies, the most recent publication by Joffe et al. (2019) gives a general overview of cultural governance or governance of cultural institutions in South Africa. In the absence of comprehensive research in the South African context, the conceptual and knowledge foundation of the chapter draws more on literature from other contexts and experiential knowledge than from the local context. Referring to the United Kingdome’s context Cornforth (2002) identifies, describes, and explains six models of governance: compliance, partnership, democratic, stakeholder, co-option, and rubber-stamp models – all of which have different effects on organisations and the impact these organisations have on targeted communities. In a compliance model, the role of the board, which is made up of owner representatives, is to ensure conformance, safeguard owner interests, and oversee the management of the organisation, while in a partnership model, the role of the board, which is made up of multi-industry experts, is to improve performance, share interests, add value to top decisions and support management (Cornforth, 2002). The democratic model contains different interests representing constituents where board members play a po­ litical role to make policies, reconcile conflicts, and control executive deci­ sions, while in the stakeholder model, which is made up of representatives of different stakeholders, the role of board members is to protect specific interests of stakeholders (Cornforth, 2002). In the co-option model, members of the board are appointed for their influence to attract funding. In the rubberstamping model, board members are symbolic “place-holders,” whose role is to ratify decisions and give legitimacy to the organisation, with the real power resting with executive management (Cornforth, 2002). Over the past three decades, Sibikwa’s board has assumed different elements of the six models at different points in its history. According to interviews with the founding di­ rectors, the first board of Sibikwa assumed a typical rubber-stamping model. Later, but still in its early days, Sibikwa’s board fitted the profile of a com­ pliance model, while the current board fits the partnership model because of its focus on stewardship and improving the performance of the board and ulti­ mately the organisation. Drawing from managers of performing arts organisations in Australia, Glow et al. (2019) established that while the board is considered to be a key orga­ nisational stakeholder, there are concerns about the governance role of boards, and their limited effect on the dimensions of conformity to set compliance requirements impacting the operations of arts organisations. This notion is partially shared by Turbide (2012) who says that boards represent both the best

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and the worst regarding the success and survival of the organisation, inferring that the role of boards of directors in the success or failure of organisations is circumstantial. Glow et al. (2019) also concluded that demands for compliance and alignment to good governance tend to detract organisations from their core mandate. This conclusion further justifies the need to unpack Sibikwa’s governance model and reveal different insightful perspectives. While the role of the board in Sibikwa’s success and longevity is significant (in alignment with broader definitions of the concept of cultural governance), this chapter will go on to explore the interpretation, application, and implication of the seven key principles of cultural governance in the organisation’s strategic decisions, to identify and articulate the organisation’s governance and change management capacities for agility, progress, and longevity.

Reflecting on Sibikwa’s application of the 5 + 2 principles of cultural governance Dating back to the transition from apartheid – when the ANC called on people to make the country ungovernable – to a more democratic dispensa­ tion, the history of Sibikwa’s governance model demonstrates a positive re­ sponse to the call by the new ANC-led administration to build a new and governable South Africa (Klotz, 2020). This was the first basis for Sibikwa’s compliance with policies set by the democratic administration. As such, the governance of Sibikwa, similar to government cultural institutions in South Africa, was shaped by the 1996 White Paper on Arts Culture and Heritage, which is one of the key instruments of cultural governance in South Africa ( Joffe et al., 2019). This historical alignment to national cultural policy partly explains the rootedness of the governance of Sibikwa in principles of demo­ cratic and collective governance, and transformation and inclusivity. In a 2020 interview with the founding directors, Smal Ndaba mentioned that “Sibikwa started in 1988 during a period when there was chaos in the education system following the student uprising of 1976. Many children were not going to school, and parents requested that we start something to take them from the streets. The first main productions were inspired by, addressed, and responded to the chaos in townships and, following Sibikwa’s official registration in 1991, in the early years, the board was established to meet compliance requirements mainly for purposes of accessing funding.” Smal Ndaba’s account of the first years is that the board was composed of someone with a financial background, another person with legal knowledge, and the rest were people from the performing arts field, who lacked experience in governance and management of the business of the sector. This early con­ stitution of Sibikwa’s board finds alignment with Rentschler’s (2014, p. 10) description of new boards as being “like pilgrims on a journey of discovery.” The founding directors of Sibikwa and the board members in the early years learnt governance by doing. In these early years, the main criteria for identifying board members were passion and integrity. “Instinctively we knew that honesty,

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good governance, and systems as guiding principles, was the way to go for longevity” (Klotz, interview, 2020). What happened in the early years of the establishment of Sibikwa’s board is not particular to South Africa but is rather a global phenomenon. Thompson (2011), reflecting on the governance of arts institutions in the United States of America, noted that there are also some advisory boards established within arts programmes that were symbolic in nature: existing only because of a structural policy or by-law within the organisation mandating the existence of a board – a stance which provides evidence to funding agencies indicating that the or­ ganisation is compliant and credible in seeking the guidance and oversight of an external board. This characterisation of boards not only depicts the gov­ ernance challenges and limitations of arts centres and cultural institutions but also provides a possible basis on which perceptions of the sector’s noncompliance and questioned organisational and financial management policies and procedures may have been built. Many arts organisations are founded by an individual with a passionate commitment to a particular art form and usually a sound reputation in the field. Such individuals are often extremely talented and strongly com­ mitted to the purpose of the organisation. (Paulus and Lejeune, 2013, p. 963) A challenge arising from this, which requires a delicate balance between artistic imperatives and administration logic, as discussed by Glow et al. (2019, p. 396) is “that arts managers often must wrestle with competing agendas around creative autonomy and the low-risk appetite of their management boards.” To minimise the possible conflict between the board and management, which is a common phenomenon in many arts organisations, Sibikwa’s founding direc­ tors, who were also Executive Directors in the founding constitution, were appointed as permanent members of the board with the mandate to report to the board. They also hold voting rights. While this structure is out of step with standard structures of boards, where there is a clear separation of roles of the board and operational management, it is in line with clause 29 of the Memorandum of Association of the Company. Where there are competing agendas between the board and management of Sibikwa, they are resolved in board meetings, minimising any possible impasse which may retard decisionmaking and ultimately the growth of the organisation, and avoiding the complete collapse of the institution, as seen in other NGOs’ experiences. As asserted by Bennett (1998), culture is naturally resistant to control and governance. This view is shared by Raduški (2017) who also argues that the main problem in obtaining positive outcomes in the governance of arts or­ ganisations is finding a correct adjustment of management and art functions considering the paradoxical relationship between arts and control. The strong influence of an artistic vision for the organisation can conflict forcefully with the requirements of other managerial and administrative functions. The dual

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functions of guiding artistic endeavours and organisational administration foster structural complexity, competing sets of goals, and multiple stakeholder claims. These challenges and complexities are seen even in the best-run arts groups (Cray et al., 2007). The Sibikwa board and management were not exempt from having to deal with such complexities throughout the organi­ sation’s three decades of existence. However, the Executive Directors’ pre­ sence on the board guaranteed continued negotiation between management and artistic visions. This unique structure of the Sibikwa board is in line with Raduški’s (2017, p. 59) recommendations that “the management functions need to be implemented and applied in such a manner that art activities should not be compromised. Due to project orientation, lack of funding and en­ vironment changes, entrepreneurship has assumed a significant role in achieving the goals of culture and arts organisations.” Although accounting experts recommend a hierarchical governance struc­ ture, influenced by concepts of corporate governance that strive for control – but tend to be bureaucratic – Sibikwa rather adopted a flat governance structure (Cornforth, 2002). While the intention of a hierarchical structure is to minimise possibilities of abuse of funds which is all aligned to good governance, it runs contrary to the spirit of democracy and collective decision-making, which was inspired by the transition from apartheid to democracy and characterises Sibikwa’s establishment and purpose. Given the range of stakeholders to whom Sibikwa is accountable, the diversity of its board helps to give confidence to the different groupings and speaks back to what Joffe et al. (2019) named as addi­ tional and unique principles of cultural governance: transformation and in­ clusivity. What is emerging from both practice and theory is the need for flexibility and adaptability of arts organisations in implementing corporate and cultural governance principles because while most arts organisations like Sibikwa are non-profit entities, they cannot disregard the need for a shared focus on the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit, for sustainable development. Sibikwa’s success can thus be partly attributed to the board and Executive Directors’ ability to merge the two seamlessly. A key aspect of Sibikwa’s board is that members serve on a voluntary basis and have an inherent “social consciousness which supports efforts to advance the cause of the underrepresented and disenfranchised” (Thompson, 2011, p. 1). Believing in the value of voluntary activity as an important expression of citizenship and commitment to a larger cause, this volunteerism can be noted as an additional principle of governance which contributed to what Sibikwa Arts Centre is today. It effectively meant that the members of its board had no financial or other personal-gain interests, thus their participation created no conflict in relation to the sound governance of the organisation. As asserted by Thompson (2011, p. 3), such “a collection of talented in­ dividuals, committed to lending their expertise and their personal reputations for the purpose of assisting an arts organisation to grow and thrive, is what constitutes an advisory board.” Radbourne’s (2003, p. 212) assertion that “the reputation of the company flows from the board’s capacity to manage finance,

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stakeholders and mission,” further supports the view that “performing arts companies rely on reputation [built from transparency and accountability among other governance principles] to sustain audience and funding.” While Radbourne (2003) drew her assertions from the Australian context, the principles are applicable to the South African context. Sibikwa’s current seven-member board was appointed in 2015 through Business and Arts South Africa’s (BASA) Board Bank programme, which “gives arts organisations access to passionate, skilled professionals as potential board members, while also acting as a connector for business professionals who want to engage with arts organisations in a real and effective way” (BASA, 2020, p. 3). In an interview with the Chairperson of Sibikwa’s current board, Pamela Grayman, it was evident that committee members’ decisions to be on the Sibikwa board were driven by a commitment to community development and a desire to serve. However, as indicated by the founding directors, as Sibikwa works within an adaptable and shifting culture and development model that is responsive to the target population’s socio-economic context, passion and commitment to service cannot outweigh the other expectations of the board’s role, including the mobilisation of financial resources for the or­ ganisation, for example. The new board appointments were thus followed by the reconstitution and redefinition of the mandate of the board through a Memorandum of Incorporation in a special resolution passed on 25 April 2017. The Memorandum of Incorporation was accompanied by a Board of Directors Manual and Code of Ethics and Board Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as defined in a Quality Management System that provides a set of policies and procedures, guiding and serving as a statement of commitment to all staff, learners, and other stakeholders, in terms of the quality and effectiveness that Sibikwa delivers. Driven by a self-evaluation method of measuring the board’s performance, Sibikwa’s current board, made up of members, representatively diverse in terms of race, gender and age, with the varied and necessary ex­ pertise to support the organisation within shifting dispositions of contemporary landscapes, aids the effectiveness of the board in service of the organisation and its stakeholders. These processes and capacities within Sibikwa’s board, place its governance approach squarely in line with recent research by Millesen and Carman (2019, p. 74) who suggest that effective boards require “focused, intentional, and tailored recruitment processes; clear communication, greater role clarity, and specificity regarding board performance expectations; greater understanding about best practices and the need to add value.” Over the past 30-odd years, Sibikwa’s Board of Directors – which meets quarterly, unless an urgent situation requires a special meeting, or a complex circumstance requires sub-committee meetings – diligently took many critical decisions which boosted the confidence of stakeholders and significantly contributed to the sustainability and longevity of the organisation. Examples of such decisions and related actions include the resolution to follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) ratified at a board meeting on

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23 September 2004, and the 2005 re-design of the internal accounting system to meet funder requirements, which naturally enhanced Sibikwa’s internal financial management and reporting systems. The current board translated strategic decisions into objectives and prioritised them into KPIs with clear timelines. One of the 2018 strategic objectives, which was outlined in the KPIs was to increase Sibikwa’s generated income (Grayman, 2020). KPIs for the board translate to KPIs for management and board members are directly involved in supporting management to implement board decisions. The most recent and critical decision the Sibikwa board has had to deal with was the retirement of the founding directors, and a comprehensive succession plan was put in place to guide the most effective transition – a gradual tran­ sition from one phase of the organisation’s development to another, with the founding directors remaining on in an advisory capacity and continuing to transfer their skills and knowledge to the new team (Sibikwa, 2020, p. 2). More than 30 years down the line, the transition is unlikely to be an easy one, so the board and organisation had a mammoth and delicate task of change management to undertake. The role of Sibikwa’s board, which has evolved and matured over time in response to several contextual factors, was, and still is, to make sure that the Executive Directors and operational team operate within the bounds of the constitution; playing an advisory role as and when needed. Moreover, Sibikwa’s founding Memorandum of Association, which provides for a 3-year tenure for board members, with the possibility of review and reappointment, importantly allows for the extension of a board member’s tenure, to retain institutional knowledge and provide continuity in the development of gov­ ernance systems of the organisation. Guided by the 1990 Sibikwa Community Project Memorandum of Association and later the 2017 Memorandum of Incorporation of Sibikwa Community Project NPC, the role of the Sibikwa Board of Directors is to uphold all principles of corporate and cultural gov­ ernance which include: clearly defined functions and powers of the govern­ ance board, accountability and transparency of the governance board, a diverse composition of the board, and a valuing of the contribution of all stakeholders that include participating children and young people, parents, and funders. As expressed, and supported by the board’s current Chairperson, Sibikwa board members have fiduciary responsibilities that require them to stay objec­ tive, selfless, responsible, honest, trustworthy, and efficient in holding the ex­ ecutive management of the organisation accountable. These attributes warrant the reputation of Sibikwa, which goes together with good governance. The Chairperson further describes the current board as a “hands-on” board, an ap­ proach that seems to go against the traditional hands-off approach – according to governance literature which tends to attribute organisations’ success to boards’ autonomy and application of standard principles of governance. Key stakeholders from the Board Chair’s perspective are the donors (public sector funders) and the community – both of whom are diverse in themselves, the third group of stakeholders are Sibikwa staff while the fourth set of

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stakeholders consists of suppliers and other service providers. According to the current Board Chairperson accountability mechanisms include: a b c d e

Annual general and audited financial reports Ongoing responsibility to the immediate community of children and parents Consistent communication through face-to-face, newsletter and digital channels Occasional meetings with the Sibikwa team and attendance of events Sourcing, connecting, and liaising with stakeholders.

Notwithstanding governing boards of arts and culture NPOs’ accountability to a wide variety of stakeholders, funding agencies should be central to the governance practices of these organisations (Turbide et al., 2008). Generally, there has also been a strong push to adopt procedures closer to those of profitmaking firms. Sibikwa’s focus on aligning the governance of the organisation to funders’ requirements is thus in line with practices elsewhere in the world. Cray et al. (2007) who have a slightly different but equally important view, assert that greater involvement with broader groupings of stakeholders has also increased pressure for more accountability and greater transparency in nonprofit arts bodies’ governance procedures. Careful stakeholder management which critically considers the influence and interests of all key stakeholders is needed. In an interview for this chapter, the current Chairperson of the Sibikwa Board boldly stated that while the board is first and foremost an­ swerable and accountable to funders, it does not lose sight of stakeholders and hence its multiple accountability mechanisms listed above: We just must never lose sight of the lives that we change, of the people who come to Sibikwa and interact with Sibikwa where they are exposed to something which they would never be exposed to in their day to day lives. It makes them more rounded people and gets them better job opportunities. Sibikwa also creates employment which in this environ­ ment is so important. (Grayman, 2020) Responding to the question of accountability to parents and children, cofounder Smal Ndaba intimated that in the early days most parents in townships were not aware of the board, all they cared about was the head of the pro­ gramme and the teacher. They never inquired about who was on the board, and whether they were qualified or not. Since then, Sibikwa has instituted various forms of representative/“intermediary” community stakeholder bodies and meetings, such as parent associations and interviews, that allow for communication to be transferred between members of the community and the board. These meetings further afford community members, particularly par­ ents, teachers and beneficiaries, a platform to raise concerns, contribute to the

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development and governance of the respective project, and participate in decision-making for the advancement of the organisation, its programmes, and its impact. Their participation not only ensures transparency and democratic processes but also requires that they support the fundraising and audience development goals of the organisation. These representative bodies or asso­ ciations have principles and criteria in common with those of the board, such as volunteerism. A chairperson, treasurer and secretary are also nominated and elected by the larger body to ensure effective representation, communication, reporting, and fundraising. Furthermore, Sibikwa organises and facilitates multiple dialogues, engage­ ments and exchanges that promote conversation, education and understanding between a range of community, sector, and government stakeholders. These sometimes formal or informal, local, or international, live, or virtual gatherings serve to build the network and broaden the ecosystem of community arts sta­ keholders; encourage meaningful transformative discussions and advocate for investment in the inclusive, participatory, and sustainable development and governance of the sector and society. International cross-sectoral policy en­ gagements, such as the Shukuma Mzansi! SA-EU Dialogues, presented in partnership with South African and European governments and departments, have been recognised as allowing for bottom-up consultative cultural policy and governance revision and development that is both informed by and influences the management, development, and sustainability of community arts centres. Writing about arts governance in Australia, Rentschler (2014) observed that changes in arts governance are well underway, globally. There is an evolution of sorts going on, if not a revolution in cultural governance. It can be noted that forms of cultural governance that have survived previous government and en­ vironmental assaults are being modified significantly and part of it involves re­ sisting unnecessary bureaucracy which is noticeable in Sibikwa’s approach to governance – upholding the public service, artistic programming, and strategic management vision of the organisation and ensuring alignment of governance decisions within an ever-shifting operational context. This brief history of Sibikwa’s governance approach in relation to its stakeholders and external contexts provides evidence of the organisation’s continuous endeavour for good governance, which may explain the progress and resilience of the organisation which can also be argued to be one of the main reasons for its longevity.

The peculiar attributes of Sibikwa (elements/capacities of good governance) in relation to key perspectives, trends, and future considerations of cultural governance The peculiar attributes of Sibikwa’s governance approach that have garnered its adaptability, progress, and longevity over the past three decades, firmly position the organisation for future success and sustainability within changing social and operational environments and structures. These elements and ca­ pacities of good governance, located within a particularly African and cultural

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perspective, are grounded in principles of participation, accountability, trans­ parency, and equity, ensuring responsiveness, efficient and effective governance, a consensus orientation, and a strategic artistic and administration vision. Maintaining the exploratory nature of the organisation with regard to its stra­ tegic change management capacities – facilitating and representing multicultural interactions and identities, promoting innovative methods of audience development, exercising effective strategic leadership, and fostering a sustainable mixed funding system – will ensure that Sibikwa’s cultural governance approach perpetuates a balance of being of service to communities, while producing and presenting quality arts engagements, and complying with legislation. Moreover, the challenges and opportunities of the 4th industrial revolution; the adoption of technology, increased connection with communities, and the digital transfor­ mation of the organisation may further support Sibikwa’s achievement of the benefits of long-term and strategic thinking, increased collaboration across NGOs, and the integration of arts and culture in other sectors, required for the survival, sustainability, and success of community arts. The three-decade journey of Sibikwa has revealed replicable emerging gov­ ernance trends that can significantly contribute to the growth and stability of the community arts sector in a democratic South Africa. One of the notable trends is a more long-term and strategic thinking approach, structuring clear outputs and outcomes for the governing board and operational management. Sibikwa’s longterm strategies, goals, and objectives are based on a hybrid model of donor funding and income generation. Another peculiar trend in the governance of Sibikwa is the engagement of independent consultants and experts for advice and support in the implementation of strategic goals and objectives. The outcome is a strengthened and unparalleled cultural and corporate governance model driven by a very clear vision of a “visionary arts centre that promotes quality arts education, performance, vocational training, and job creation in South Africa (www.sibikwa.co.za).” Based on current notable trends in Sibikwa’s governance, management, and operations, future governance priorities for NGOs necessitate an agility and responsiveness to digital disruption, where for instance some key principles of governance are going beyond annual general meetings to digital and social media. A good example of this is the transparency around the retirement of the founding directors and the process of their replacement which was widely publicised on Sibikwa’s social media platforms: Sibikwa announces the retirement of its co-founders Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz. From 1 July 2021, Smal and Phyllis will continue their lifelong association with and support of Sibikwa in a consulting capacity and as non-executive members of the Board. (@Sibikwa Arts, 23 June 2021) The announcement also demonstrated that digital disruption in turn stretched the accountability of the organisation to an extended and expanded stake­ holder base, pointing to a new trend in the governance of not only Sibikwa

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but the community arts sector in general. Digital platforms and digital infra­ structure have both negative and positive effects on governance and citizen engagement and hence the need for organisations to strategically position themselves now, for and into the future (Constantinides et al., 2018). Sibikwa’s adoption of and adaptation to digital technology and social media guarantees increased connection with the communities it serves, particularly the community of children, youth, artists, and centre managers, beyond its immediate community on the East Rand and in the Gauteng Province. Increasing collaboration between government departments, international cultural institutions, NGOs within the arts and culture sector, and NGOs in other sectors is a strategic decision taken by the Sibikwa board in response to the growing demand for services in education and cities and urban develop­ ment and the need for financial sustainability. Sibikwa is proud of its part­ nerships with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, the Department of Basic Education, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, the South African Local Government Association, and many other international and local authorities and associations. This expansive partnership base also helps to strengthen the governance of Sibikwa as it is compelled to fully include and account for, and report to all key stakeholders (Figure 7.3).

Figure 7.3 Funding Partner Visibility. Sibikwa Arts Academy (previously Saturday Arts Academy) funding partner banners displayed in Sibikwa’s foyer as a backdrop to a site-specific dance, music, and drama performance by senior learners at a yearend concert and certificate ceremony on 28 November 2021 (photographer: John Hogg).

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In its response to shifting contexts, changes in management, and the needs of communities, Sibikwa has adapted its collaborative approach and con­ solidated the diversity of the board, positioning itself not only as inclusive in the composition of the board but also in operations and programming. Taking a leaf from several trends at Sibikwa, the future for boards of cultural orga­ nisations in South Africa lies in their ability and capacity to be agile and re­ sponsive to ever-changing environments, and the needs and expectations of communities and partners. This recommendation is presented with full ac­ knowledgement that the trend is not only peculiar to Sibikwa.

Conclusion Cultural governance in South Africa is shaped and influenced by the history of apartheid, funding, compliance, policy, size and type of cultural institution and general geopolitical issues around access to arts and culture. ( Joffe et al., 2019, p. 160) Notwithstanding the insights of board members and other stakeholders in­ terviewed, this study brought to the surface many unique issues that not only benefit Sibikwa’s management but also the broader community arts sector. The study also provided scholarly insights regarding the internal change at Sibikwa as well as external or contextual changes in the South African com­ munity arts sector, which warranted shifts in governance systems. One such broad change of governance was the transition from the compliance model, where the board was symbolic and responsible for ratifying management de­ cisions, to a partnership model, where the board’s role is to add value and improve the performance of the board, management, and the organisation. There is a growing appetite to achieve good corporate governance through hired accounting and legal service providers, a trend that may see the re­ placement of traditional boards in the NPO sector. A shift from conventional boards is a concern to governance scholars as it is likely to threaten ac­ countability to wider stakeholders. Sibikwa needs to maintain a balance be­ tween appeasing funders and other stakeholders in striving for good corporate and cultural governance. All these insights are the tip of the iceberg and hence the call for further in-depth studies into the governance of non-profit cultural institutions in South Africa (Figure 7.4). While adhering to principles of corporate and cultural governance is one of the centrepieces of the longevity of the Sibikwa Arts Centre, doing govern­ ance differently, particularly the continuous involvement of founding directors in both the governing board and executive management, has significantly contributed to its resilience. The artistic excellence, passion, commitment, and dedication of the founding directors cannot be ignored in accounting for the resilience, success, and longevity of the organisation. Sibikwa’s board also approaches governance differently in promoting democratic, transformative, inclusive, and collective governance, accounting to parent associations,

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Figure 7.4 Sibikwa Arts Centre Petition. Sibikwa Arts Centre’s staff, learners and their parents creatively protesting outside the Germiston Civic Centre on 26 April 2021. A petition, signed by over 550 community stakeholders was delivered to a representative of the Executive Mayor’s office, to support arts centres and programmes that serve communities in Ekurhuleni, through quality education, creative expression and cultural participation (photographer: John Hogg).

learners, and staff representatives through the Executive Directors as inter­ mediaries. This relationship between the board and Sibikwa’s diverse stake­ holders, valuing and eliciting the contribution of stakeholders, is attributed to the spirit and ethos of volunteerism amongst the board members, driven by a social consciousness and desire to support efforts to advance the cause of disenfranchised populations. Further research involving a broader range of stakeholders that include children and young people, parents, funding partners, local provincial, and national government departments, and other civil society organisations, may supplement and deepen understanding of the benefits of Sibikwa’s governance model. Looking forward to the next phase of the organisation, Sibikwa’s 2021 ap­ pointed CEO, Caryn Green, remains committed to upholding the legacy of the organisation’s founders. Articulating this commitment as a dedication to main­ taining the participation of a diverse range of community, sector and government stakeholders within the community arts ecosystem, the new Executive Director remains steadfast in upholding the integrity and reputation of Sibikwa’s work around issue-based arts programmes, arts education, inclusivity, and transfor­ mation. Developing and promoting South African forms of cultural expressions,

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affirming, and supporting it through sound cultural governance, and encouraging socially engaged educators, artists, and administrators in the spirit of Sibikwa strategically positions the organisation to continue playing a pivotal role in the arts sector.

References BASA (2020) BoardBank. Available at: https://www.basa.co.za/programmes/boardbank/ (Accessed: 12 April 2020). Bennett, T. (1998) Culture: A Reformer’s Science. London: Sage Publications. Constantinides, P., Henfridsson, O., and Parker, G.G. (2018). ‘Introduction—Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age’, Information Systems Research, 29(2), pp. 381–400. Cornforth, C. (2002) The Governance of Public and Nonprofit Organisations. Abingdon: Routledge. Cray, D., Inglis, L., and Freeman, S. (2007) ‘Managing the Arts: Leadership and Decision Making under Dual Nationalities’, Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society, 36(4), pp. 295–313. Deacon, H. (2009). ‘At Arm’s Length: The Relationship Between Research and Policy in Arts and Culture, 1992-2007’, Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA). Cape Town: Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET). Glow, H., Parris, M.A., and Pyman, A. (2019) ‘Working with Boards: The Experiences of Australian Managers in Performing Arts Organisations’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 78(3), pp. 396–413. Grayman, P. (2020). Sibikwa Arts Centre Governance [Interview], Zoom, Online with M Chatikobo, 17th July 2020. Hagg, G. (2010) ‘The State and Community Arts Centres in a Society in Transformation: The South African Case’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(2), pp. 163–184. Harding, J. (2014). Factors Influencing the Financial Sustainability of the Nonprofit Sector in South Africa (unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Cape Town). Joffe, A., Chatikobo, M., Mavhungu, J., and Lebethe, A. (2019) South Africa, in King, I.W., and Schramme, A. (Eds.), Cultural Governance in a Global Context: An International Perspective on Art Organizations. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 159–197. King, I.W., and Schramme, A. (Eds.) (2019) Cultural Governance in a Global Context: An International Perspective on Art Organizations. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Klotz, P. (2020). Sibikwa Arts Centre Governance [Interview], Zoom, Online with M Chatikobo, 8th July 2020 Klotz, P., and Ndaba, S. (2021). Executive Directors Final Board Report. Available at: Sibikwa Arts Centre; Board Meeting of 10 July 2021. Millesen, J.L. and Carman, J.G. (2019) ‘Building Capacity in Nonprofit Boards: Learning from Board Self-assessments’, Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, 5(1), pp. 74–94. Monnakgotla, P. (2018). Ke ya rona (it is ours): A review of the Levels of Community Engagement Towards the Sustainable Development of Community Arts Centres in South Africa Focusing on Shared Ownership (unpublished master’s thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg). Ndaba, S. (2020). Sibikwa Arts Centre Governance [Interview], Zoom, Online with M Chatikobo, 9th July 2020.

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NPC (2012) National Development Plan 2030; Our Future - Make it Work. Available at: https:// www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/ndp-2030-our-future-make-itworkr.pdf (Accessed: 12 October 2021). Parliament of the Republic of South Africa (1994). The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP); A Policy Framework. Available at https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/ default/files/the_reconstruction_and_development_programm_1994.pdf. Paulus, O. and Lejeune, C. (2013). ‘What do Board Members in Art Organisations Do? A Grounded Theory Approach’, Journal of Management & Governance, 17(4), pp. 963–988. Radbourne, J. (2003). ‘Performing on Boards: The Link Between Governance and Corporate Reputation in Nonprofit Arts Boards’, Corporate Reputation Review, 6(3), pp. 212–222. Raduški, D. (2017). ‘Essential Management Functions in Culture and Arts Organisations’, Management: Journal of Sustainable Business and Management Solutions in Emerging Economies, 21(81), pp. 59–66. Rentschler, R. (2014). Arts Governance: People, Passion, Performance. London: Routledge. Schmitt, T.M. (2011). Cultural Governance as a Conceptual Framework. (Working Papers WP 11-02 Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity, Göttingen). Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. W. (1997). A survey of corporate governance. The journal of finance, 52, 737–783. Thompson, S. (2011). The establishment of effective advisory boards for promoting social justice in the arts on college campuses. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 1. Turbide, J., Laurin, C., Lapierre, L., & Morissette, R. (2008). Financial crises in the arts sector: Is governance the illness or the cure? International Journal of Arts Management, 4–13.

8

Sibikwa’s educational programmes Vanessa Bower and Hazel Barnes

Introduction Social change and development have always had an intimate relationship with education and with the aspiration of youth. In South Africa, the Soweto Uprising of 1976 was pivotal in making it clear that apartheid was no longer tenable and that it was an affront to human rights. This movement was led by learners outraged by inferior education and longing for realisation of their abilities. The event was shocking for many South Africans, and a compelling call to make meaningful change, particularly in education. During apartheid this task fell to non-government organisations such as Sibikwa. Sibikwa’s educational programmes show the organisation’s response and changes of approach to the socio-political circumstances, moving from the need to conscientise and protest during apartheid, through the exciting period of hope and change in the nineties when an inclusive educational and cultural ex­ pression was being explored, to the more settled present as an accredited vocational training provider. All Sibikwa’s programmes have arisen in response to needs in the com­ munity and the education programmes are no exception. The Saturday Arts Academy started in an informal way, but the response from the learners soon demonstrated the value of the classes, leading to funding being raised and the classes becoming formalised. The educational programmes that followed were conceived by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba, who would raise funds and then employ a co-ordinator to run them. In another time and place and after a different crisis: Britain, at the end of the Second World War, with a newly elected democratic socialist government was looking for new ways of being, which would benefit all and build equality. The Labour Party was in power and major changes were made in the management and delivery of health, housing, and education. While the Arts had always been present in education, those associated with Drama had been limited to the learning of Rhetoric (persuasive public speaking) and to the theatrical production of classical plays. Both these forms are hierarchical, in­ volved with winning a debate or with carrying out the vision of the theatre director. But with change comes new ideas and new forms. DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-10

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One of these changes was the recognition of play as the natural way in which children interact with their environment and with each other, and thus how they learn best. Peter Slade (1954, 1995) encouraged teachers to stand aside and allow children free play: to observe how the whole body is engaged in learning and how objects can be explored, manipulated, and transformed; how experimentation and problem solving are naturally employed in play, and how absorbed in, and excited by the process participants are, ensuring a love of learning and discovery. Another element in this new vision of how children learn naturally was the understanding that learning occurs best when in­ dividuals or teams have autonomy and decide for themselves what and how they learn. The fact that play is not real life is also important, allowing for both the imagination to dream up new possibilities and the freedom to try things out and learn from failure without painful consequences. Brian Way (1972) formalised these ideas by using play to develop dramatic skills such as con­ centration, sense awareness and imagination. Dorothy Heathcote (Wagner, 1976) and Gavin Bolton (1979) developed these understandings further into a methodology of education (Drama in Education) which encouraged teachers to become “a loving ally” ( Johnson and O’Neill, 1984, p. 42) in the process of learning, by creating an intentionally educational framework within which this free playing could occur. They be­ lieved there were elements of theatre which would allow participants in a drama workshop to learn more about themselves and the world within which they would need to function. They knew that living was difficult and filled with situations which would test your values, that you were likely to experience conflict and must solve problems. They developed the concept of “role” and “role playing” where learners could take on the attitudes and feelings of another person and thereby learn to understand their situation, beliefs, and values, thus building understanding of opposing views and belief systems in an increasingly small world. They understood that it might be easier to look at one’s own problems if they occurred in a fantasy realm or a different time and space, al­ lowing one to experience analogous problems from a distanced perspective. This methodology is now known as process drama and is applied in many situations that require in-depth understanding and problem solving, not only in schools, but also in non-governmental organisations, industry, and therapy. Later John O’Toole (1976), Anthony Jackson (1980) and others developed the idea that theatre, especially children’s theatre did not need to consist of a presentation to a passive audience but could include a comprehensive ex­ perience where the audience could engage with individual characters in the play, learn from them and even suggest situations for the characters to explore, and experience the results. These ideas became increasingly influential in South Africa as activist artists tried to bring about change. Sibikwa was an integral part of bringing these ideas to the fore through a multifaceted approach which included arts edu­ cation for young people, teacher training, and vocational training in the performing arts.

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Arts education for young people From its beginning in 1988, Sibikwa took on the task of meeting the edu­ cational needs of children, teenagers, young adults, and teachers, all of whom were victims of the iniquitous structure of education under apartheid. The focus of Sibikwa’s education programmes was those disadvantaged pupils who were being taught according to the Bantu Education Act No. 47 of 1953. Bantu Education schools were crowded, greatly under-resourced and pur­ veying a curriculum which did not adequately prepare learners for tertiary education and thus access to professions. The teacher training was inferior and limited; at one time only 15% of teachers even had a teaching certificate (Maria Lizet Ocampo, 2004). Those who had some training had probably left school at the end of Standard 8 (Grade 10) and then had two years at a Teacher Training College. They taught by a system called “chalk and talk,” where the teacher would write on the blackboard and the children had to recite what had been written. Learners were not encouraged to think for themselves, question the way things were run, or develop their creativity. In contrast to this approach to education, elsewhere in the world calls for the democratisation of education were evident. Most influential in Africa were the ideas of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (Odhiambo, 2008, Wa Thiong’o, 1986, Kidd, 1978, Kidd and Byram, 1978). Freire’s writings also emerged from a third-world economic system and a colonial tradition. In the early 1970s, his ideas were published in English in three books: Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), Cultural Action for Freedom (1972) and Education for Critical Consciousness (1973), which in South Africa influenced the Black Consciousness Movement, the trade union movement, and the United Democratic Front. He criticised a “banking” attitude to learning where learners were considered to know nothing and needed to be filled with information from the teacher. Rather, he considered learning as a dialogue between equals, where people’s understanding of their world could be debated, challenged, and refined. He also believed that learning was not just about increasing depth of understanding, but also involved acting (praxis) to ensure justice and human development. An important part of these processes was the building of critical awareness of how society functions, thus developing a consciousness that would have the power to transform reality. He believed that education must be grounded in the lived experience of partici­ pants, that it should build community cohesion, and that culture has an im­ portant part to play in all these processes. These ideas had much in common with thinking and practice in tertiary arts education and were warmly welcomed amongst university theatre academics and university-trained activists in South Africa. Freire’s focus on informal education was especially helpful and during the 1980s many different cultural groups and NGOs, including Sibikwa, began to implement his ideas. Sibikwa’s work within communities soon highlighted the need to teach young people about the performing arts. A recognition of the importance of cultural expression in building human dignity, and a realisation of the

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importance of theatre as a vehicle for protest and conscientisation led to a growing interest among young people in creating theatre. There were no arts classes in the syllabus in black schools and their teachers were not trained in arts education. In response to this need, by 1995 Sibikwa had started informal classes for learners on Saturday mornings. Once funding from Sweden was secured (around 1997) the Saturday Arts Academy (SAA) was formalised. SAA learning programmes were developed organically depending on Sibikwa tea­ chers’ availability and the needs of the community. A major asset of organi­ sations such as Sibikwa is that they can respond much more quickly and directly to such needs than formal educational institutions. Classes were divided into Junior and Senior categories and dance, music, drama, and visual art teachers were employed. Soon a pre-primary group was added. End-of-year concerts showcased the work to parents and friends, thus extending the ethos of skill building, individual development, and community support. Winter schools were held in a variety of art forms, even attracting youngsters who were not part of SAA. The contained format and the level of interest meant that the winter schools could be developed into outreach programmes in rural areas and in other provinces. An increasing challenge during the early years of democracy (1990–1998) was to try to develop a truly inter-cultural expression in the arts. The euphoria over the “rainbow” nation envisioned by Archbishop Desmond Tutu encouraged artists to reassess specifically “European” ways of making art and to rediscover formerly undervalued art forms. African performance forms with their focus on embodiment, call and response, and communal creation were validated and explored as an inspiration in the creation of new, integrated and recognisably South African art. The many different forms of artistic expression in a multicultural nation became a rich source for experimentation and fusion. In response to this a wide variety of genres were explored within the SAA workshops in­ cluding Afrofusion, Indian dance, traditional dance, hip hop, ballet, and tap; singing, music theory, marimba, drumming, guitar, pennywhistle, and recorder; visual art included drawing, painting, clay work, and collage, while drama was enriched with modelling and poetry work. Various specialised groups evolved, such as a Tap Troupe, a Marimba band, a Drumming ensemble and, in 2001 Phyllis Klotz, the Artistic Director, started a youth company, Ezithuthukayo, which was drawn from the senior SAA learners. Every year since 2001, these groups perform at a wide variety of corporate, social, and civic events, as well as competing in competitions such as the Marimba Competition traditionally held at St Dominic’s School in Boksburg, Gauteng. In the interest of maintaining standards and being open to new ideas, since the year 2000 SAA learners are entered into formal examinations in music, dance and drama. External evaluators are asked to assess the teachers. They observe their classes, examine their planning, and make suggestions where improvement might be necessary. A recent addition to the curriculum is reading classes for all age groups. According to the last Progress in International Reading and Literacy

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Study (2016) (https://www.iea.nl/studies/iea/pirls/2016/results), 78% of South African Grade 4 students cannot read for meaning. Sibikwa’s executive directors acknowledge that if a child cannot understand what she is reading, she is la­ bouring under an almost insurmountable handicap in acquiring knowledge and skills. So, in 2018 a Reading Programme was developed to give learners assis­ tance in reading with understanding and reading aloud. The teacher employed by Sibikwa has developed his own programmes, based on the perceived needs of the learners in the different classes. A few parents have observed that their children’s confidence in reading has improved. Learners mostly come from various areas of Ekurhuleni but also travel from further afield such as Sedibeng and Soweto. Gauteng schools are filled with hugely talented learners, but few teachers are equipped to train individuals who wish to develop their artistic talents. The Saturday Arts Academy meets this need, constantly striving to equip learners with the technique and ex­ perience that they will need if they wish to pursue the arts as a career. Some of Sibikwa’s alumni can be seen on theatre stages, on local television screens or exhibiting their work in art galleries. The training is performance orientated. The Sibikwa teachers equip learners with good technique in their art form, give them the opportunity to apply what they have learnt through improvisation and then prepare for performance. Although classes are offered in each of the different art forms, an SAA learner will emerge a rounded performer, capable of integrating all the performing arts. Underlying the continued success of the Saturday Arts Academy is the focus on developing the learners holistically. Not only can they express their creativity through visual and performing arts, but they are also able to solve problems and make decisions; they can be leaders, but they can also be followers; they are adept at working in groups, displaying tolerance for all ideas and respect for all individuals; they demonstrate self-knowledge, as well as confidence, enthusiasm, discipline, and commitment. This means that a disproportionate number of Sibikwa’s graduates have gone on to study most successfully at tertiary institu­ tions, both in the arts but also in law, humanities, science, and commerce. Many have succeeded as entrepreneurs, including establishing their own enterprises. This is what Nonhlanhla Mngoma, the mother of a boy who attends SAA wrote in a testimonial about Sibikwa’s Saturday classes1: I guess as a single mother I was afraid that if he is not participating in any extramural activities, I might lose him to drugs or any social ills the teenagers get involved in. Little did I know that I am actually sending him to a safety haven, a development hub of the greatest artist he has since become. The little shy boy is gone … replaced by this very outspoken, reasons like a politician, hold a debate, extremely competitive in sports and academically boy. From the bottom of my heart, I will never stop thanking the founders of Sibikwa, the teachers, the funder, all of the above, you are the reason why South Africa is still alive with possibilities, why the crime rate decrease, why we are raising amazing young people who will take South Africa forward.

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Teacher training programmes Bantu Education, as described above, was a notorious stain on the apartheid government, ensuring inequality in education and inadequate teacher training between the different racial groups. One of the first moves made by the de­ mocratically elected government in 1994 was to amalgamate the four different education departments - which had each offered a different curriculum de­ pending on racial group - under one national department which would ensure that all learners would follow the same curriculum and write the same ex­ aminations. After extensive international research, it was decided that South Africa would develop an entirely new curriculum, based on the concepts of Outcomes Based Education (OBE), which is a learner-centred approach that focusses on what learners should be able to do at the end of a course of learning. This was a profound change from a focus on the content of a cur­ riculum – to one on the skills being learned through engagement with the content. The actual content was thus less important and could be chosen to be appropriate to a particular societal culture and needs, rather than representing a traditional approach to a “canon” of accepted and elite knowledge. For tea­ chers in South Africa, this was challenging as most had been trained in the “banking” “chalk and talk” method of passing on information, rather than building critical thinking and “doing” skills in learners. They had little ex­ perience in how to encourage self-directed learning. In 1998 Curriculum 2005 (C2005), based on the principles of OBE, was implemented in Grade 1 classrooms throughout the country. In that same year Sibikwa launched a teacher training programme, to meet the needs of the majority of educators who were woefully under-equipped to facilitate learning under C2005. The curriculum was then gradually introduced to the higher grades over the next few years. For the first time Arts and Culture was in­ cluded as a Learning Area (subject) in the curriculum from Grade 1 to Grade 9 in schools previously designated for black learners. Various programmes continued to be developed by Sibikwa and offered in response to the in­ troduction of new subject areas. Access to funding (particularly from Norway, with some contributions coming from local corporate funders and Lotto) fluctuated, affecting the availability of these programmes. An indication of those offered is given below. The main programme that Sibikwa initiated was the Educational Drama Teachers’ Programme. Initially it was a twenty-week course during which tea­ chers explored the holistic development of the child through Educational Drama, as well as experiencing Drama as a performing art. Teachers also explored how to use the arts to teach other Learning Areas. They attended workshops once a week and the programme facilitator visited them in their classrooms to observe them putting what they had learnt into practice with their learners. The programme culminated in a Schools Play Festival, where the teachers brought groups of their learners to perform short plays which demonstrated their learning. The sense of pride and achievement expressed by

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the teachers when they had succeeded in presenting a play (the outcome of learning) was remarkable. Each year over three hundred excited learners and their teachers would cram into the Sibikwa Theatre. Altogether, eight Schools Play Festivals were held, with a variety of adjudicators, who were always impressed by the enthusiasm and creativity displayed by the learners. Nana Mngoma from the Department of Arts & Culture, for example, commented, “There is a sincerity and depth to much of the work, which is very pleasing to see” (Sibikwa Newsletter, December 2002). This programme was offered to teachers throughout Ekurhuleni. The pedagogical approach was initially influenced by Brian Way, Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton. The facilitators explored role play, among other aspects of process drama. Role play enables learners to take on the attitudes, feelings, and beliefs of a character in an improvisation, thus learning about other people and the world in which they live, from the inside, in an attempt to understand how and why people think as they do. The word “role” can be used in a theatrical context to describe a written part in a scripted play, but it is used in Drama in Education to describe taking on a particular attitude or viewpoint, in an unscripted, improvised context. (Toye and Prendiville, 2000, p. 51) Later the practice of Norah Morgan and Juliana Saxton (1987, 1991, 1994) deepened the work, especially with their emphasis on questioning during the role play in order to encourage critical thinking. An interesting discovery was that the experience of role play prepared the learners for more meaningful characterisation when they came to participate in Drama as performance. In 2000 Sibikwa introduced an Advanced Programme, for teachers who had completed the training programme in previous years and who wished to explore Educational Drama in greater depth. An average of ten educators attended workshops once a month for nine months of the year. Sibikwa was able to invite outside experts to present some of the workshops. One of the features of these workshops was that the educators shared experiences, problems, and solutions in most fruitful discussions. Problems included how to manage large numbers in limited space, assessment, and arts advocacy in the schools. Arts and Culture as a subject covered learning in Dance, Drama, Music, and Visual Arts and even teachers who had had training in one art form found it challenging to have to teach all four. They were floundering and in need of further training. To help educators meet requirements, Sibikwa worked in association with other Arts Education NGOs to present Integrated Arts Workshops. Sibikwa provided facilitation in Drama and Music, Moving into Dance contributed to Dance training, and the Imbali Visual Literacy Project provided training in Visual Art. They were initially offered to Foundation Phase teachers, who found them very useful due to the practical nature of our work.

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Between 1998 and 2004, Sibikwa offered numerous sets of workshops: for teachers in specific grades; educational drama; drama as a performing art; in­ tegrated art courses; using drama to teach other subjects; storytelling, poetry, and choral verse; playmaking; advanced drama strategies; African masked dance drama; arts administration and music. We took our workshops to other districts in Gauteng. We were invited to facilitate training as far afield as Nelspruit in Mpumalanga and Winterberg in the Eastern Cape. On both of these occasions it gave Sibikwa great satisfaction to use the services of some of the teachers who had completed Sibikwa’s courses, who were able to share their experiences and advice on how they had overcome some of the challenges of the new curriculum. To further support the teachers, Sibikwa produced a manual entitled Drama Strategies for Arts and Culture Teachers. The focus was on assisting teachers who had no training in arts facilitation and who had to apply the often very challenging requirements of Curriculum 2005. In 2004, just when teachers were coming to grips with C2005, the Revised National Curriculum Statement gradually replaced the initial curriculum. Sibikwa was able to aid Arts and Culture teachers in making the transition. Another important aspect of the work focussed on the use of the arts as a way of putting across core knowledge in other Learning Areas. In 2003 Sibikwa launched a training programme which offered creative teaching methods to Natural Sciences/Technology teachers. A set of four workshops explored the use of role play, creative movement, and other drama strategies to engage with the subject matter in these learning areas. This was offered for two years and was funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation. At the heart of all Sibikwa’s teacher training was their concern for meeting the needs of the teachers and engaging them in ways which developed their capacity to meet the challenges in an ever-changing curriculum. After Sibikwa had worked with teachers in a wide variety of schools for seven years, they were struck by the changes that had taken place. The climate in the education field was – and still is – most unsettling. The interface between the teachers and the Department of Education was far from ideal in many instances, information provided was sometimes conflicting and the demands on the personnel made by the implementation of succeeding curricula were great. However, by the end of those seven years Sibikwa found that the teachers were generally far more critical when engaging in workshop activities. Far fewer would passively accept what was placed before them, far more were questioning, and they were evaluating the ideas and teaching strategies that Sibikwa offered. The training enabled teachers in many ways: some received promotions, many became advocates for Arts Education and others started their own arts organisations. The impact of Sibikwa’s work was profound and long-lasting. The funding came to an end and Vanessa Bower, who had been running the programmes, left Sibikwa. Some comments from teachers over the years: “I tried out what we experienced here, and the learners so enjoyed it.” (Khomotso Malema, W J Mpengesi Primary School)

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“You have given me so many good ideas. It really helps me to see how you go about such a lesson.” (Derek Namane, Ekukhanyeni Primary School, Wattville) “I can’t wait to try this out with my class!” (Mary-Ann Bothma, Rynfield Primary, Benoni) “It helps them to understand the concepts more easily. You have shown us how to involve all the learners in a fun, interactive way,” and “At last I can see how we can integrate with other Learning Areas.” (Various Science teachers, Daveyton) “We have gained such a variety of skills and methods to enrich our teaching.” (Thokozani Ndlovu, Tsakane Primary School, Tsakane) “I now have some experience in developing and directing a performance piece and will be able to contribute to the cultural activities in our schools.” (Nomsa Dlamini, Daveyton Intermediate School, Daveyton) “The learners have gained so much in their holistic development through the use of Educational Drama.” (Emilyn Masemola, Hulwazi Secondary School) “We are most grateful to Sibikwa for making this wonderful opportunity available to the teachers and their learners.” (Lorraine Hartman, District Official, Gauteng Education Department) In 2014 Sibikwa began its hugely successful Artists in Schools programme in association with the Department of Arts and Culture, which had developed the Mzansi Golden Economy strategy, to put into practice its mandate to reinforce the Arts, Culture, and Heritage sector as an economic growth sector. Sibikwa was appointed as the service provider for Gauteng. The programme starts with a preparatory period during which the established artists attend workshops on all the art forms in the curriculum and take advantage of each other’s knowledge of art forms and experience of teaching them. This is be­ cause sometimes the artists will be required to teach an art form that is not what they have specialised in. The teaching artists work with Heads of Departments, Creative Arts teachers, and their learners, implementing the CAPS curriculum. Apart from the formal lessons, the artists also work with a group, usually after hours, to prepare a performance piece to bring to the Sibikwa Artists in Schools Festival & Exhibition. The artists working in visual art lessons select art pieces to bring to be exhibited. The showcasing of all the work is a highlight for the learners, their teachers and Sibikwa’s teaching ar­ tists. Comments are made on the work by adjudicators and the teachers and learners thoroughly enjoy seeing the work from other schools.

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Most of the teaching artists work in primary schools, a few in secondary schools and usually one teacher works in a Special Needs School. Sibikwa has a team of Quality Assurers, who are teaching artists themselves and who have formal qualifications in assessment. They travel around the schools, observing the teaching artists and supporting them in their sometimes-challenging circumstances. In that first year there were 25 teaching artists in schools across the province. The number increased each year until in 2020 there were 43 teaching artists. Sibikwa staff and teaching artists see this programme as an important opportunity for arts advocacy. The quality assurers and the teaching artists initiate advocacy sessions with district officials from the provincial Education Department and Creative Arts subject advisors. They also facilitate workshops for teachers from various schools in each district. Sibikwa has been accredited by the South African Council of Educators (SACE) as a service provider. Sibikwa’s accreditation by this organisation has further enhanced its reputation and its ability to provide teacher training workshops to improve the knowl­ edge and skills of educators to effectively teach the Creative Arts curriculum. Teachers attending workshops are allocated 5 points per workshop and ac­ cumulate a maximum of 20 points towards their Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) requirements if they complete all four workshops. The workshops include a CAPS curriculum pack with Creative Arts lesson plans and course outlines for teachers to use in their classes. The Department of Arts and Culture envisages that the Artists in Schools programme will lead to the creation of sustainable job opportunities for community arts practitioners who are unemployed but have been vo­ lunteering their skills to various schools in their immediate communities. Sadly, this has not happened yet, because most of the teaching artists do not have the year-long teaching qualification that is required. However, the programme is deeply enriching for the arts practitioners, the Creative Arts teachers and, most especially, for the learners.

Vocational training in the Performing Arts Sibikwa’s roots are firmly planted in community theatre. Historically in South Africa, community theatre was a powerful weapon used to fight the tyranny of apartheid and Sibikwa’s plays always focussed on social and political issues in the community. Theatre has been used in several different ways to educate and conscientise communities about relevant issues. At first Theatre for Development (Zakes Mda, 1993) companies took theatre that the organisation had devised into communities to educate them about such issues as HIV/AIDS, water conserva­ tion, or new laws. But these attempts were criticised as being “top down” – outsiders telling the community what is best for them. Thereafter progressive education strategies were used when theatre artists moved into a community and worked with the inhabitants (“bottom up”) using theatre as a language to explore issues and then to create a presentation with the community as performers. This devised presentation would be shown in the originating community and other

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communities, to engage with audiences about the issue presented, and through questioning after the performance. Another development was that of Theatre of the Oppressed developed in Brazil by Augusto Boal (1979). Boal was disturbed by the passive role of the audience and developed techniques of performance which presented problems to an audience who were then encouraged to act out possible solutions, becoming active “spect-actors” rather than passive spectators. The role of the “joker” or “provocateur” was seminal: one of the actors becomes the interface between performers and audience and encourages the “spect-actors” to act out their ideas for solutions to the problems shown in performance. The joker remains a critical presence ensuring that proposed solutions are examined and challenged before acceptance. These revolutionary ideas have had an enormous impact on the way theatre is made in South Africa and how it is used. The practitioners also require particular skills known as facilitation through which the thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and feelings of participants can be discovered. These same skills are also used in progressive education as explained earlier and in the devising of original communal theatre. Sibikwa was not only committed to formal education in schools but also worked intensively with communities aiming to provide personal, community, and career development through the arts. Such interventions provide important opportunities to unemployed and out-of-school youth who would otherwise be condemned to extremely unfulfilled lives. Much of this work is based on the principles of Freire and Boal as outlined above. With the establishment of de­ mocracy, the government provided greater formalisation of such interventions. In 1998 the Skills Development Act defined, amongst other things, a new Sector Training and Education Authority (SETA) system. Companies were required to make contributions to the development of workplace skills, aiming to increase productivity levels and competitiveness. The SETAs operate within the National Qualifications Framework, which defines different levels of education and training. Many certificates and diplomas were developed by subject matter experts, including the Further Education and Training Certificate: Performing Arts. The purpose of this certificate is to provide qualifying learners with the underlying performing arts knowledge, skills, and values to become competent and professional practitioners of the performing arts; to be employed or self-employed within the performing arts industry or to apply for further learning in specific areas of the performing arts. Sibikwa instituted a Learnership Programme based on this certificate, which took a new group of learners each year and offered them a year’s training. In 2005 the Ezithuthukayo Dance & Drama Company formed the first group to be trained. Along with different dance forms, drama techniques and African musical instrument classes, plus communication and maths literacy units, the company members also underwent training in computers and arts adminis­ tration. The learners researched and devised plays about HIV/AIDS which were performed in local high schools. Fifteen learners were found to be competent and eventually received certificates from the SETA. Towards the end of 2005 Sibikwa began work with a group which was named Youth Against Violence. Some members were young offenders who were on

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parole, some were disadvantaged out-of-school and out-of-work youth and some of them came from a local home which offered protection to vulnerable youth. Most of them were from Ekurhuleni. The participants received theoretical and practical training in dance, drama, marimba, and drumming. Several per­ formance pieces were developed in each art form during the year and the final piece integrated all the genres in a performance piece which was attended by the public. The group underwent a richly diverse training programme, which in­ cluded drama therapy. Given the difficult circumstances that many of the learners came from, it was not surprising that there were some emotional and commit­ ment problems. The Learnership was completed at the end of 2006. The 2007 Learnership group consisted of 20 new learners and 2008 saw the most ambitious iteration of the Learnership Programme. The SETA requested Sibikwa to run a Learnership Programme in the Free State province as well. However, it was decided that it would be impracticable for Sibikwa to work there, so a group of learners were chosen at auditions throughout the pro­ vince, and they came to Gauteng to be trained. There were also learners from the provinces of Mpumalanga, Limpopo, and North West, as well as Soweto, and various Ekurhuleni townships. Dealing with a group of nearly 60 learners challenged Sibikwa in terms of resources, time management and personnel, but they are proud to say that 52 learners were found competent at the end of a tiring but satisfying year. Apart from the theoretical and practical training, the learners were also taken to see shows during the year to expose them to professional theatrical productions and to develop their critical faculties. When the Learnership training began the facilitators found themselves on a steep learning curve. Learning Programmes had to be developed from scratch and the facilitators had to be trained as assessors. However, by the time they worked with the final group they felt that they were offering a course of an impressively high standard. Sibikwa’s relationship with MAPPP-SETA was often strained. This SETA was the sector training authority for the media, advertising and visual arts, film and electronic media, cultural heritage, publishing, printing, and packaging sectors. The needs of members of the arts industries were lumped in with those of these different sectors. Sibikwa facilitators often felt that their work was re­ duced to a series of checklists. As long as they ticked the boxes, the quality of their work or their need for support and guidance seemed immaterial. This attitude was inimical to the rich, in-depth investment in arts education devel­ oped within Sibikwa. It was almost impossible to develop a strong relationship with any individuals at MAPPP-SETA as their responsibilities changed con­ stantly. A vexatious problem was the slowness with which certificates were processed, as this greatly affected the learners’ ability to find work. When the fields of concern within the SETAs were redistributed and the arts sector was included in CATHSSETA (Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality & Sport Sector Education and Training Authority), the changeover led to the loss of some records, resulting in some of Sibikwa’s learners never receiving their certificates.

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After each Learnership Programme a smaller group of students was invited to come back for an Internship Programme. They were exposed to further training in per­ formance, along with other aspects of the entertainment and theatre world. Those who were chosen from the audition were students that displayed responsibility, a track record of meeting deadlines, reliability, talent, and commitment. The interns also underwent training in facilitation. They performed in various productions sometimes within their own group, at other times with seasoned professional actors or dancers, which provided them with a valuable understanding of pro­ fessional norms and expectations. The internship offered emerging performers/ facilitators a glimpse into their chosen professional path. In 2006 a group of candidates from the Ezithuthukayo group returned to form Sibikwa’s first Intern group. They worked on developing a poetry programme which they presented to Gr 10 learners in various Ekurhuleni schools and at Sibikwa. During the year they performed at a variety of cor­ porate and government functions. Towards the end of the year, they received very useful and practical training in preparing themselves for auditions, writing CVs and interviewing professionally for jobs. 2007 was the first year in which training in Arts Facilitation was offered as part of the internship. In this course the interns focussed on lesson planning, planning of learning programmes, elements of all four art forms and practical lessons. They spent a short time in teaching practice in local schools. The work brought about a noticeable seriousness and maturity within the group. They also had training in arts administration and stage management, as well as further practical performance work. The internships continued to be offered along similar lines until the end of 2009. Once again lack of funding led to the programme no longer being offered. Both the learnerships and internships provided students with a very thorough grounding. They were learning 35 hours per week through intense engagement with actual facilitation, teaching and performance projects. The quality of teaching was excellent, and students worked with professional educators and artists wherever possible, providing them with experience of the actual workplace and the possibility of networking within the industry. An example of this was Sibikwa’s production of Animal Farm (Orwell, 1945) which was a prescribed work in schools. In 2009 Sibikwa facilitated a Community Arts Facilitation course, which was aimed at people who run community arts groups. Then in 2010 Sibikwa was able to offer a Director’s Course as part of its vocational training. The focus was to prepare participants with a community arts background to direct performances of scripted plays, as well as to equip them to organise and manage the responsibilities required to stage a performance. The group proved to be immensely enthusiastic and committed. They chose a scene from a published, scripted play and prepared a performance which would be presented at the Festival of New Directors, which was held at Sibikwa as the culmination of this course. The trainee directors had to choose actors, find rehearsal venues, plan and direct rehearsals, design simple costumes and sets, and bring their groups to Sibikwa for technical rehearsals before the festival. Throughout this time, they received support from mentors.

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Community arts training Sibikwa boasted an Indigenous Orchestra for a number of years and in 2011 it was decided that members should have training in facilitation skills, as a means of widening their employability. The focus was on teaching within a community arts context. The trainee facilitators taught drumming, marimba, voice, dance, poetry, praise singing, and drama classes at Sibikwa’s Saturday Arts Academy. The facilitator observed members of the orchestra teaching their peers in the orchestra, as well as teaching a group at SAA. The level of personal growth was noticeable, with individuals emerging with a strong sense of responsibility in terms of the contributions which they can make to community arts education. Sibikwa’s support of community artists continues up to the present. Classes are run for out-of-school, out-of-work youth. Numerous festivals showcase the work of community dance and drama groups and Sibikwa includes a training component in this work. For many years Sibikwa’s executive directors have been involved in capacity-building programmes in community centres across a number of provinces. They have seen the need for personnel who are trained in administration that acknowledges the unique needs in such centres. In response Sibikwa offers the SAQA qualification Further Education and Training Certificate: Arts and Culture Administration. This certificate enables participants to acquire a unique combination of project administration competencies, human resource management skills and business enterprise skills, in order that they may suc­ cessfully administer arts projects. This is supported by an Arts Administration Learnership. All learners were successfully placed in specialised arts organisations, where they gained practical experience in arts administration. In this way the course ensured class-based learning and workplace learning. Besides the practical aspect of the learnership, it was compulsory for all participants to attend theory classes four times a month. Candidates focussed on project management, fi­ nancial management, policies and procedures, communication skills and narra­ tive, and financial reporting, marketing, and future planning – all of which were tailored to meet the needs of the organisation in which they were working. The course also prepared them in developing small arts or cultural businesses of their own. Not only did the candidates gain skills and knowledge, but the training had enormous value to participants’ personal development and confidence. Another Arts Administration Learnership was set up by Sibikwa in Bloemfontein in 2014, to meet the needs of practitioners in the Free State province. This programme aimed at identifying and addressing factors that led to poor management and lack of growth of arts organisations and to explore the impact of training of the participants involved, finding synergies amongst organisations represented at the workshops. One of Sibikwa’s strengths is its flexibility and, starting in 2017, this Learnership was also offered part-time over several years to participants from various provinces at Sibikwa. When Sibikwa’s executive directors worked in various community centres, they became aware that the young people who worked with community arts groups in remote rural areas, while talented, were extremely limited in their

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knowledge and experience of the arts. It was then decided that Sibikwa should develop a Short Skills Course to train these community practitioners. The course was based on five Unit Standards from the Performing Arts Certificate. The programme was developed and after some considerable time was ap­ proved by the newly formed Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA). In May 2018 the Qinis’ulwazi National Capacity Building Programme, as it was called, trained the first group of candidates from arts centres in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga. They stayed in Benoni for the duration of the training. There were two full-time facilitators and outside facilitators were also brought in for a variety of classes. Their final Drama task was to present a shortened version of My Children, My Africa (Fugard, 1990) which they prepared to take to schools once they returned to their provinces, where this was a prescribed work. Their final Dance piece showcased the work that they had been doing throughout the course. Sibikwa then developed a further short course on two more Unit Standards in Directing and Developing an Original Performance Piece, to which CATHSSETA granted approval. In April 2019 the group returned to Benoni to study this two-month course and in 2020 the group participated in an Arts Facilitation programme. This programme involves some of the group running after-school programmes, some work with community theatre groups, and some are part of an Artists in Schools programme. In October 2018 Sibikwa was able to train a second group of candidates for the Short Skills Course: the Agisanang National Capacity Building Programme, from three art centres in North West province and one in the Eastern Cape. Their training followed a similar format. All the groups from rural areas find it very difficult to adjust to life in an urban area. Sibikwa provides drama therapy for the group, which helps them individually and in group dynamics. While they usually have experience of traditional art forms, they are extremely limited by their education and lack of exposure to a variety of live performances. Although the work is initially overwhelming and tiring, they soon begin to cope and by the end of the course their personal and artistic growth is remarkable.

Conclusion Arts education can provide not only marketable skills but a means of expressing the depth and variety of human experience. The arts enrich our lives by increasing our understanding of essential human dilemmas. Learning to express feelings and understanding through a symbolic form increases creativity, while also providing a holding framework. Developing the imagination increases the ability to find new solutions and initiate divergent ideas. Being able to communicate effectively with others encourages resilience and builds positive and caring communities. The impact of the arts on all levels of society is profound and well documented. Their impact on young learners is particularly marked, encouraging positive behaviour change; widening understanding; building communication skills;

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increasing emotional intelligence; developing co-operative learning and problem-solving skills; and creating invested learners and responsible citizens. Sibikwa Arts Centre exemplifies the value of Arts Education. It works with communities deprived of theatres, museums, play spaces and quality education and enriches the lives of young people in innumerable ways. It allows them to believe in themselves and their agency, to build lives of compassion, with a clear understanding of important communal values, and build a level of resilience to deal with difficult circumstances. It has done this in very challenging circum­ stances as South Africa copes with the difficulty of creating equality of oppor­ tunity with few resources, amid corruption and lack of efficacy. Its dedicated, creative, and inspiring staff provide a worthy example for all with whom they interact. They create an ethos of hard work, aspiration, and investment in the future for community workers and teachers, which ensures that these values are passed on to the youth. They acknowledge the problems of youth from deprived communities and call on the skills of social welfare agents and drama therapists as needed, as well as artists, to create a safe constructive learning space. With each new programme of arts education, Sibikwa strives to raise the bar in terms of excellence of content and efficiency in implementation. The history of Sibikwa’s Educational Programmes confirms the organisation’s ability to respond to challenges and to continue to provide excellence in the provision of learning in and through the arts (Figure 8.1–8.3).

Figure 8.1 Ayanda Ndlovu facilitates a performing arts class at Motshegoa School, Hammanskraal during the rural Arts Training Outreach Programme. (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer).

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Figure 8.2 Learners from different schools pose with Sibikwa’s “Big Heads” at the Artists in Schools Festival (photograph by Herman Verwey).

Figure 8.3 A learner displays his street dance talent during the Artist-in-Schools Festival (photograph John Hogg).

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Note 1 Typed testimonial submitted 08 March 2018

References Boal, A. (1979) Theater of the Oppressed. New York: Urizen Books. Bolton, G. (1979) Towards a Theory of Drama in Education. London: Longman. Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Austin: University of Texas Press. Freire, P. (1972) Cultural Action for Freedom. Austin: University of Texas Press. Freire, P. (1973) Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Continuum. Fugard, A. (1990) My Children, My Africa. Michigan: Theatre Communications Group. Jackson, T. (ed.) (1980) Learning through Theatre: Essays and Case Books on Theatre in Education. Manchester: University of Manchester Press. Johnson, L. and O’Neill, C. (1984) Dorothy Heathcote: Collected Writings on Education and Drama. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Kidd, R. (1978) Popular Theatre and Development: A Botswana Case Study. Gaborone: Popular Theatre Committee. Kidd, R. and Byram, M. (1978) Popular Theatre: A Technique for Participatory Research. Pennsylvania: Participatory Research Project. Mda, Z. (1993) When People Play People: Development Communication through Theatre. London: Zed Books. Morgan, N. and Saxton, J. (1987) Teaching Drama: A Mind of Many Wonders. London: Penguin Random House. Morgan, N. and Saxton, J. (1991) Teaching, Questioning and Learning. Oxford: Routledge. Morgan, N. and Saxton, J. (1994) Asking Better Questions. Canada: Pembroke Publishers. Odhiambo, C. (2008) Theatre for Development in Kenya. Bayreuth: Thielmann and Breitinger. O’Toole, J. (1976) Theatre in Education: New Objectives for Theatre, New Techniques for Education. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Slade, P. (1954) Child Drama. London: University of London Press. Slade, P. (1995) Child Play: Its Importance for Human Development. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd. Toye, N. and Prendiville, F. (2000) Drama and Traditional Story for the Early Years. New York: Routledge. Wagner, B.J. (1976) Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a Learning Medium. London: National Education Association. Wa Thiong’o, N. (1986) Decolonising the Mind. London: James Curry. Way, B. (1972) Development through Drama. London: Longman.

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Appendix 2: A Chronology of Educational and Vocational Training Programmes 1998–2003

Educational Drama Teachers’ Programme (EDTP) Training Arts and Culture educators grades 1 – 10 in Educational Drama and Performance Art techniques towards the holistic development of children. The programme culminates in a Schools Performance Festival.

1998–2000

Creative Arts Workshops Integration of Dance, Drama, Music and Visual Arts for teachers of grades 1–3.

1999–2004

Advanced Drama Teaching Furthered training for teachers who participated in the EDTP Programme for the strategic use of Educational Drama in addressing prevalent social issues and the use of advanced drama techniques for the performing arts.

2000

Gr 7 Educators’ Workshop Training Arts and Culture educators in methods and techniques for teaching Drama.

2000–2003

Introduction to Arts & Culture A brief introduction to teaching the arts and integrating it with other learning areas targeted at Arts and Culture district coordinators and educators grade 4 – 9.

2001–2002

Integrated Workshops For Arts and Culture educators, a practical exploration of storytelling, music, dance, drama and visual art for life skills development.

2002

Playmaking Programme Arts and Culture educators trained in devised workshopping techniques for the development of a play production with learners. Culminating into the Schools Play Festival. The festival showcased productions from various schools which included a performance by educators.

2003

Schools Production Programme Arts and Culture educators grades 4 – 9, developed practical skills in play production such as; rehearsal scheduling, set design, and the use of costumes, props, lighting, sound and make up.

2003

African Masked Dance Drama Programme Integration of Dance, Drama, Music and Visual Arts with Arts and Culture educators for grades 4 – 9.

2003

Choral Verse Programme Training Arts and Culture educators grades 4 – 9 in the mode of choral verse performance, culminating in a multi-lingual Choral Verse Festival.

2003

Spoken Word Programme Training Arts and Culture educators’ grades 4 – 9 in the aspects and use of poetry for small group performance, whole class performance, verbal dynamics and storytelling, culminating in a Festival.

2003

Storytelling Programme Different aspects of storytelling and using stories in the classroom. (Continued)

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2003–2005

Natural Science and Technology Programme Using drama strategies to teaching concepts in Natural Science & Technology.

2004

Administration for Arts and Culture teachers Addressing assessment and the onerous paperwork demanded by curriculum 2005 and the revised National Curriculum Statement.

2004

Drama across the Curriculum Using drama and other performing arts to teach other learning areas (subjects) in an experiential way.

2004

Drama as a Performing Art Preparing for classroom and public performances.

Vocational Training Programmes Nationally Recognised by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) 2005–2008

Performing Arts Learnership SAQA US: 48808: Further education and Training Certificate: Performing Arts Groups and Productions: Ezithuthukayo Dance and Drama Youth Company; Ke Mang (2005), Youth Against Violence: In The Beginning (2006), Imbumba: House of Zombies (2007), Inyanda: (Drama): Olive Tree; In Our Kasi, Ha! Bra Fats, We are in the same shoes. (Dance): Faces and Spaces, Celebration of Life, Kee:/Xarra//Ke (2008).

2006–2009

Performing Arts Internship SAQA US: 114587: Facilitate learning in arts and culture modules and programmes, SAQA US: 10213: Plan a learning event (Year 2007 & 2008 only) Groups and Productions: Ezithuthukayo Dance and Drama Youth Company: (Drama): HIV/AIDS pieces, (Dance): Iso: Broken Eye (Poetry): Word Beat (2006), Youth Against Violence: Mary and Joseph (2007), Imbumba (Dance): What Lies Between (Drama): Mary and Joseph (2008), Inyanda (Festivals) HIV/Aids Khulumani Festival, Dance Xplosion!!, Storytelling Festival, Beat the Talk-Festival of Fame, (Drama): Romeo & Juliet and Animal Farm (2009).

2009–2011

Community Arts Facilitation Programme SAQA US: 115487: Facilitate learning in arts and culture modules and programmes, SAQA 254295: Explain and apply the principles and philosophy of community arts. Groups: Murhi (2009), Sibikwa African Orchestra (2011) (Continued)

Sibikwa’s Educational Programmes 167 2010

Community Arts Directors’ Course SAQA US: 114549: Direct Performances Group and Festival: Directing Group (Festival) Sibikwa Directors’ Festival

2013–2019

Arts Administration Learnership SAQA US: 48818 - Further education and Training Certificate: Arts and Culture Administration. Groups: Gauteng Community Arts Groups (2013, Free State Community Arts Groups (2014–2015), Agisanang Project (2017–2019).

2018–2021

Community Arts Short Skills Course SAQA US: 116662: Rehearse performance form; 114551: Analyse performance texts in context; 114543: Conceptualise performance texts and performances; 114542: Perform performance form: 114547: Practice physical techniques for communication in performance, 114548: Create original performances and 114549 direct performances. Groups and Productions: Qinis’Ulwazi (Drama) My Children My Africa and Woza Albert, (Dance) Spaces and Trios (2018–2019), Agisanang (Drama) My Children My Africa, (Dance) Makore (2018-2019), DAC Bid Group (Drama) Nailed, Ekasi Lami, You fool: how can the sky fall?, (Dance) Wonderful Colours (2020–2021)

2020

Performing Arts Short Skills Course SAQA US: 48808 Further education and Training Certificate: Performing Arts (Outstanding Unit Standards) Group and Production: Qinis’Ulwazi (Virtual Reality Performances) Monologues, Dance and Poetry. Facilitation Training

2014–2020

Classroom Arts Facilitation Programme SAQA US: 115487: Facilitate learning in arts and culture modules and programmes. Groups: Artists In Schools Project (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020). Ekurhuleni ECD Group (2015)

9

“Living proof” – Thirty years of Sibikwa’s theatre productions Sarah Roberts

This chapter documents and discusses the significance of Sibikwa’s theatre productions in terms of subject matter, format and style, presentation, and reception by audiences (and critics). The trajectory of work produced is contextualised through a broad division of the 30-year history into three phases to anchor discussion of two distinctive productions. This account cannot address the entire corpus of work generated but elects, rather, to discuss content and treatment of representative samples of a body of work. The framework for the necessarily brief discussion of the plays will be set out through Kgalema Motlanthe’s notion of “spaces of influence” and their role in triggering debate, transformation, and shared values in the public sphere. The consistent commitment to intertwining creative practice with em­ bedded local development and empowerment issues will emerge through this survey and begins to explain the relatively scant published output of texts. There are two important aspects of the kind of theatre that Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz have jointly developed: first, the subject matter emerges directly from lived experience, it is local and speaks directly to the concerns of its immediate audience and in this accomplishes the core objective of a com­ munity project which aims at active and participatory engagement within a specific constituency; second, the treatment, staging, and presentation of that subject matter is rigorously crafted in the interests of aspiring to acknowledged professional standards that operate nationally and internationally. Furthermore, as with many contemporary devised-theatre projects, the live encounter with an audience is prioritised above the literary quality of the drama and its publication.

Creating a “Space of Influence” Theatre might well be defined as an interactive encounter in the public do­ main in which the production presentation only has significance – meaning and value – in terms of its reception by an audience and what that project means to its community. I adopt this provisional definition of theatre rather than regarding theatre practice as a product of an “industry” which implies the model of a market-driven, commercially defined product or sphere of DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-11

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operations. The notion of an industry suggests that a creative artist might reasonably find employment with attached benefits and material securities that are available in sectors beyond the performing arts. Current working condi­ tions, for all those actively involved in making and presenting productions with rare exceptions (in contrast to bureaucrats and administrators) accept the insecurities of ad hoc (or even a peripatetic) employment to support them­ selves within our local political, cultural, and economic context. In multiple ways the operational models of theatre prior to the 2020 pandemic lockdown largely either perpetuate or grapple with the legacy of the past to shape a pathway into the future. And within that legacy, notions of professional and amateur continue to surface. Within those parameters, the role of community arts centres (with their outcomes and output) clearly demands consideration as a hybrid of these two Western notions. As a cultural institution and theatre offering audiences and participants social critique and templates for develop­ ment and reconstruction will emerge as the core principle of Sibikwa’s body of work. In his public lecture “Generosity of spirit: Power and privilege in politically uncertain times” (7/11/2017), Former President Kgalema Motlanthe concluded: Present times require that we use our positions of privilege to effect change, in the spaces where we hold influence – from classrooms to boardrooms, parliament to political rallies, written texts to radio, sporting codes to performing arts and organised stakeholders of the nation at large. (Helen Suzman Memorial Lecture, GIBS Johannesburg. Available at http://www.hsf.org. Accessed 10 November 2017) There are two key observations stemming from this statement: first, what we might call “spaces of influence” in the public domain are diverse in their capacity, reach and the identity of stakeholders; second, shaping the future of South Africa depends on active engagement and commitment which is ac­ tively implemented rather than remaining the preserve of state institutions. Additionally, the focus needs to be on “how” we operate rather than simply on the “what” of the output: the mode of operations is as enabling as what is produced. In celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the project (25/08/2018), Klotz briefly summarised Sibikwa’s history, its funding, operations, and achieve­ ments. Guest speaker Deputy Minister Nel, focused on arts activism and the White Paper on community arts currently under debate. He – rather than a representative of the ministry of arts and culture – acknowledged Sibikwa as a model of sustainability or continuity, and a “beacon” for similar initiatives. The student-centred celebratory programme substantiated his claim. The programme featured short performances – many of which had been facilitated by graduates of Sibikwa’s diverse projects to testify to the ways in which lives have been so positively influenced by the educational project.

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The recently refurbished premises belie the industrial setting just as the throng of participants – diverse performers of all ages and their audience – give the lie to the assumption that the outskirts of Benoni are a cultural wasteland. These premises also attest to the determination and commitment to re­ habilitate an immediate environment through taking personal responsibility rather than depending on the government to achieve the rehabilitation of long-neglected public facilities. The serious issues rooted in the struggle for survival, a culture of civil rights, citizenship, and accountability remain central to the project’s vision. Minister Nel hailed Sibikwa as “living proof” of a sustainable community arts project which conforms with Motlanthe’s notion of “spaces of influence.” In less immediately visible material ways, Sibikwa has created a living legacy through the plays it has developed, even if many are not publicly available in print. Since its inception, workshopping, rehearsing, and presenting theatre productions that deal with directly experienced issues have been presented to local audiences on the Sibikwa premises. These notable plays deserve their place in the canon of South African theatre as a celebration of “ordinary” lives in which audience members recognise themselves, as advocated by Njabulo Ndebele in his seminal and influential essays on literature and culture. Ndebele critiques the tendency to melodramatic spectacle, excess, or over-simplification to argue the case for the need for narratives – dramatic and literary – that appeal because in subject and tone they provide an audience or reader with material that is familiar, and recognisable as material that they might identify with and find meaningful. The productions – across all phases – resist ready categorisation via the Western terms of the binary distinction between “professional” and “amateur/ community” projects Sibikwa’s achievement in theatre-making has been to dissolve the meanings of these terms to forge a hybrid that is at once both professional and community-based. The tendency – or need – to define and label creative practice as being either “professional” or “community” is pro­ blematic in assumptions and operations. The distinction is well-entrenched and epitomised by categories and nominations for the annual Naledi Theatre Awards which suggest that expectations of standards of professional and community theatre practice differ considerably. The uneasy and untested assumption appears patronising because the reductive equation of resources – financial muscle, manpower, and time – are assumed available to “industry practitioners” while “community” projects are compromised and positioned at a deficit and cannot be expected to compete with standards of artistic excellence. The status of professional identity suggests specific training and specialised disciplinary ex­ pertise that ensures income-generating capacity. Community status continues to lack precise definition within contemporary cultural practice. Conversely, the unequivocal association of guaranteed standards of excellence with profession­ alism is equally problematic. Pursuing the distinction between professional and community shores up an enclave of dedicated practitioners in the interests of insinuating the value of an elite corps while excluding others from a privileged

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domain. The discrimination lodged within this nomenclature is divisive and separatist. It inserts and perpetuates an embedded colonial paradigm within the arts ecology. Simultaneously, this discourse defeats efforts committed to em­ bracing the inclusive aesthetics of African culture. In order to understand the generative tensions embedded in the qualities of theatre-productions as both “professional” and “community-based” it is crucial to contextualise the Sibikwa theatre-making project in the trajectory of emer­ gent theatre in South Africa – along with its global celebration in the 1980s – in the two or three years immediately prior to founding Sibikwa. Individually and separately, Ndaba and Klotz were actively involved in productions featuring prominently on the international theatre festival circuit. Touring with Bopha! (from 1985) and You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock! (on tour from 1986) provided Ndaba and Klotz with opportunities to appreciate the vital dynamism of local performance styles with their capacity to bridge linguistic and cultural differences. This festival circuit alerted them to the need to interrogate one’s method and style as a distinctive marker of a specific cultural idiom as observe. The extraordinary global appeal that emergent local theatre of the mid-80s enjoyed is summed up by Jurg Wootli, director of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel: “It is a long time since we saw theatre work created so directly out of life, as if you had broken a hole in the theatre hall and built a street directly onto the theatre on the stage” (cited in Schwartz, 1988, p. 188). The international festival circuit – an annual summer celebration in cities like Zurich, Berlin, Toronto, and Edinburgh – familiarised Ndaba and Klotz with the global avant-garde such as Mnouchkine, Lepage, Wilson – and, also aligned Ndaba and Klotz with significant South African theatre-making collectives and their artistic figureheads. These included Barney Simon (The Company, Market Theatre), Mbongeni Ngema (Committed Artists), Junction Avenue Theatre Company, Gcina Mhlope, Christo Leach, and John Ledwaba. The Market Theatre was an urban hub and launching pad for much of this work. During 1987 alone, six productions were touring internationally after initial seasons at the Market Theatre. These were: Asinamali!, Bopha!, You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock, Sophiatown, Have You seen Zandile? and Woza Albert! There are three points to make regarding the associations of all of these productions with the Market Theatre: first, the plays and productions are set in unequivocal opposition to the State subsidised “culture industry,” variously categorised as “township,” “protest,” “resistance,” or “dissident”; second, despite the selfdeclared marginal status of the institution, productions mounted or presented at the Market Theatre were of the highest standard and consistently received multiple industry awards across diverse categories of professional practice; finally, despite the rich pool of expertise and highly skilled labour, financial resources were limited and budget allocations to salaries and production requirements necessarily remained actor-centred and minimal. The actor-centric focus affirmed Grotowskian’s “Poor Theatre” principles.1 Crafting and shaping that encounter is the real work of director, actors, de­ signers, and the theatre team who were all jointly committed to testing the

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limits of the medium in fresh and innovative ways. The Market Theatre had opened in 1976 and is in the centre of Johannesburg. Its capacity to draw an audience from the so-called “townships” or outskirts was however constrained despite its commitment to inclusivity. In contrast, Smal Ndaba’s bold decision to make theatre-going an integral aspect of citizenship by constructing a dedicated venue accessible to citizens of the outskirts (and reliant on public transport) arguably began when the Sibikwa Theatre opened in 1997.2 The need to generate new work to utilise this peri-urban venue to its capacity to augment the showcase of student work, may well account for the subject matter, tone, and style of the body of work produced by the Ndaba–Klotz partnership. Crucially, the sustainability of generating this work depended on seed-funding and income generation through touring both locally – to Festivals and urban complexes – and internationally. To achieve these goals, narrative subject, theme, and treatment (as much as production value) had to meet professional standards even if these productions were sometimes dis­ paragingly regarded as “community” in origin.

The “early years” under apartheid rule (1988–1994) The 1980s was a tumultuous decade in the political, economic, and cultural dy­ namics of South African history. The intensified resistance to apartheid triggered the imposition of increasingly draconian restrictions and repeated declarations of a State of Emergency and associated legislative powers. Committed theatre-makers were actively engaged with all that these counter-currents imposed. The context – and the concomitant need to address pluralities and diversities of everyday life experiences – forged the need for devising work collaboratively through a workshop or dialogic and interactive process. The process is best described through Barney Simon’s words: In the beginning there was work. Work of a specific passion, relevance and commitment. Work intended for all the people of South Africa, work that attempted to address our place and time … . When we began in 1976, we lived in a terrible but deceptively simple time. Today complexity is our given. The world we live in changes every day – marked by States of Emergency, news clampdowns, strikes, stayaways, sanctions and cruel factionalism … to penetrate any kind of truth that speaks for all of us is virtually impossible. (Cited in Schwartz, 1988, p. 188) New plays made at Sibikwa during this period testify to socio-political issues that demanded recognition and debate. The subject and issue-based focus of each is in several instances suggested by the titles – and pertinence, relevance, or “relatability” – is clearly declared as in So Where To? and D.E.T. Boys High3 which are a testimony to resilience and resourcefulness, a refusal to be cowed or victimised: they testify to the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

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Figure 9.1 DET Boys High. The caretaker surrounded by four teenage schoolboys in the “toilet area” of the school (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer, May 1991).

Unlike the play scripts which have been acknowledged as central to the growing body of emergent South African plays, many of Sibikwa’s plays are not publicly accessible in print form which is an indication of the tendency to dismiss that which is popular from the written record and scholarly study. Perhaps the nature of the live medium of theatre – like ntsomi and izibongo – locates the primary value of the script in performance itself with the result that the printed word is not a priority. A crucial component of social and cultural history is in danger of being lost or obliterated through neglect (Figure 9.1). Sibikwa has been relatively prolific in generating new productions while continuing its diverse community arts programme. Student performance showcases were intertwined with a body of significant new texts which are variously represented in revival seasons or had continuous life on the touring circuit. This extended life of productions partly accounts for the lack of ca­ pacity to generate a new play every year as does the time-consuming process of continuous fund-raising. There are five features of Sibikwa’s dramatic corpus to address. First, 19 major theatrical productions have been presented since 1986, most of which are ori­ ginal texts. Of the total output, only two are pre-existing play texts and four are adaptations of novels (and the nativity story) which largely served the theatre-ineducation function for matric learners. The (related) second point is that of the twelve original productions and plays many remain in the repertoire (Wathinta Abafazi, Wathinta Imbokodo (1986–2006) D.E.T Boys High (1991–2015) Kwela

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Bafana (1991–2015) and iLembe (2014–2016). Third, Sibikwa productions have regularly featured on either Fringe or Main Festival programmes at the National Arts Festival (Grahamstown/Makanda) as a springboard for reaching a wider national and international audience. Fourth, what might be considered a cluster of productions that serve specific social and communal issues rather than having been developed with a first showcase at a festival in mind, include The Stadium (sexual experiment and abuses) and Trash Truck (anti-litter and respect for a communal environment). Finally, details of the rehearsal process and in-situ actor training and career development initiated through these Sibikwa pro­ ductions remain beyond the ambit of this chapter. Recurring appearances by notable emergent performers attest to Sibikwa providing a platform for career development and consolidation. Notable names include Busisiwe Zokufa, Themba Ndaba, Otto Ziqubu, Andries Mbali, Clara Vaughan, and Siphiwe Nkabinde.4 Smal Ndaba himself frequently served as central presence in the productions anchoring the presentation in a figure of considerable experience and gravitas. Before embarking on a discussion of any of the specific productions and how they represent the period and ethos in which they were made, it is ap­ propriate to acknowledge one central feature of the way in which these productions evolved as a core feature of the Sibikwa method. This feature is the inclusive mechanism by which a text is organically developed with the participants whose names are recorded with the production. Klotz or Ndaba might have had a core idea in terms of subject matter, but its treatment along with the textures and details of the text emerged through long periods of working with the actors. Various forms of research were undertaken in rela­ tion to the specific demands of the subject matter: iLembe (with its focus on varying oral and written accounts of Shaka’s rule required intensive research at the Killie Campbell Museum as Klotz and Ndaba worked through archival material), the verbatim model of Chapter 2 Section 9, Equality required advance interviews conducted by Klotz and others. But frequently the characters and narrative are developed from the experiences of the participants as young women or young men themselves, as in D.E.T. Boys High and So Where To? Theatre historian and scholar, Temple Hauptfleisch posits: The concept of the group made play rests on the assumption the performance is far more important than the text. Its fundamental process is improvisation based on the experiences of the actors and its text evolves from visual and aural presentation of feelings, beliefs, and awareness’s elicited during the workshop sessions. This is a far cry from the conventional playwriting process we have come to know through western theatre, in which a preliminary written text is given to the actors for performance. The results of such a creative process have seldom led to a major work of dramatic art (from the literary point of view) for it tends to provide us with a number of loose scenes based on experiences by the individual actors/characters rather than an integrated and a sharply focused

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look at a central issue. However, it has been responsible for some major theatrical experiences, for it is primarily a theatrical process, intended for that magic moment in the theatre when actors and audience commune around a given issue. (1997, p. 132) Addressing these issues from the perspective of a theatre-maker, Klotz observed: “They” want us to emulate European playwrights, but that’s not what our theatre is about; it’s about the collective and that has another life. I’m not saying there’s not a place for playwrights or that we should eradicate them but trying to develop the cult of the writer … we’re in Africa and we don’t have that history. (Interview 22 June 2013 Johannesburg) Chiming in to stress the value of the oral tradition, Ndaba claimed: If you hear the story from someone, then you can work with it – if it is your grandmother, then you can ask questions – you can believe it. But if the information is from a book, then it is harder to believe it. The stories from our grandmothers are not just stories – these were things we could learn from. (Roberts, 2015, p. 33) Both stress the value and authority of personal testimony as an alternative to the written record with Klotz confirming: “You’ve got a completely different approach to trusting the source of material – the perspectives are just so dif­ ferent. A Western view honours that which is written.” (Interview 22 June 2013 Johannesburg). The trio of So Where To? (1988), D.E.T. Boys High (1991), and Kwela Bafana (1992) provide a vivid demonstration of what Klotz terms “lehrstücke” and cabaret of the early years. The productions speak directly to the audience about issues through cultural forms with which they are familiar. Ndaba’s So Where To? is about teenage pregnancy and is anchored in the inescapable context of socio-political violence. Three schoolgirls, Clara, Busi, and Amanda meet in the maternity section of a hospital. All have been directly affected by the disruptions to their schooling and what Florence Short, in her review, describes as “the heady involvement in school protest” (“Play explores effects of political violence in SA”, The Argus 11 April 1990, n.p.). Their circumstances differ: Clara is militant. Busi is caught up in mob excitement as an end in itself rather than the issues at stake, Amanda has fallen in love with the white national serviceman who had literally saved her life during a riot. The volatile and combustible personalities and the situation within which they are placed, both personal and political, make for a play that moves between extremes of comic absurdity and real tragedy. The gravitas offsetting the youthful perspectives is provided by the motherly nursing sister and Amanda’s

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father who face the task of guiding the young women to coming to terms with their situations and responsibilities. The play questions the impact of the violent disruption on young and impressionable lives that are individuals catapulted into the harsh realities of being adults too soon. The hospital ward with its façade of quiet controlled order and routine explodes into a place in which bodies and identities refuse to be contained in disruptions that echo the way in which the world inhabited by these girls confronts them with chal­ lenging and confusing choices about their hopes and dreams which will butt up against grim realities. The action breaks into song in unexpected moments and celebrates the resilience of the spirit and the will to overcome. Short’s review concludes: “More questions are asked than answers are given. There is no hard line ‘message’” (1990, n.p.). Ndaba’s next project, D.E.T. Boys High was a work that he wrote and directed. He continued to promote the focus and perspectives of a young school-going generation and offset their lively energies and insights with the perspective of a solitary older individual, the school caretaker. This interplay of generational positions is a motif that constantly undergirds Ndaba’s theatrical output (Figure 9.2). The premise of the play is simple: four disaffected young students meet as often as possible in the school toilet which, ironically, it transpires, is more conducive to invested exchange and learning than the classroom. It is here that

Figure 9.2 DET Boys High. Three of the four schoolboys break out into a brief dance routine inside the rough world of repurposed buckets, plastic, and motorcar exhausts suggesting a school toilet interior (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer, May 1991).

“Living proof” – Sibikwa’s theatre productions 177

they can really argue, brag, smoke, and let off steam. The four youngsters are clearly distinguished from each other rather than types. Mingus is notably a delinquent – the recognised school gangster – and antithesis of the bookish and earnest T-man. The mischievous Bozol completes the well-established trio of long-term mates. The fourth youngster is defined as an outsider who “be­ longs” on different terms. Toto, unlike the others, comes from a rural and diehard traditionalist background and has recently returned from his circumcision ritual in the mountains. His status as “other” has, however, the curious effect of being the grounds for bonding with the urbanised youths because the class teacher – never present in person on stage – clearly demonstrates his prejudice against Toto for respecting his traditions. Via the interplay of visible and re­ ported interactions, issues of respect, accommodation, and behaviour become the real issues that these young learners are eager to address. Truancy when defined in these terms becomes an ethical choice. The guys vent their frus­ trations with corruption within their school, the education system, and the inadequacies of the curriculum. Their perspectives are offset by those of the elderly caretaker whose simple wisdom, sincerity, and respect for all persons offer a clear contrast to that of the absent teacher. He is the knowing one, the one who does not victimise or ostracise anyone. His role as caretaker is both real and metaphoric. The staging is frankly theatrical. The toilets are an assemblage which de­ clares the parts from which each is made: three used galvanised iron slops buckets were positioned beneath three exhaust boxes and pipes bought from a side-of-the-road auto spares trader. The visual statement pays homage to the familiar idiom of local township arts and crafts and the strategy of repurposing materials and substitutions. The climax of the play is when a hand grenade explodes in the schoolyard. Ismail Mahomed, reviewing the play in performance in 2007, wrote: I could literally smell the shit in that toilet! … . I went to see the revival of this play hesitantly. I wondered if it would resonate as powerfully as it did when I first saw it in the early nineties but within minutes of the play opening, a packed audience of high school students from the East Rand murmured to each other at moments of recognition which they could draw form their own lives. It took nothing more to convince me that Smal Ndaba’s D.E.T. Boys High was as relevant today as it was in the nineties. (2007, “Give D.E.T Boys High a Cape Audience”, Artspoken 03/2007. Artslink.co.za News. Copy courtesy of Sibikwa archives) Revivals of D.E.T. (as it is known) vie with those of Kwela Bafana as the most frequently revived works in the Sibikwa repertoire. If the two earlier plays direct attention towards highly “relatable” young teens, Kwela (as it is known) pays homage to a different generation albeit that the youngsters provide the energy, dynamism, and life of the show. Kwela, as I understand it as a designer, is the production relatively fluid or unfixed script which has been presented in

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different iterations over the decades. The central core does not change: the band with its virtuoso piano presence in Bra B and the quartet of agile young male singer-dancers are constant. Bra B. Ngwenya – as the programme note pithily records – was born in 1935 in Benoni and joined Sibikwa in the early 1990s to appear at the Edinburgh Festival in 1992. As a member of the Woody Woodpeckers and one of the original cast members of King Kong, he is some­ thing of a living legend as musician-performer who brings the spirit and musical flavour of the 1950s to the cabaret with its five-piece band. The loosely woven tapestry of songs and anecdotes of the cabaret depends on multi-talented per­ formers with strong personalities and diverse stage presences who nonetheless can take on the identities of an ensemble in a soft shoe shuffle or a gum boot dance with its variations. The eclectic montage of songs has much in common with the acclaimed musical Five Guys Named Moe, with lyrics and music by jazz great Louis Jordan. This brief account of three seminal works firmly pronounces the way in which the script – as a printed document or work of literature – seems an inappropriate means of archiving the theatrical style that Sibikwa was to ex­ periment with and refine through subsequent decades. What emerges as crucial is the importance of audience responses, photographs, and reviews rather than scripts of the productions. This source of material testifies to the impact of the presentations during the early years of transition to a democratic dispensation.

The “years between” (1993/4–2005): Ubuntu bomhlaba (1993) and Uhambo (1997) The process of how the plays were devised, in the case of the Sibikwa projects of the late 80s and early 90s, is even more unusual than Hauptfleisch observes. The text is organically and collectively discovered in the rehearsal room but additionally, the entire company, on occasions, as with Ubuntu Bomhlaba, lives together as though on a retreat. Klotz claims: We made our best work when we lived with actors. Like with D.E.T. when we rehearsed under the trees somewhere in KwaNdebele … With monkeys overhead as the audience! Charlie always used to be terrified of those monkeys. We rehearsed Ghamka in Cape Town for several weeks and Ubuntu for those few weeks at that retreat in Wilgespruit. It was the best way of working – taking people away. We were dealing with raw, township talent in the early 90s – and there was a lot of civil disturbance which made it hard for people to focus. (Roberts, 2015, p. 34) At the time, the East Rand was a hotbed of particularly violent unrest as discussed elsewhere in this book. Ndaba claims: “we put the facts together … like the violence – when we did Ubuntu – it was about their experience – they understood that” (Interview 22 June 2013 Johannesburg).

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The directness of lived experiences and what these might bring to these texts became clear to me when I discovered (during a costume fitting) that one of the lead performers had been an ANC cadre whose journey into and return from exile in Zambia and Tanzania had been navigated entirely on foot. The correspondence between lived experience and the dramatic fable was a brutal reckoning to grapple with. Jameson’s analysis of Brecht’s propositions is a useful injunction. Referring to what he terms Brecht’s pragmatism, he explains: “you turn a problem into its solution, thereby coming at the matter askew and sending the projectile off into a new and more productive direction than the dead end in which it was immobilized” (1999, p. 31). Any attempt at representing the intensity of violence as experienced on the East Rand in South Africa circa 1993 risked reducing real experience to fabrication and melodrama (in its negative sense) whereas resorting to allegory and fable was the strategy that embraced its own artifice and by doing so circumvented any ethical improprieties in representing already violated lives. Ubuntu bomhlaba (1993)

The Sibikwa Theatre Company earned the distinction of being the first “community theatre group” to play on the Main Programme at the Grahamstown Festival. Festival Committee Chairman Alan Crump explained the distinction between Main and Fringe programmes to Weekly Mail jour­ nalist Jaqui Golding, and the distinction has some bearing on the status of community theatre and independent groups and the support that they receive. For inclusion in the Main Festival programme, proposals must be submitted for consideration by the Festival Committee. Those that are selected are ef­ fectively sponsored in that salaries, accommodation, travel, and other expenses are paid for by the Festival budget. Not so on the Fringe which was established in 1978. On the Fringe, individuals and groups not only have to cover their own expenses but in addition pay a registration fee and forfeit 15% of box office returns along with being charged a token fee for venue hire as docu­ mented in “In the Main: Sibikwa’s off the fringe” (Weekly Mail National Arts Festival Supplement June 1993 Courtesy of Sibikwa archive). Crump ac­ knowledged that criticism had been levelled at the Festival committee for favouring Arts Council productions or those initiated by institutions such as the Market and the Baxter Theatres, all of which are relatively well-resourced in comparison with independent and community groups. The inclusion in the Main Festival programme, with its sponsorship, enabled Sibikwa to imagine a project of a scale and scope that they had not previously attempted. Determined to declare their commitment to a particular way of working with a specific community, Ndaba and Klotz were equally determined to de­ monstrate that the pejorative associations of community would be debunked. Sibikwa employed a cast of 18 young performers, some in training, plus seven musicians and determined on an epic pan-African tale to be relayed through

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Figure 9.3 UBUNTU BOMHLABA. The community of an unnamed village somewhere in Africa, clad in traditional draped and tied attire in muted printed textiles, gather to watch their chieftain offer up his child in sacrifice (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer, July 1993).

song, dance, and heightened “poetic” register. Because of its scale, this was never likely to be one of the projects that could be revisited or enjoy a return season although it did enjoy a brief season at the Tesson at the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg. In response to the Johannesburg season, veteran theatre critic Raeford Daniel in his review entitled “Epic and Operatic” wrote: (Figure 9.3) NOT since the epic scaled tribal sagas of Credo Mutwa have we seen anything quite like this. And Ubuntu Bomhlaba is unique in that it uses music – and what a novel blend of Afro-ethnic and almost liturgical “Eurocentric themes – in an almost operatic sturm und drang style (even much of the dialogue is sung à la recitative) and that much of the action is dominated by an insistent drum beat courtesy of percussionist Zolani Magazi … The story is, I imagine taken from folklore. (The Citizen, 21 April 1994. n.p.) The title of this hybrid performance is explained by Terry Herbst: “literally translated, the title of this epic examination of African rituals, omens and vi­ sions told through music and presented in English – means ‘the humanness of the world’” (“Musical epic of African People,” Eastern Province Herald, 3 July 1993, n.p.). Its subject matter is the clash between negative and positive forces

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in society and how these play out in an African village. The themes of re­ conciliation and healing within family and community directly addressed pressing debates and discourse of the period. In Ubuntu Bomhlaba the issues are addressed through fable and allegory. The story begins in an African village in which the community is confronted with problem of failing to uphold – or to defy – the fundamental beliefs and practices that made for sustainable social cohesion, harmony, and well-being. Pressing contemporary political issues are relayed via an epic narrative of pan-African scope that is lodged in a distant and unnamed past, as per Brechtian notions of historicism. As Jameson explains, Brecht’s historicism is closely aligned with his insistence on the value of al­ legory and its operation in theatre. Jameson writes: The theatre is once again a peculiarly privileged space for allegorical mechanisms, since there must always be a question about the self-sufficiency of its representations: no matter how sumptuous and satisfying their appearance, no matter how fully they seem to stand for themselves, there is always the whiff and suspicion of mimetic operations, the nagging sense that these spectacles also imitate, and thereby stand for something else. (1999, p. 153) Raeford Daniel describes the production: (Figure 9.4) With its soaring harmonies, and the pulsating rhythms of drums, marimbas, flutes, rattles and horns is an epic tale told interwoven with ancient ritual, omens and far-reaching visions … (It) Tells the story of two brothers, Bhekifa and Sizwe. Their father Zondi, a simple villager, is inspired to perform a cruel ritual on all newborn babies to purge them of the evil inherent in each individual. When he baulks at performing the ritual on his second son, the village is plunged into a severe drought. Bhekifa and Sizwe are banished along with their wives. (“Epic and Operatic” in The Citizen, 8 April 1994, n.p.) In exile, they wander in search of a place to settle and are eventually absorbed into a village that is, itself, divided along lines of affiliation and loyalty. The brothers separate deciding to join different factions anticipating that they will be able to warn each other if danger is likely to erupt and perhaps even effect a reconciliation between the two parties. Their plan goes horribly wrong. A battle ensues, one brother and his wife are killed. The village community is purged, the rains fall. Critic Barry Ronge begins his review “Spectacle is the nearest thing yet to Afro-opera” with these words: With its surging rhythms and complex melodramatic story Ubuntu Bomhlaba (Civic Theatre) is the closest thing that I have ever seen to an African opera – and that in itself makes it provocatively different. It is an

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Figure 9.4 UBUNTU BOMHLABA. The small group of outcasts (with their meagre belongings) prepare to embark on a journey into exile (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer, July 1993).

eye-filling spectacle of considerable beauty … . As I watched this stylised enactment, TV images of the Rwandan war between the Hutus and the Tutsis flashed through my mind, and even closer to home, the battles between Xhosas and Zulus. The show isolates one of the most pervasive and tragic factors of life in Africa and offers a heartfelt and moving plea of such violence to end. The music, created by Boy Ngewenya and Smal Ndaba, is full of vibrant percussion, the choral singing is fabulous and the staging of the dances electrifying. It is an exciting experiment with a new

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garner fusing Western music drama with African music and it provides fresh, captivating entertainment. (The Sunday Times 24 April 1994, n.p.) The play that followed adopted an entirely different register and key. Uhambo (1997)

On 3 February 1998, readers of The Seattle Times were offered opening re­ marks from Mary Murfin Bayley in her review of Uhambo: The Journey. If Bertolt Brecht, the playwright who came up with the theory of an ideal “epic” theatre, were alive today he’d be standing and cheering for Sibikwa Players. This company of five male performers and three musicians from South Africa found the balance between exterior gesture and deeply realised characterisation that makes for great epic theatre. The audience was drawn into the story but was always allowed the emotional distance to absorb the political implications of the action. (1998, n.p. courtesy Sibikwa archives) The overlay of two distinctive periods in South Africa is clear: the 1990s is established as a time frame in which a radio relays Nelson Mandela’s 1994 Inauguration Address. The historical recording is just one element of the soundscape. The audience hears and sees a young boy, alone, spontaneously playing a penny whistle. In the visual montage, an old man, Mzano, sits lis­ tening to Mandela’s speech as he reminisces, reflecting on his own childhood in the 1950s. Past, present, and a dream of a future are fused in a theatrical instant. Historical facts, personal memories, and scope for their interweaving precisely per the Brechtian template are all in place in an instant. Youth and age encounter each other in an intergenerational dialogue in the ensuing story which unfolds as that of the old man: his childhood was lived within the oppressive constraints and restrictions imposed by apartheid. The journey has been undertaken as a solemn ritual promise made to a grandmother: he must journey to the city to find his parents. Finally reunited with his family at Coalbrook Mine, he must deal with the brutal circumstance of loss of loved ones in the 1960 Coalbrook Mine collapse. As at the outset, recorded circumstances of history are interwoven with creative fabrication. The journey from childhood to adulthood of a single individual chime with the experiences of many and gains national import as a metaphor of a nation needing to revisit the past in the interests of healing even as it embarks on a new start as a democracy. The theatrical languages of image and sound are mobilised in Brechtian juxtapositions in terms of focal point and narrative development. The result may not conform with what Hauptfleisch (1997, p. 132) dismisses as a “major work of dramatic art (from the literary point of view).” But perhaps adopting that Western literary point of view as an

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unquestioned premise of dramatic value – at the expense of celebrating the medium of theatre – is the problem? In Western terms Artaud had long ad­ vocated the need for theatre to identify its unique language. He advocated mobilising mise-en-scène and soundscape in an appeal to the senses as the viable tool for contesting the word-based dialogues saturated model of realist drama seamlessly absorbed within the Western literary/print tradition. The oral storytelling tradition owes little to the intertwined legacies of literature and drama. The hybrid of song, dance, and speech in Uhambo is a montage of “the rhythms of a back-breaking work song, a loose shamble of a bar dance, the athletic jigging of a mining camp party” (Bayley, 1998, n.p.). Samuel Weber, in Theatricality as Medium, is unequivocally clear in making claims for non-literary approaches to theatre: Meaning is not separable from the way in which it is staged; indeed, it can be said to inhere in the staging of a particular type of performance. (2004, p. 26) What this implies is that the identities of the performers – as participants in devising the text and perhaps even more so in performance – assume con­ siderable significance because in a single encounter with the audience, the story and its meaning are shared.

Theatre-making in a democratic dispensation (2006–2019): iLembe (2014) and Chapter 2 Section 9 (2016) iLembe (2014)

iLembe offers a multi-perspectival presentation of the life of Shaka with ma­ terial drawn from the oral tradition intertwined with the written record. Presented initially in the Drama Theatre of the KwaZulu Natal Playhouse in Durban, the play was the first production on the Main Festival (Grahamstown Festival) to be performed in isiZulu. Subsequently, it was also staged at the Soweto Theatre and garnered several Naledi Award nominations (Figure 9.5). The isiZulu script of iLembe (The Axe) includes only the English of Henry Francis Fynn, the trader, who remains conspicuously monolingual. English surtitles were projected above the scene and the written word became in­ tegrated within the visual image of the play. Research at the Killie Campbell Museum had amassed material from Fynn’s diaries, re-written largely from memory when the originals were lost. These contain descriptions of his en­ counters with Shaka as trader and gunrunner. As Ndaba explains, Fynn be­ came virtually one of Shaka’s Ndunas (subsidiary chiefs) with his own izibongo (praise poet), five wives, and many children. Ndaba remains adamant that the written record requires inter-weaving with what material can be unearthed from the oral tradition: (Figure 9.6)

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Figure 9.5 iLembe. Nomcoba (in the foreground) in a ghostly white rendering of tradi­ tional rural isiZulu attire, addresses the audience, presenting her account of her brother Shaka’s life and her role in it. Behind her the five male dancer-warriors cluster as they ready for action (photograph by Valerie Adamson, May 2014).

We need to find old people in the community. We want their interpretation of the history … and all these characters from the past they will come back, these ancestors – the dlozi. We want to stage, somehow, these multiple spirits of the past. (Interview 22 June 2013 Johannesburg) As in Uhambo, Ndaba intertwines the past and present with a cogent cos­ mological congruity: a Sangoma [traditional healer] and two musicians invoke ancestral spirits and colonial history. Space and time dissolve as the Amadlozi (five warrior dancers) appear in anticipation of individuals closely associated with the great king: Nomcoba. Mbopha, Msimbi/Jacob and Fynn. Each has a different story of Shaka. These stories overlap and diverge. Each perspective colours an attitude and a version of the king’s life and circumstances of his death. The play challenges us with these variations and unequivocal truth remains elusive. The staging presents a contemporary audience not so much with a re-enactment of history as an invocation of identities who remain defined as powerful, if enigmatic, spiritual presences. As Ndaba puts it: “Mbopha is not a present-day person – he can only appear today as a spirit of the past in our present” (Interview, 22 June 2013 Johannesburg).

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Figure 9.6 iLembe. Two Sangomas, flanked by a warrior in the foreground, invoke the spirits of the past to return physically to provide their individual accounts of their role in Shaka’s life and death. One of the several bleached cow-skulls so central to the iconography of the design divides the world of the present from the past (photograph by Valerie Adamson, May 2014).

Chapter 2 Section 9 (2016)

Klotz’s verbatim style text with its cast of four women shifts the idiom and register of South African protest theatre and invites comparison with Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo to identify continuities and shifts in register, tone, and style. An experiment in hybrid form, Klotz responded directly to reading Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre rather than mounting the new project as an exercise in established conventions of verbatim theatre. The research material generated through interviews undertaken by her, Janneke Strijdonk, and others collated the testimonies of some fifty individuals opening a wide range of issues associated with the personal experience of abuse. An extract from the funding proposal document demonstrates the constant demands of fund-raising as much as it substantiates Sibikwa’s continued commitment to activism and social justice. It eloquently outlines the rationale for the project: The inclusion of the Equality Act in the Constitution was globally seen as a victory for the LGBTIQ people. Laws protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex citizens from employment discrimination

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followed in 1998, while legislation permitting same-sex marriage and civil unions entered the statue books eight years later. Despite these progressive laws, LGBTIQ persons are unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their gender, gender identity, sex and/or sexual orientation which too often manifests itself in the form of violent crimes including assault, often with grievous bodily harm, rape, murder or any combination of these. Lesbian and transgender women face double margin­ alisation, both as women and as women who have sex with women; more than ten lesbians are raped or gang-raped weekly, as estimated by Lulekisizwe NPO, and it is estimated that at least five hundred lesbians become victims of ‘corrective rape’, so-coined in an attempt to evoke rapists’ justification for attacks on women who defy socially prescribed gender codes. (Undated Sibikwa documents) The play sets out to weave together glimpses into the subject identities of women whose stories remain largely unheard. It was the range of diverse sub­ jective experiences of brutal discrimination, ostracism, stigmatisation, and bru­ tality that the production aimed to respect by presenting these necessarily anonymous personal accounts rather than focusing on an abstract or fictionalised treatment of this material. Individual testimonies include mini-narratives: Person 7: “The Constitution … , so my partner Therese and I decided to get married and as far as we know gay marriage is legal in our country cause the constitution says you can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. So off we go to Home Affairs in Edenvale, we decided to go to a small one, so we don’t have to stand in queue, so we stand in this fokken queue, and we say ‘marriage’ and they say ‘oh ja sure, you go to that counter.’ So we get there and we say we’d like to book and they say no they’re sorry they don’t perform that, gay marriages here, go to Germiston. Ok we drive to Germiston, we get exactly the same response and they say to us go to Krugersdorp. In the meantime, we’re bitching about it to friends on the phone so one of our friend’s phones Home Affairs in Krugersdorp and they say no, that here either. So, what we’ve discovered now, in 2016 is, oh yes, they do discriminate against you on the basis of your sexuality. I looked at the Act and it says that any Home Affairs officer, if they don’t agree to gay marriage, if it’s against their conscience, they don’t have to perform this ceremony. […] it’s just wadda wadda wadda, it’s just talk and tell us you acknowledge our rights and everything, maybe it’s your way of getting votes. Only now cause we’re striking and you saw us and you promised us and there’s elections. I really think they don’t care about us, they will just say this and promise us just to brush everything off you know. It really isn’t doing anything for me; we’re not getting anything from the government, just speeches, no action. (Unpublished rehearsal script 2016, p.16)

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This extract celebrates survival with gutsy humour: the distress of stigmatisa­ tion is also forcibly reinforced in a different register as in the first-person ac­ count of Person 11 who had been raped by her brother as a young schoolgirl. Person 11: Some of the family members on my mother’s side wanted the whole incident to be kept secret and on my father’s side, they wanted it to be exposed and let the law take its course. […] It was later when I was sick, my bladder was damaged and I could not hold the urine, that I told my father. I was at school, all of a sudden I heard my classmates shuffling and getting noisy behind me. I quickly turned and there was urine flowing from underneath my desk. […] I wouldn’t say I am ok mara (but) I am trying to survive. (I do not call myself a victim but a survivor). Right now, I am an activist and advocate, I fight for woman’s rights. It’s hard at times when a woman tells me she has been raped and wathula (decides to keep quiet). In other words, I do not want other women to make the same mistake I did. (Unpublished rehearsal script 2016, p.10) These descriptions of real experience undergird reciting opinions that quietly confront the audience with the observations as in the production’s final line voiced by person 15: You will never hear that i-lesbian killed umuntu. Kodwa amalesbians are always getting killed. (Unpublished rehearsal script 2016, p. 17) The juxtaposition of these extracts pronounces several features of Chapter 2 Section 9 the vernacular texture of oral testimonies in its linguistic polyglot reflects cultural and linguistic diversity; the form of the whole depends on in­ terweaving fragments that emerged from the ethnographic research to present the audience with a vivid sense of a plurality of experiences rather than focus on the enactment of any one individual narrative and the “past-ness” of events is stressed. These features point to a radical shift in aesthetics and theatrical idiom in the assimilation of innovations within the Western Avant-garde fused with elements of traditional African storytelling which intersect in their shared em­ phasis on a participatory (or inclusive) aesthetics in which the spectator/auditor is explicitly acknowledged and integrated within the theatrical encounter. Two formal features need to be outlined briefly: first a brief comparison between dramatic and post-dramatic forms in terms of authorship, treatment, and tone of the text; a second issue is the kind of reception that this mode of address sets up. Unlike the fictional cosmos and linear action of Wathinta Abafazi, Wathinta Imbokodo with its capacity to induce dramatic empathy, Chapter 2 Section 9 positions the audience outside of the unfolding narrative in spatial and tem­ poral terms. In the earlier quasi-Aristotelian model, each actress played a single character within the street vendor community: their individual stories, like their relationships are fabricated, as is the sequence of events that unfold.

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In Chapter 2 Section 9 the multiple characters offering a series of authentic testimonies depends on the juxtaposition that characterises collage to require each actress to take on multiple roles. The apparent kaleidoscopic whole is sutured thematically with statements introduced according to theme or focus with each sequence pronounced in a spoken title. The scene titles are announced: “Not naming it”, “Coming out,” “Out,”, “Corrective rape,” “Children,” “Religion,” “Same-sex relationships, are they unAfrican?,” and “The Constitution.” Klotz’s role as editor or “author” is best understood in terms of the pro­ ductive and poetic phrase “smudged authorship,” advanced by Judith Lütge Coullie in “(Dis)Locating Selves: Izibongo and Narrative Autobiography in South Africa.” She emphasises a “lack of distinction between self-composed praises and those composed by others” (1999, p. 68) to account for features of reiteration, recitation, and repetition as key principles in traditional oral per­ formance. This feature urges acknowledgement that collating statements garnered from a specific community has long been integral to oral literature in South Africa. Moreover, (following Ricard’s precendent, 1997), Lütge Coullie insists that “the performance of the poem is the poem” (1999, p. 68). This sensibility partly explains the long history of Sibikwa’s acknowledgement of cast members and, perhaps its valorisation of the immediacy and ephemerality of performance. The encounter between performer and audience is valued above the literary value of the “script,” while programmes and reviews are a more appropriate form of documentation than the printed form of the play. Hauptfleisch has argued that the role that praise poets play at socio-cultural events like weddings, constitutes a “truly popular theatre, generated through, participated in and shaped by the community and its needs” (1997, p. 51). He writes: The element of telling, of addressing an audience directly, interspersed with mimetic enactment of significant episodes of the narrative […] implies an age-old tradition of listening in pre-literate societies, a tradition in which the spoken word is far more potent than the printed word. (1997, p. 51) The aesthetic implications of an interplay between that which is “authentic” or real and its re-presentation is an aspect of the Western post-dramatic idiom charted by Hans-Thies Lehmann which Klotz had been scrutinising while developing Chapter 2 Section 9. Post-dramatic theatre acknowledges the pastness of events even as it embraces the actual – or real circumstances – of direct address to the audience in a frank declaration of the theatre-relationship. There is no enactment or embodiment, simply a re-telling. At the conclusion of the presentation the audience is invited onto the stage – an unbounded installation site – to write their comments on the papers laid out on the floor between the stage and auditorium. A palimpsest developed over the course of several performances to link the audience of one performance with the responses of audiences of previous presentations. The visual landscape paid tribute to those who died between 2007 and 2016.

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Critical reactions attest to the efficacy of the project. Robyn Sassen’s review was headlined: “Supported by the Constitution, betrayed by the world” (available at http://www.robynsassenmyview.com/2016/07/14/). The un­ equivocal gap between civil rights as set out in the Constitution and a culture in which freedoms are flouted confirms the way in which this most recent project – a stylistic variation on the constant project of addressing the needs of community and society – in terms of subject and theme perpetuates protest theatre as a genre. Mike Loewe’s review salutes the continuation of resistance with the slogan of the Struggle: It’s not good theatre, it’s great theatre. It is committed, searing, touching, engrossing work. … Amandla! (Available at http://www.thecritter.co.za/chapter-2-section-9/)

Conclusion: “I see more opportunities. We haven’t done enough.” (Ndaba) The work of Klotz and Ndaba is included in the seminal chapter of The Methuen Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre in the chapter “The Pioneers” whose work in theatre straddled apartheid past and democratic present and shared several characteristics. Their mode of collaborative authorship formed a template where “experiments in citizenship of the future and the notion of ensemble has some parallels with Mamphela Ramphele’s notion of an ‘engaged’ (rather than self-serving or passive) citizen” (Roberts, 2015, p. 19). It is appropriate to harness Sibikwa’s theatre achievements with those of other notable South African theatre-makers, specifically Gcina Mhlope – the storyteller – and Malcolm Purkey – theatre-maker and theatre-manager. Mhlope, like Ramphele, insists on the value of inter-generational dialogue, or Conversations as a tool for honouring culture, belief, and communities of the past within an ever-changing present that informs the future. As Tyrone August in his transcription of his interview with celebrated storyteller and actress Gcina Mhlope makes clear, for her, storytelling goes beyond the intergenerational communal sense of social relations: stories have a generative force in appealing to and nurturing the imagination: In her inimitable manner of speaking, she responded to his question with these words: There was time in African culture when the setting of the sun announced that it was time for story telling … . That time is gone now. Now everybody in the family works. When children come home from school, they roam the streets. (August, in Gunner et al., 1994, p. 274)

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By providing a haven in which stories are actively developed and then shared, Sibikwa is one model for negating the debilitating facts of contemporary township life. But the tension between honouring narratives of the past and the need to create new stories consistently surfaces in Sibikwa’s output. As Managing Director of the Market Theatre, Malcolm Purkey was unapologetic for actively promoting a series of revivals of what is increasingly recognised as the corpus of emergent South African plays. He maintained that this strategy served an audience which appeared to be “hungry” for this kind of artistic programme. He also defends this programming as being in line with the kind of retrospective exhibitions of great South African visual artists. Klotz and Ndaba are equally conscious of the ways in which they have revived their own past works. Production choices remain guided by the recognition that, despite instrumental and far-reaching political change, everyday lives and socio-economic conditions remain largely untransformed. Klotz observed: “Apart from the one word “Bantustans”, which today’s generation doesn’t understand, when we revived D.E.T. everything was still relevant – pathetic really” (Interview 22 June 2013 Johannesburg). Thus, re-producing their own texts is driven by the continued need to address “issues of teenage pregnancy, the fraught condition of secondary school experience and the place of memory in the perpetual struggle for dignity in a society that has not transformed as radically as one might have anticipated from the time in which these plays were first made” (Roberts, 2015, p. 35). Klotz is keenly aware of tensions between the need to make new plays and the revival of proven productions: “We’ve done too many revivals and need to make new work. But it would be wonderful to do a retrospective season before we bow out. Go back over the early lehrstűcke like So Where To? With D.E.T. and Uhambo” (Roberts, 2015, p. 35). Klotz rightly cites the way in which Sibikwa has consolidated its own re­ putation through consistent revivals as the custodians of the texts that are ar­ chived on paper and in memory but not necessarily in the public domain in published form. A current sign of curriculum transformation and the value ac­ corded to Klotz’s works is the incorporation of You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock into the IEB matric syllabus (2021–2023) and the public availability of the script on its publication by the University of the Witwatersrand Press (2021). The public dissemination of the printed scripts to a new generation of scholars marks a crucial means of preserving what is otherwise retained in memories of a theatre audience. Ultimately the tension between cultural expression lodged in oral tradition with its preservation dependent on in­ dividual memories, as with theatre and its ephemerality urges that other Sibikwa scripts are publicly available for emergent theatre-makers to cut their teeth on even as a new generation in the auditorium learns details of a recent past which they would otherwise remain unaware. These Sibikwa plays demand to be treasured as texts that offer profound and rich insights into what might be termed a hidden history.

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Ndaba echoes the vision of Barney Simon the late Artistic Director of the Market Theatre who he reveres for his commitment to inclusive and egali­ tarian storytelling guided by two governing principles: first to speak to an audience about issues that directly concerned them, and second, to do so in while adhering to stringent standards of integrity and aesthetic value. Deputy Minister Andries Nel of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs was a guest speaker at the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Sibikwa Community Arts Centre in Ekurhuleni (25/08/2018). Nel not only hailed Sibikwa as “living proof” of the viability and sustainability of community arts projects but, memorably, drew on the words of Alex la Guma to acknowledge what Sibikwa’s arts and education output represents: There are a number of charlatans, pimps and prostitutes running around the world masquerading as artists; talking about how sensitive they are; how they cannot be involved in social issues; how art is for its own sake and a lot of other nonsense. The artist is both a participant and imaginative explorer in life. Their hideous masks must be yanked off by the artists with a sense of duty and a clear social vision. Creative energy is not locked up in any tower, ivory or black, inside a typewriter, a musical instrument or a can of paint. There is no such creature as a revolutionary soloist. We are all involved. The artist is both a participant and imaginative explorer in life. Outside of social life there is no culture, there is no art; and that is one of the major differences between man and beast. (Transcript courtesy of Sibikwa archives, n.p.) Eschewing that which is doctrinaire or crudely naïve, the plays of Ndaba and Klotz attest to their being tireless “participant(s) and imaginative explorer(s) in life,” their shared values and energetic sense of duty and social vision. They have produced theatre that has been inextricably bound up with an evolving social history and the instigation of a community arts project-cum-theatre that is of proven sustainability.

Acknowledgements 1 2

Michael Mabena at Sibikwa for supplying archival material, reviews, and programmes. Malcolm Purkey interviewed in 2015.

Notes 1 The reductive tendency to oversimplify Grotowski’s concept to a literal proposition denoting lack of financial capital is misleading and negates what he sets out to promote, namely that theatre, is – at its core – an encounter between actors and audience.

“Living proof” – Sibikwa’s theatre productions 193 2 The thriving professional commercial company of Gibson Kente, and subsequently less commercially orientated companies of Maishe Maponya and Matsamela Manaka pre­ sented productions in venues like the Ayethu Cinema and community halls. See Hauptfleisch (1997). It was not until 2012 that the Soweto Theatre was opened. Sibikwa’s theatre was sponsored by Total, the petroleum giant, and was initially named the Total Sibikwa Theatre. It has an audience capacity of 200, is technically wellequipped, with an acoustically friendly, generous playing area which serves multiple needs. 3 The acronym DET stands for Department of Education and Training. 4 Busi Zokufa has had a successful career in William Kentridge productions and with Handspring Puppet Company. Themba Ndaba graduated from Sibikwa and became a successful television actor. Andries Mbali performed with the Cape Town-based Isango Ensemble in several of their world-feted opera productions. Clara Vaughan became Administrator of The Market Laboratory and Simphiwe Nkabinde is currently a suc­ cessful freelance stage actor.

References August, T. (1989) ‘Interview with Gcina Mhlope’, in Gunner, L. (ed.) (1989) Politics and Performance: Theatre, Poetry, and Song in Southern Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Brown, D. (ed) (1999) Oral Literature and Performance in Southern Africa. Oxford: James Currey. Hauptfleisch, T. (1997) Theatre and Society: Reflections in a Fractured Mirror. Pretoria: Van Schaik. Jameson, F. (1999) Brecht and Method. London: Verso. Klotz, P. (2016) Chapter 2 Section 9. Unpublished rehearsal script. Lehmann, H.-T. (2006) Postdramatic Theatre. London: Routledge. Loewe, M. (2016) “Chapter 2 Section 9: Lesbian Story shows the way back to democracy.” Available at http://www.thecritter.co.za/chapter-2-section-9/. (Accessed 10 December 2016). Lütge Coullie, J. (1999) ‘(Dis)Locating Selves; Izibongo and Narrative Autobiography in South Africa’, in Brown, D. et al. Oral Literature and Performance in Southern Africa. Oxford: James Currey, pp. 61–89. Motlanthe, K. “Helen Suzman Memorial Lecture 2017” available at http://www.hsf.org (Accessed 10 November 2017). Ndebele, N.S. (2006) Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture. Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa Zulu Natal Press. Ramphele, M. (2012) Conversations With My Sons and Daughters. Johannesburg: Penguin. Roberts, S. (2015) “The Pioneers”, in Middeke, M., Schnierer, P. and Homann, G. (eds) The Methuen Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 17–41. Roberts, S. (2017) ‘Staging Reverberations of Past Events: A Documentation and Analysis of the Poetics and Politics of Sibikwa Theatre’s Chapter 2 Section 9’. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 5(2). n.p. Sassen, R. (2016) “Supported by the Constitution, betrayed by the world” available at http://www.robynsassenmyview.com/2016/07/14/supported-by-the-constitutionbetrayed-by-the-world/comment-page-1/. (Accessed 10 December 2016). Schwartz, P. (1988) Best of Company. Johannesburg: AD Donker. Weber, S. (2004) Theatricality as Medium. New York: Fordham UP.

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Appendix 3: A Chronology of Sibikwa Productions This chronology is in order of the production’s debut. Their staging in later years is noted in the description. Cast’s names are listed in alphabetical order 1989

So Where To? Written and Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. The play examines the effects of political violence on three impressionable pregnant teenage girls. First staged at the Human Rights Festival in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Original Cast: Busisiwe Zokufa, Doris Sihula, Nomvula Nene, Smal Ndaba supported by Moses Mphahlele, Zandile Mthethwa. Internationally staged at: Gaborone, Botswana (1989); The Albany Empire, London, England (1989); The Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland (1989); Zuricher Theater Spektakel, Zurich, Switzerland (1989); A national tour of Zimbabwe (1990). The Singapore Festival, Singapore (1992) Nationally staged at: Joseph Stone Theatre, Cape Town (1989); The Market Theatre, Johannesburg (1989); The Westville Cultural Festival, Durban (1990). Revival staged at: The Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni (2015); Soweto Theatre, Johannesburg (2015). Recognition: Naledi Award nomination for Best production for Young Audiences (2016).

1991

D.E.T Boys High. Written and Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. Four boys in a high school toilet and their school janitor explore the realities of the disillusioned pupils and a corrupt education system. The play was first staged at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Original Cast: Charles Dlomo, Daniel Mnguni, Moses Mphahlele, Siphiwe Dludlu, Themba Ndaba. Internationally staged at:; Waterford Festival, Swaziland (1991); Windhoek, Namibia (1992); The Singapore Festival, Singapore (1992); Theatres across British Columbia, Canada (1993), The Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland (1993) Toured across The United States of America (1996) Revival Staged at: The Out of Africa Festival, Munich, Germany (2002). Nationally staged at: The Market Theatre, Johannesburg, (1992); The Baxter Theatre, Cape Town (1992) Revival staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2011); The Sand Du Plessis Theatre, Bloemfontein (2011); Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni (2011); The South African State Theatre, Pretoria (2015); Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni (2015); Soweto Theatre, Johannesburg (2015); The Roodepoort Theatre, Roodepoort (2015). Recognition: National Arts Festival - First Fringe Award (1992); Vita Discretionary Award for its contribution to South African Theatre (1992); Naledi Award for Best Community Theatre (2011); Nominated for Best production for Young Audiences for Naledi Awards (2016).

1993

Ubuntu Bomhlaba. Written and Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. The first production by a community group to be staged on the Main Stage of the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Ubuntu Bomhlaba, is an epic African folk opera exploring the themes of good and evil. (Continued)

“Living proof” – Sibikwa’s theatre productions 195 Original Cast: Bongani Mthabela, Bethwel Vilakazi, Charles Dlomo, David Hlatshwayo, Elias Ntsibande, Jabulani Mnguni, Knowledge Mncube, Nhlanhla Phewa, Nino Tladi, Otto Ziqubu, Phindi Mchunu, Portia Dladla, Professor Mavuso, Raphael Mchunu, Rocky Ndlovu, Sabelo Mndebele, Shirley Mzizi, Smal Ndaba, Thembeka Mavuso, Tiny Ngwenya, Thobeka Maqhutyana, Vuyelwa Bakana. Internationally staged at: The Maitisong Festival, Gaborone, Botswana (1994). Nationally staged at: The Johannesburg Civic Theatre, Johannesburg (1994). Kwela Bafana. Written and directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. A musical story bringing to life the sights and sounds of South Africa in the 1950’s: an era of vibrancy, music, colour, dance and bravery in the face of Apartheid. First staged in Vancouver, Canada. Original Cast: Boy Ngwenya, Daniel Mnguni, Otto Ziqubu, Siphiwe Dludlu, Smal Ndaba. Internationally Staged: Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland (1993). Revival: Toured across the United States of America (1996); The Out of Africa Festival, Munich, Germany (2002) Nationally Staged: Johannesburg Civic Theatre (1993). Revival staged at: Playhouse Theatre, Durban (2011); The Victory Theatre, Johannesburg (2011); The Market Theatre, Johannesburg (2012); The National Art Festival Main Stage, Grahamstown (2012). 1996

Ghamka (An adaptation of the novel by Vivian Merchant) Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. Tells the story of the arrival of the first Portuguese explorers on the East Coast of southern Africa and their first encounter with the Khoisan. The play was staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Albert Mabena, Andries Mbali, Freddie Zwane, Gilbert Morudu, Jabulani Mnguni, Khabo Mbatha, Linda Mahlangu, Nomsa Mbatha, Philip Ndaba, Simon Sidumo, Wendy Makgamatha, Zakhele Msimango. Original Music composed by: Bongani Mthabela, Boy ‘Bra B’ Ngwenya, Roberto Mathe. Phakama Project. (An initial collaboration between Sibikwa Arts Centre and London International Festival of Theatre [LIFT]). Demonstrates an approach to making participatory performance for young people. Over the years Phakama expanded to include countries such as: Lesotho, India, Ireland, Brazil, Argentina and Japan. First implemented at the Sibikwa Arts Centre with a month-long residency between artists and educators from South Africa and the United Kingdom. Uhambo: The Journey. Written and directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. Mzamo, a young boy in the Eastern Cape during the 1950’s, embarks on a trip to Johannesburg to find his parents. His journey is set against the ever-encroaching draconian apartheid laws. The play was first staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Andries Mbali, Jim Ngxabashe, Jabulani Mnguni, Simon Khumalo, Smal Ndaba. Musicians: Boy Bra B Ngwenya, Steve Mabona, Walter Kotu. Internationally staged at: Theatres across the United States of America (1997). (Continued)

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Sarah Roberts Revival staged at: The Out of Africa Festival, Munich, Germany (2002). Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (1996); A tour across the Eastern Cape Province and Limpopo Province (1996/1997). Revival staged at: Springs Theatre, Springs (2008); The South African State Theatre, Pretoria (2015). Recognition: Naledi Award nomination for Best Production for Young Audiences (2016). The Annual Total Sibikwa Play Competition. Hosted by Sibikwa Arts Centre. The competition engaged community arts groups to develop and enhance their acting and directing skills through pre-competition workshops. The four competition winners received training in arts administration and marketing which culminated in a tour of their productions within their own local communities. The competition ran until 2011.

1997

Flower of Hope. Devised and Directed by Phyllis Klotz. An interrogation of South Africa’s constitution addressing women’s rights. The play was staged at schools, women’s organizations, and shelters for abused women across Gauteng. Original Cast: Khabo Mbatha, Linda Mahlangu, Nomsa Mbatha, Wendy Makgamatha, Zanele Nkala.

1998

Red Shoes Bleeding. Written and Directed by Justine Loots. Red Shoes tale as a metaphor, the play addresses the plight of violence against women. Staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Linda Kgomosotho, Noluthando Boqwana, Ntombi Maphosa, Thabang Masupha Thabile Ngwenya, Zanele Nkala. Isizwe Sethu. Devised and Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. A multimedia performance using mime and music, tracing the history of South Africa from the big bang to democracy. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni, South Africa. Original Cast: Andries Mbali, Jabulani Mnguni, Jim Ngxabane, Linda Kgomosotho, Noluthando Boqwana, Ntombi Maphosa, Phillip Ndaba, Rocky Ndlovu, Thabile Ngwenya, Veli Masombuka, Zanele Nkala. Musicians: Boy “bra B” Ngwenya, Makathi Molekwa, Malebang Moholo, Riaan Van Rensburg, Thabang Masapho. Nationally staged at: The Opera House, Port Elizabeth (1999); The Guild Theatre, East London (1999); Secunda Theatre, Secunda (1999); Nelspruit Theatre, Nelspruit (1999); The Johannesburg Civic Theatre, Johannesburg (1999).

1999

Behind Closed Doors. Devised and Directed by Phyllis Klotz. Through the use of music, movement and song, the play depicts violence and abuse in the home and its effects on its victims. Chorus dialogue adapted from T.S. Elliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. The play was first staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Linda Mahlangu, Noluthando Boqwana, Ntombi Maphosa, Thabang Masupha, Thembeka Mavuso, Zanele Mbatha, Zanele Nkala. Internationally staged: Norway (1999). Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2000); The South African Women’s Arts Festival, Playhouse Theatre, Durban (2001), Baxter Theatre Cape Town, (2002), Sibikwa Arts Centre (2002); Mpumalanga Province Schools Festival (2002); Northwest Province Schools Festival (2002). (Continued)

“Living proof” – Sibikwa’s theatre productions 197 2000

The Storytelling Festival. Hosted by Sibikwa Arts Centre. A festival competition that celebrated history, language, culture and music through the ancient medium of storytelling. Over the years, it hosted storytellers from the USA, Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The festival was hosted at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni annually until 2015 and at the Soweto Theatre, Johannesburg in 2015.

2001

The Stadium. Directed and Devised by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. An exploration of the culture of sexual permissiveness, the play follows the fate of a young girl who sells herself nightly in a shebeen for a couple of drinks. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Linda Mahlangu, Ntombi Maphosa, Philip Ndaba, Sibulele Gcilitshana, Simon Sidumo, Thabang Masupha, Zakhele Msimango. Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival’s Main Stage, Grahamstown (2001), Wits Theatre’s 969 Festival, Johannesburg (2001).

2002

Bells of Amersfoort. Written by Zakes Mda and Directed by Adram Adriaaanse. (A collaboration between Die Nieuw Amsterdam [DNA] and Sibikwa Arts Centre). Zakes Mda attempts to separate contrasting, even conflicting strands, for what it means for a isiXhosa woman living in exile in the Netherlands, yearning to be back in her home country. Toured across the Netherlands. Original Casts: Dutch Cast: Maikel August Van Hetten, Marie-Christine Op Den Kelder, Marvin Kolk. Reiner Bulder, Susan Bakker. South African Cast: Macebo Mavuso, Sibu Gcilitshana, Thabang Masupha, Zakhele Simango. Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2002); The Baxter Theatre, Cape Town (2002); Theatre on the Square, Johannesburg (2002). Fair Wealth. Devised and Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. Devised as part of the International Earth Summit at the Nasrec Centre, Johannesburg, the play depicts the material inequality between rich and poor countries. Original Cast, Collen “Biziwe” Masango, Debra Lushika, Jabulani Mnguni, Zakhele Msimango, Zanele Nkala. The Trash Truck Project. Devised and directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. Using drama as a tool, the play engages young audiences in the importance of taking care of one’s environment under the theme of “Reuse, Reduce, Recycle.” First staged for schools in the East Rand area of Gauteng and Mpumalanga province. Original Cast: Collin Biziwe Masango; Debra Lushika, Zanele Nkala, Jabulani Mnguni, Rocky Ndlovu, Simon Khumalo. Nationally staged at: Schools across Gauteng province intermittently (2003 – 2007); Mpumalanga province intermittently (2003 – 2007). Awards: Green Trust Award for Environmental Education (2002). (Continued)

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2003

April Fool’s Child. Devised and Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba A spin on gang violence, hijacking and suburban crime, the play draws on the experience of a student at Sibikwa Arts Centre’s youth development programme who was imprisoned for car hijacking at the Modderbee Prison. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Busi Zokufa, Jaques Gombault, Themba Skhosana, Smal Ndaba, Zanele Nkala. Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2003); Wits Theatre’s 969 Festival, Johannesburg (2004). Sibikwa Arts Buwa Festival, Benoni (2005).

2006

Maru. (An adaptation of the novel by Bessie Head) Directed by Phyllis Klotz. A story of an orphaned Masarwa girl who comes to the community of Dilepe to teach and faces racism, prejudice and injustice. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni.. Original Cast: Andisa Ndaba, Andries Mbali, Bandile Ndaba, Clara Vaughan, Dineo Monama, Duduzile Buthelezi, Gwebile Jim Mgxabazi, Keitumetse Baitse, Lerato Monametsi, Lungile Magagula, Mandla Mngomezulu, Mduduzi Mkhethi, Nkululeko Sibiya, Nnwanantsape Mohare, Nompumelelo Hleza, Nonhlanhla Hadebe, Phumla Ndaba, Simon Sidumo, Thabiso Maseng, Vusi Selepe, Zakhele Msimango, Zanele Nkala. Nationally staged at: The Market Theatre, Johannesburg (2008/2009); The South African State Theatre, Pretoria (2008). You Strike A Woman, You Strike A Rock. Written in collaboration with Poppy Tsira, Nomvula Qosha and Thobeka Maqhutyana. Directed by Phyllis Klotz. Three women of low socio-economic standing discuss their daily lives under the Apartheid regime. The play was revived in 2006 to mark 50 years since the women’s march to Pretoria. Original Cast: Nomvula Qosha, Poppy Tsira and Thobeka Maqhutyana. Nationally staged at: Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni; The Market Theatre, Johannesburg; The South African State Theatre, Pretoria and The Baxter Theatre, Cape Town.

2008

Julius Caesar. Written by William Shakespeare and Directed by Clara Vaughan. Staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Chan Marti, Fumani Nkateko, Kabelo Thai, Mahlubandile Sonjica, Mandla Gaduka, Nyiko Prince Sithole. Supporting Cast: Amos Mbonani, Esther Maumela, Lerato Moeketsi, Nthabiseng Motaung, Stephina Modiga. Mary and Joseph (A Nativity Play). Devised and Directed by Smal Ndaba. Staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Lehlohonolo Dube, Nthabiseng Bembe, Nthabiseng Ramatjie, Siyabonga Dlangalala, Taemane Mothobi.

2009

MaLindi-The Sex Strike (An adaptation of Lysistrata by Aristophanes) Adapted and Directed by Phyllis Klotz. Women refuse to have sex with their men unless they end their war. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. (Continued)

“Living proof” – Sibikwa’s theatre productions 199 Original Cast: Busi Zokufa, Tsholofelo Ross, Thandi Dube, Lungile Maboe, Zanele Nkala, Lerato Moeketsi, Ameera Patel, Lynet Matsheni, Kabelo Thai, Elton Landrew, Mkdudzi Mkhethi, Lehlohonolo Dube, Andries Mbali, Rakotsoane Matlodi, Sechaba Mafa, Irvine van der Merwe, Esther Maumela. Original Music Composed by: Mokhalinyana Mokhere, Lydia Mokhele, Lucky Tshimbudzi. Staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, (2010). Animal Farm (An adaptation of the novel by George Orwell). Directed by Phyllis Klotz. Staged at the Dance Factory, Newtown, Johannesburg (2009/2010). Original Cast: Andries Mbali, Bheki Mkhwane, Chan Marti, Conrad Kemp, Kabelo Thai, Linda Sokhulu, Mduduzi Mkhethi, Paul Maila, Sokhulu Mthimunye, Zwelakhe Moni. Supporting Cast: Sibikwa Arts Centre Interns. 2010

World Cup Celebration. In celebration of the South African Soccer World Cup, Sibikwa in collaboration with Casa du Cultura, Maputo, Mozambique, presented a dance and drama programme at the National Arts Festival Recreation Centre, Grahamstown.

2014

iLembe (A narrative in isiZulu, isiXhosa and English) Directed and Written by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. Depicts the last four months of King Shaka Zulu’s life as interpreted by four different people who were close to him. First staged at the Playhouse Theatre, Durban. Original Cast: Andries Mbali, , Bonisiwe Mene, Busisiwe Nyundu, Charity Hlophe, Jeremy Richard, Khoni Miya, Mlekeleli Khuzwayo, Sabelo Maphumulo, Sabelo Sekgoto, Siphiwe Nkabinde, Thandeni Ndlovu, Trevor Sihlangu. Original Music composed by: Themba Mkhize. Choreography: Oscar Buthelezi, Sifiso Kwenyama. Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2016); Soweto Theatre, Johannesburg (2016).

2016

Chapter 2 Section 9. Devised and directed by Phyllis Klotz. Testimonials from women in the LGBTIQA+ community who are unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity, sex and/or sexual orientation which too often manifests itself in the form of violent crimes. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Ayanda Fali, Ayanda Sibisi, Khanyisa Nanase, Tsholofelo Ross. Original Music composed by: Isaac Molelekoa. Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2016); Popart Theatre, Johannesburg (2016); The Vavasati Festival at The South African State Theatre, Pretoria (2016); Wits Theatre’s 969 Festival, Johannesburg (2016); The Baxter Theatre, Cape Town (2017) Awards: Winner of the National Arts Festival Standard Bank Ovation Award.

2018

Shadows of Metsi. (A collaboration between Sibikwa and Cave Dogs, an American Shadow performance company). Addresses the crisis of water shortages across South Africa. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. (Continued)

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Sarah Roberts Original Cast: Katlego Mogola, Keaoleboga Seodigeng, Lynet Matsheni, Mcebisi Bhayi, Philani Sokhulu, Seiphemo Motswiri. Original Music composed by: Thokozane Nsibande, Molebatsi “Eazy” Mathipa. Nationally staged at: The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg (2018).

2020

Amavuso Projects. (A collaboration between Sibikwa Arts Centre and Nhimbe Trust) Directed by Nomkitha Kumbaca-. Explores the contemporary phenomenon of “The Blesser.” Due to the COVID19 pandemic, the play was developed in both Zimbabwe and South Africa, and filmed. Presented online as part of the Urban Festival, Johannesburg. Original Cast: South African Cast: Dineo Komane, Eutychia Rakaki. Zimbabwean Cast: Agnes Ncube, Charmaine Mudau. Nationally staged at: The Free State Arts Festival, (2020); Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni (2020).

2021

Banna Ba Sebele (Cinga Wenze Ndoda). Devised and Directed by: Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. An interactive play for learners from grades 4 – 12, that focuses on the role and responsibilities of men, both young and old, to end cycles of domestic and gender-based violence. It addresses social, traditional and cultural influences, offering a space for audiences to explore and discuss alternative perspectives and solutions to this social issue. Staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Learners of Sibikwa’s Inclusive Creative Arts Programme. Memories of June 16, 1976. Devised and directed by: Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. An interactive learning opportunity engaging learners from grades 4 – 12, on the students who participated in the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976. It offers a meaningful, intellectual, emotional and physical experience of the event, ending with a commemoration of all those students who tragically lost their lives. Presented at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Learners of Sibikwa’s Inclusive Creative Arts Programme Thandiwe Wa Bantu. Devised and directed by: Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. A contemporary, issue-based and interactive play that seeks to create awareness and explore the realities of bullying in South African schools and communities. An innovative presentation that utilizes popular culture, such as hip-hop (rap), street dance, beatboxing, for learners from grades 4 – 12. Staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Learners of Sibikwa’s Inclusive Creative Arts Programme.

10 Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy of dance and physical theatre from community to professional dance development Clare Craighead and Lliane Loots Introduction Sibikwa Arts Centre holds education and community as vital elements of the organisation’s vision. While there are many branches to Sibikwa, what is clear is that there is a strong sense of community and service through the arts, that characterise the organisation. Centre founders and directors Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba agree that the Sibikwa was “… unplanned but necessary” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). With an “overarching aim to improve lives through the use of arts” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020), Sibikwa has become a formidable presence within the South African performance-scape, with active engagements in community develop­ ment, arts education as well as professional performance practice. While the focus of this chapter has its lens on the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company which operated between 2008 and 2015, with funding primarily from Rand Merchant Bank, we also trace, alongside this, a rich history of dance and dance education that has formed a significant part of Sibikwa’s story. What emerges is a complex and overlapping historical archive of Sibikwa’s various contributions to dance performance, education, and training in South Africa. Our engagement here is aligned with Cheryl Thompson’s Rethinking the Archive in the Public Sphere where she argues: “Not only is the archive not innocent, it is also an ongoing site of struggle between the dominant culture – the remembrance, preservation, and dissemination of national (and local) narratives – and historically marginalised and racialised groups” (2019, p. 34, Thompson’s italics). Our use of Thompson’s frame here is in line with Klotz and Ndaba’s will to “improve lives through the use of arts” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020) and our own investigations and ex­ cavations into Sibikwa’s long-standing commitment to serve some of South Africa’s most vulnerable communities through the arts and arts education. Like all history, Sibikwa’s journey in developing and initiating its own Sibikwa Arts Dance Company is not linear, but rather based within a network of intentions, actions, reactions, and reflections that led to its initiation in 2008. It is thus difficult to separate the formation of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company from the broader history of Sibikwa as the seeds for the dance DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-12

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company, and its remaining legacy, were planted very early on in Sibikwa’s history and a variety of dance forms and styles have been a substantial part of the Centre’s community development and arts educational work. These have also led to the Centre’s many annual dance-focussed community and festival initiatives that have continued beyond the closure of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company in 2015 due to a lack of funding.

Beginnings: Mapping a route for the establishment of Sibikwa arts dance company While Sibikwa was officially formed in August of 1988 (co-founded by Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz as the Sibikwa Community Theatre Project), the seeds for the Centre date further back when Smal Ndaba joined the historic Workshop ’71,1 run by Bess Finney and Rob McLaren, in 1971, to grow his skills and refine his craft as a performer and performance maker and to bring these skills back into his community in Daveyton. In conversation with Ndaba, he expresses: “we never planned this … it was something that came out of the situation in the townships at a time when kids in the townships were boycotting school, and the question of what we could do for our kids in the community … so we started giving lessons and creating some work” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). The lessons that Ndaba refers to here, are how Sibikwa came into being. He reiterates: “… we were trying to develop a culture of reading and we were responding to the needs of the community, and it evolved” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). Since its inception Sibikwa has survived and evolved by re­ sponding to the needs of the community while also recognising “education” (and qualification) as important outcomes in skilling some of our country’s most disadvantaged people. The organisation offers NQF (National Qualifications Framework) Level 4 learnerships in areas of arts education, performance and administration in order to provide a platform for employ­ ment in a community where unemployment is rife; as Klotz says: “it’s im­ portant to us that these kids who come from poor backgrounds, and poor educational foundations have access to a national piece of paper; and it does work […] we’re skilling people to get on with their lives, to get a job, to get work and support their family” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). With all of this, Sibikwa has, over its more than 30-year lifespan, “developed a brand of performance that reflects the lives and aspirations of the majority of its country’s people” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). This has been achieved both through the Centre’s theatre and dance productions which are well known for being collaborative and emerging from, and in re­ lation to, the lives of the performers and participants involved. In this way, Sibikwa’s performance work over the last 30-plus years can be considered a living archive (McKemmish et al., 2019) that traces and highlights crucial moments in South African history; the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company

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significantly adding to the oeuvre in terms of its ground-breaking work in negotiating, among other contributions, a fusion of Japanese Butoh and African Contemporary dance forms into what has been coined by veteran arts journalist Adrienne Sichel: Afro-Butoh;2 as well as the Centre’s development of the Thunya Lerole (Kick the Dust) dance festival platforms focussed on supporting and growing South African women choreographers and dancers – particularly im­ portant in a country like South Africa where patriarchy is endemic. From very early on in the life of Sibikwa, dance has been offered as part of the Centre’s Saturday Arts Academy Programme (SAA) which was established in 1996. The Saturday Arts Academy “… offers learners aged 6 to 24 years classes in dance, drama, African drumming, marimba, recorder, visual arts and photo­ graphy while also providing training in leadership, life skills and interpersonal skills […] The SAA aims to act as a mediator between formal and informal education with the hope of equipping learners with skills while enhancing their emotional well-being” (https://sibikwaartscentre.wordpress.com/). In tracing the history of dance in the organisation – several yearly reports refer to the inclusion of forms such as African Contemporary, Afro-fusion, creative movement, Tap, Ballet, and Hip-Hop and there is also strong doc­ umentation of collaborations with choreographers on some of the organisa­ tion’s major productions. As early as 1999, the multimedia production Isizwe Sethu (Our Nation) included choreography by Natalie Fisher. Klotz, referring to her work Behind Closed Doors (2000), also admits to experiencing a “phase where [she] didn’t trust words” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020) and as such her explorations into Physical Theatre and Dance have been a prominent feature in the story of Sibikwa. In fact, Klotz’s particular directing style that began to emerge and sediment itself in the 1980s as part of the South Africa protest theatre movement has been described as a form of text-based physical theatre (Loots, 1997). Working through improvisation and collective storytelling, the collaborative and seminal work Wathint’Abafazi, Wathint’Imbokodo (You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock)3 (1986) narrated a body politics of gendered being for black South African women living under apartheid. While there are many perfor­ mances/performance texts that emerged in protest against apartheid, most of these offered male-centric narratives, often too ignoring the double-edged oppressions that black women faced under apartheid.4 Importantly, Wathint’Abafazi, Wathint’Imbokodo exists in published form (Kani, 1994) as one of the only South African protest theatre texts that centralises the specific struggles of black South African women under an apartheid system. In her Rewriting apartheid South Africa: race and space in Miriam Tlali and Lauretta Ngcobo’s novels, Barbara Boswell highlights the following, which provides a useful frame of reference for understanding the gendered significance of Wathint’Abafazi, Wathint’Imbokodo: Since national identity is overwhelmingly gendered male, often excluding those racialised and gendered as the ‘other’ (Boehmer 1991), for women,

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writing [and we argue, performance praxis too] can be a way of fracturing this exclusive masculinist conception of national identity, and creating an alternative reality: ‘in writing [and performance praxis], women express their own reality and so question received notions of national character and experience’. (Boehmer, 1991 in Boswell, 2016, pp. 1331–1332) Unabashedly referencing Jerzy Grotowski’s physically based Poor Theatre methodology (1968), Wathint’Abafazi, Wathint’Imbokodo remains historic in offering perhaps one of the first pieces of protest theatre in South Africa that began to address the intersectionality of power struggles – and significantly, how these power struggles affected black women’s bodies. The sheer physi­ cality of the performances by Klotz’s co-collaborators, Thobeka Maqhutyana, Nomvula Qosha, and Poppy Tsira, offers a glimpse into the beginning of Klotz and Ndaba’s own commitment to physically based performance styles that eventually, as we begin to narrate below, opens Sibikwa to its powerful and far-reaching community and professional dance programmes. As high­ lighted above, the clear and profound gender focus articulated by Klotz, Ndaba, and Sibikwa eventually becomes a driving focus in the dance and physical theatre legacy that is set up concurrently in the community and educational learnership programmes, and in the professional dance develop­ ment that this chapter traces.

Key role players: Youth empowerment to leadership In navigating the history and legacy of Sibikwa’s multi-layered dance pro­ grammes, it is important to situate this in a community arts paradigm (see for example Boal (1979) and Freire (1970)) where Sibikwa’s ongoing professional theatre and dance practices have always been about the humanising impulse of growing people and growing community responsibility/access through the arts. Thus, in navigating Sibikwa’s dance history, this chapter – of necessity – focuses on some (not all) of the key role players who were both trained by, and then eventually took on leadership and teaching/choreographic roles within Sibikwa – both in the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company, and the Centre’s various community development programmes and festival initiatives. It is important to signal this as it offers a very clear understanding that Sibikwa’s dance and physical theatre history is (and has been) about artistic youth skills develop­ ment and about community youth empowerment. Lucky Ntlhane Ratlhagane is perhaps the first dancer/choreographer in­ tegral to this dance and community arts development narrative. While he was never formally a member of what would become the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company, his contributions to the structures that enabled the dance company to flourish are significant. He began his journey with Sibikwa through their Saturday Arts Academy (SAA) programme in the late 1990s. It was here that he grew his love for dance under the guidance of Ndaba and Klotz. He left

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Sibikwa in 1998 to pursue further training, and in 2001 he joined Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM)5 to complete the company’s one-year edu-dance learnership. Following this, in 2002 while still training through MIDM, he returned to Sibikwa as a facilitator on the SAA Programme. He went on to initiate the Ezithuthukayo Dance and Drama Youth Company, which was later developed into an accredited Sibikwa learnership, and by 2005, included as part of Sibikwa’s NQF level 4 qualification in performing arts. Over this time too, the learnership developed further to include an internship for par­ ticipants to pursue their performance work as part of the Sibikwa community. Ratlhangane commenced full-time employment at Sibikwa in 2005, and he remained until 2009. His work at Sibikwa over this time included creating dance performance works with the Ezithutukayo Dance and Drama Youth Company for the Johannesburg Dance Umbrella’s Stepping Stones6 platform. These dance works were also performed at the Sibikwa Arts Centre as part of the Dance Umbrella at Sibikwa – a community festival spearheaded by Ratlhangane and hosted at Sibikwa’s premises in Benoni. Important to the narrative here too, is dancer/choreographer Freddie Zwane who has a long history with Sibikwa Arts Centre, having joined classes when he was a youth, and eventually finding employment at the Centre, initially as a teacher/facilitator and later as a long-time member of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company. One of his notable contributions as a member of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company, alongside his teaching and performance work, was the in­ itiation of an outreach programme with two Ekurhuleni Prisons: Modderbee and Boksburg. While Sibikwa has a long history of working in local prisons, Zwane’s was the first dance-focussed project in context. Zwane worked with two groups, each focussing on different local dances and forms, one had a traditional focus, while the other a more urban focus – including pantsula7 and gumboot.8 Perhaps, as mentioned above, one of the most recognisable associations that also grew the dance focus within Sibikwa’s dance history is its association with the Japanese form of Butoh. Historically, Sibikwa Arts Dance Company was one of the first South African dance companies to embrace Butoh, exploring and transforming it from an African perspective. As Klotz explains: “There is a precedent in South Africa for the use of imported techniques and philosophies which are transformed in context, to become uniquely South African” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). A prime example here, and as mentioned previously, is Klotz’s use of Jerzy Grotowski’s Poor Theatre methods which have been adapted by her and many other theatre makers (for example Mbongeni Ngema and Percy Mtwa) into South African-flavoured ProtestWorkshop- and Physical Theatre forms and styles. Butoh, referred to as a “Dance of Darkness”9 arose out of post-World War II Japan as a type of edgy – often shocking – dance style that favours a journey to the grotesque. As a form it warrants recognition – in the context of its emer­ gence – that to make pretty dances would be obscene following the devastation of the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan.10 Recognisable features of the dance form include often playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics (often sexually

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explicit), extreme situations, and absurd environments. Butoh is traditionally danced in white body make-up with slow hyper-controlled motion and movements, often featuring repetition, thus offering fertile links within contexts of ritual and repetition which are often associated with (South) African cultures and the dance forms and styles that emerge from these. Through Klotz’s association with Boaz Barkan11 and Anika Kristensen Barkan12 (two internationally acclaimed exponents of Butoh Dance), Klotz arranged, in 2007, a three-week residency hosted by Sibikwa, which culmi­ nated in a performance entitled In the wake of the body, at the Johannesburg Dance Factory in May that year. This was a watershed moment in the history of Sibikwa as it signalled a definite dance-centred performance, presented in an established local “dance venue.” The residency, which resulted from an open call-out for participants, consisted of daily workshops of 3-hour long sessions. Lucky Ntlhane Ratlhangane was one of the participants, and he was joined by Freddie Zwane. The press release for this workshop programme describes Butoh as an “avant-garde performance art [that] had its origins in Japan in the 1960s, at a time when there was much student unrest and protest […] Theatre groups were performing socially challenging pieces and there were daily de­ monstrations in the streets … Butoh was born out of this chaos.” This birth from political and social chaos has resonance with Protest Theatre in South Africa and the myriad physical forms that emerged as part of an anti-apartheid movement. Workshop ’71 which was founded by the South African Institute for Race Relations, in Johannesburg, in 1971, under the guidance of Dr Robert McLaren (aka Robert Mshengu Kavanagh) was “started as a training workshop [that] gradually turned into a professional company […] founded on the premise of experimental political theatre aimed at engaging with South African social issues prevalent during the time” (https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/ workshop-71) and which continue to evolve in a post-apartheid context; forms and styles that are synonymous with Sibikwa Arts Centre and the work that has and continues to emerge from the Centre. Notably, in times of chaos many artists and artistic movements turn to the body as a weapon for struggle and change – as evidenced both through Japanese Butoh as well as South African Protest Theatre; echoing Klotz’s sentiment earlier in this chapter that speaks to a mistrust of words and her and Ndaba’s own early directing work in physically based performance-making styles. These impulses combined with the in­ troduction of Butoh into Sibikwa’s training and performance engagements culminate in the historical establishment the following year, in 2008, of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company. In 2008, the year that the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company was formalised, company members underwent a second intensive process with the Barkans who returned to Sibikwa to continue with the work they began in 2007. This visit enabled a deepening of the Butoh training begun in 2007 and also cul­ minated in the presentation of a performance piece that was showcased in October 2008 (one month after the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company was es­ tablished) at Johannesburg’s Dance Factory. The piece entitled Down Flesh

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Road included seven dancers, one musician, and a choir of eight, all drawn from various branches of the Sibikwa Arts Centre. Described as a “fusion of Japanese Butoh Dance, European Expressive Dance, and South African Traditional Dance”13 Down Flesh Road explored and celebrated individual uniqueness and complexity. This showcasing of “individual uniqueness and complexity” became a signifier of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company’s work and also hailed the company as a distinctive and critical addition to the South African contemporary dance landscape. The company was to subsequently become known for its fusion-based works, political in nature though always remaining true to Sibikwa’s commitment to community and a will towards inclusivity and a wider scope of national identity, that even in a post-apartheid context remains under-representative.

Sibikwa arts dance company: Establishing a legacy In September 2008, 20 years after opening its doors officially, Sibikwa formed its first professional dance company: the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company. This also coincided with the fourth year of the Learnership Programme that showcased various learners in a dance show entitled Grafting that featured choreography by Portia Mashigo in a work entitled Faces and Spaces; Melusi Mkhwanjana in a work entitled Celebration of Life and Ratlhagane’s work­ shopped piece!Kee:/Xarra//Ke. This season of work had performances at the Dance Factory as well as the State Theatre. For the Dance Factory edition, What Lies Between, the work which emerged from the intensive Butoh dance training, detailed above, was also included in the programme. This season prompted veteran theatre and dance critic, Adrienne Sichel, to note Sibikwa Arts Dance Company’s introduction of a form which she labelled “AfroButoh” into the South African dance lexicon.14 Like their sister-company (and predecessors) Moving into Dance who are credited in South Africa with a particular brand of “Afro-Fusion,” Sibikwa Arts Dance Company became synonymous with this newly identified fusion-form, “Afro-Butoh.” This fu­ sion style is perhaps not surprising when one considers the foundations of Sibikwa Arts Centre and Klotz’s earlier sentiment in terms of local precedent and the use of imported techniques and philosophies that are transformed in context – we argue here, that this “transformation” can be understood through Richard Schechner’s concept of fusion which he argues “occurs when elements of two or more cultures mix together to such a degree that a new society, language or genre of art emerges” (1991, p. 30). Alongside the company’s strong Afro-Butoh affiliations, they also referred to their work as “urban contemporary dance.” This supports Klotz’s assertion that “we live in an urban culture, an urban society … and I’m very big on roots and culture – it is very important; and we have to engage the traditional as well as the contemporary” (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). Given this trajectory, it is not surprising that as the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company began to find its stride and its rhythm, it began to place

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emphasis on fusion in its dance training, techniques, and choreographies. The company gained a reputation, as Klotz and Ndaba say, “to perform anything from Traditional Indlamu and Tswana Dance to African-infused Butoh, while also having training access to Ballet, Hip-Hop and Pantsula” (authors’ inter­ view with Klotz and Ndaba, January 2020). The inaugural Sibikwa Arts Dance Company consisted of Lehlohonolo Dube, Lucky Modiselle, Taemane Mothobi, and Lungile Maboe, with Klotz as the company manager and administrator. In forming and formalising a Dance Company as part of the Sibikwa brand, its mission was two-fold and included teaching and facilitation of various training ventures as well as working towards professional performance. In their first month, the dance company worked to develop an educational dance programme aimed at pre-primary schools and crèches in order to introduce basic elements of dance to young learners and their teachers. This initiative has had a wide-reaching impact on the quality of dance education in South African schools, where often those allocated to teach “Arts and Culture” neglect or ignore dance completely, rather choosing to focus on sister disciplines of “acting” and “singing.” In 2009, entering the second year of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company’s life, they were joined by Cherice Mangiagalli who adopted the role of artistic manager but also performed with the existing company members: Tebogo Munyai, Taemane Mothobi, Freddie Zwane. In the same year the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company attempted its first annual dance festival entitled Dance Xplosion! to draw attention to the annual commemoration of Human Rights Day as well as provide a platform for young artists to present their dance works and develop a dance community in the region of Ekurhuleni, thus also expanding the wider Johannesburg dance community. The festival was – and continued (for the duration of the lifespan of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company) – to be coordinated by members of the dance company who assisted with building a database, auditioning the various youth dance groups, securing, and setting up the venue as well as offering guidance in relation to the choreography and performance. Once again, the roots of Sibikwa as a place and space of growing holistic artists with a strong sense of community were being instilled in the work ethic of its dance company members. Additionally, company members had the opportunity (and were encouraged) to spread their own choreographic wings and create work for the festival using learners from Sibikwa’s internship pro­ gramme, alongside accumulated skills learned through their involvement with Sibikwa Arts Dance Company. Freddie Zwane, for example, comments on the role of Sibikwa on his own dance-making: Butoh found me and I found Butoh, and Sibikwa gave me space and supported me to find this way of speaking and moving so that I could tell stories that meant something to me. We all have an element of trance in us. I know that Phyllis and Bra Smal look after me. (authors’ interview with Zwane, January 2020)

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Sibikwa arts dance company: Continuing a legacy through education, community, and dance In continuing to grow dance through education, in its early days, the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company also initiated (in 2009) the Motsamai Project (We can all move), which eventually became linked to the adopt-a-school programme in­ itiated in 2012 – generating the Motsamai Festival. Originally, an educational dance project, the Motsamai Project was aimed at both primary and high school learners, with the intention to create awareness around, and interest in dance. It was facilitated through a series of workshops and lecture demonstrations presented by the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company members, who aimed at as­ sisting learners and educators in their practical understanding of dance as an art form and its place within the South African National Arts and Culture cur­ riculum. This project culminated in a series of workshops that aided partici­ pants in learning, interpreting, and performing cultural and popular dances at a competition which was held at Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni. Schools from all over Gauteng participated in the project. As a festival, the Motsamai plat­ form provided space to showcase the results generated through the adopt-aschool programme. The 2013 edition entitled the Dance Motsamai Schools Festival included 135 young dancers from the adopt-a-school initiative, who presented dance pieces which highlighted various aspects of the arts and culture curriculum including “basic movement creation” and “South African dance history.” In a moving testimonial, one of the young participants of the 2009 Motsamai Project internship, Keaoleboga Seodigeng says the following, indicating the impact of such initiatives and Sibikwa’s commitment to community and education through the arts: I started studying performing arts at Sibikwa Arts Centre. It was not simple to wake up every morning, have some kind of motivation that drives you. The competition is high in the industry – especially in dance. So, the only way I had to be the best I can be, to get what I want, because I had one goal to be there … I have had a wonderful journey. I have grown and gained experience.15 Both the professional dance company as well as the Youth Dance Company presented work at the 2009 FNB Dance Umbrella on the Stepping Stones Platform. Artistic manager Mangiagalli was joined by dancer Tebogo Munyai in a duet entitled (E)motions of the Heart, while members of the Youth Dance Company (newly re-instated at the beginning of the year) presented an en­ semble work entitled Life through Lens. Both works were described in company press releases as “fresh and innovative,”16 and both works evidenced Sibikwa Arts Dance Company’s diverse training across a myriad of styles and forms. Additionally, in the same year, the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company participated in the GP Soul Dancer Festival at the Johannesburg Theatre. The festival is

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described as a platform for choreographers and performers who run or form part of community-based dance/performance projects. Here they presented seven different works and they earned high praise being declared by the festival judges as the “soul dancers” of the modern contemporary section of the fes­ tival for 2009 (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020). Further, in continuing its relationship with Butoh and the Barkans, company members also presented solo works which were (again) mentored by Boaz Barkan and continued to further establish Sibikwa Arts Dance Company at the cutting edge of South African contemporary dance while also sedimenting their place as enterprising contemporary dance practitioners, continuing the legacy of Sibikwa Arts Centre as an innovative and socially conscious arts organisation. Additionally, in 2009, due to additional financial support from UNESCO, the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company travelled to Maputo in Mozambique as part of a significant cultural exchange programme with Maputo-based Casa da Cultura do Alto Maé. As part of the exchange, the company presented work in schools, visited other arts companies, and participated in interviews and tele­ vision presentations that also showcased their collaboration with Casa da Cultura do Alto Maé dancers. Following this, the dancers from Casa da Cultura do Alto Maé visited Sibikwa Arts Centre which enabled meaningful cultural exchange and engagement between the two organisations. The exchange culminated in a performance experience that included Mozambiquan cuisine as well as tradi­ tional African beer and popular South African dishes. The experience was en­ titled Ikhaya Lethu – Our Home and the evening included a range of inputs from Sibikwa Arts Centre including dance, music, and theatre. The company’s cultural exchange engagements were picked up again in 2012 when Yuhl Headman was appointed company manager to the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company. Headman, as a representative of Sibikwa, travelled to Botswana to work with the Ba Ga Manana Cultural Group and this exchange had its primary focus on sharing arts education skills and techniques for teaching performing arts. Again, the community-based roots of Sibikwa held firm even within the pro­ fessional dance company’s portfolio. In 2010, the four members of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company (Lehlohonolo Dube, Tebogo Munyai, Taemane Mothobi, Freddie Zwane, and Artistic Director/Company Manager Cherice Mangiagalli) were joined by three apprentices who had served as members of the Sibikwa Arts Youth Dance Company which was re-instated in 2009. Thapelo Kotlolo, Gladwell Rakoma, and Keaoleboga Seodigeng joined the four senior members to fur­ ther focus their dance skills and training. Eye of the Storm which is the com­ pany’s first full-length production season was performed at the Dance Factory in 2010 and it indicated a continuation of the company’s growing engage­ ments with the Barkans and solidified the company’s signature Afro-Butoh style which has become synonymous with Sibikwa Arts Dance Company’s history and legacy (Figure 10.1).

Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy 211

Figure 10.1 Eye of the Storm (Place of a Woman) at the Dance Factory in Newtown, Johannesburg (2010); choreography by Cherice Mangiagalli. The dancer in the forefront is Keaoleboga Seodigeng, while the dancer in the background is Gladwel Rakoma. The dancers were accompanied by the Sibikwa Indigenous Orchestra who composed the music for the dance piece. Dancers purposefully carrying metal buckets on their heads costumed in burnt orange and amber swaths of cloth, provocatively echo the daily chores that trap women in gendered labour in the home. The dancers are backed by a traditional or­ chestra playing and singing for their passage through this domestically staged landscape. In 2010 the company won the Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival (full company of Dancers: Lehlohonolo Dube, Taemane Mothobi, Gladwel Rakoma, Thapelo Kotlolo, Keaoleboga Seodigeng, Tebogo Monyai, Freddie Zwane, Cherice Mangiagalli; photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer). Source: Members of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company performing in Place of a (Wo)man accom­ panied by the African Indigenous Orchestra in the background (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer April 2010).

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The season included Common, created for four of the company members, by the Barkan duo; We have Arrived, a workshopped piece created by Mangiagalli and the dancers, The Place of the Wo(man), also choreographed by Cherise Mangiagalli, as well as the collaboratively choreographed (E)motions of the Heart created and performed by Tebogo Munyai and Mangiagalli. Following the success of Eye of the Storm (2010), the Barkan duo again prolonged their stay in Benoni, in order to create a series of solo works which were filmed and edited and released on YouTube by Sibikwa.17 The collaboration also culminated in dancer Freddie Zwane being invited to travel to Denmark for further training in the Butoh style. 2010 was a significant year in the life of Sibikwa’s dance portfolio and the visions of both Klotz and Ndaba to significantly grow and contribute to the South African dance landscape became a reality with the company travelling nationally. As 2010 was also the year that South Africa hosted the FIFA Soccer World Cup, the Sibikwa Saturday Arts Academy hosted and participated in a carnival through the streets of Benoni, commemorating the African countries participating in the 2010 World Cup event. This year too, the company travelled to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (Makhanda) where they had their own venue and were thus able to host three productions including Eye of the Storm alongside Rhythm Falls and Malindi – The Sex Strike. The company was awarded a prestigious Standard Bank Ovation Award for their cutting edge and innovative work, firmly placing them as a tour de force within the South African contemporary dance community. Following this the company also performed at the Drama for Life18 Festival hosted by the Wits School of the Arts, the Baxter Dance Festival in Cape Town19 as well as on the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience20 in Durban, as part of the JOMBA! Fringe platform. The Breaking New Ground Festival, co-ordinated by Leigh Nudelman and hosted by the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company, to support and profile solo dance works also had its inaugural offering in 2010. This initiative was inspired by Denmark-based Butoh dancer and choreographer Boaz Barkan who suggested the development of a platform “for new work, to encourage performers to constantly extend their performance and choreographic skills” (Breaking New Ground, 2010 Press Release).21 The subsequent 2011 edition of this festival went on to be hosted at the Sci-Bono Museum, offering interesting site-specific and site-responsive potential for choreographers and performers (Figure 10.2). Adrienne Sichel said of the company’s offerings that Sibikwa Arts Dance Company “relish displacing architectural, cultural and social contexts to ex­ press them with ingenuity” (The Star, November 2011). These site-specific and site-responsive works also launched Sibikwa Arts Dance Company into the growing field of site-specific and site-responsive dance/performance that has been made popular through companies like Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre22 and festivals like Infecting the City23 in Cape Town. In 2011, Thabo Rapoo (the 2009 Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner for Choreography) was appointed artistic director of the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company with Cherice Mangiagalli remaining as company manager, and dancers Tebogo Munyai, Freddie Zwane, Thapelo Kotlolo, Gladwell

Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy 213

Figure 10.2 Breaking New Ground (2011) at the Sci Bono Education Centre - a festival of solos work. The dancer and choreographer is Thapelo Kotlolo. In a work that confronts status transformation and rites of passage ceremonies, a dancer crouches before a projection of a young traditionally attired female dancer. He is draped in a traditional blanket and stares ahead to a future not yet imagined (photography by Ruphin Coudyzer). Source: A dance piece presented at Sci Bono as part of the Breaking New Grounds Solo Dance Festival (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer November 2011).

Rakoma and Keaoleboga Seodigeng making up the full company. A major highlight for the company in 2011 was the site-specific Sharing a Sin, chor­ eographed by Rapoo, which premiered at the Goethe on Main in Johannesburg. This performance once again brought together various bran­ ches of the Sibikwa family tree, including two musicians from Sibikwa’s

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Indigenous Orchestra who created an original soundscape to underscore the work. This, alongside performances of Public Oscillation created by Rapoo with the company dancers, exploring “whether human beings are single entities, or multiple beings with different internal and emotional forms that swing into life at the appropriate moment”,24 for the Arena Platform at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (Makhanda) were the major performance highlights for the company in 2011. A small National Arts Festival grant afforded the company – following their Ovation Award in 2010 – enabled the creation of this work. A shortened version of Public Oscillation went on to also perform at the Baxter Festival in Cape Town and thus signified a year in which the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company continued to make an indelible impact on the landscape of contemporary dance in South Africa. Another significant milestone for the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company in 2011, was the inclusion of Moving into Dance Mophatong as special guests on the Dance Xplosion! platform, which is still, to date, in operation through the Sibikwa Arts Centre continuing to attract participation from established companies like Moving into Dance, as well as the Hillbrow Theatre Project.25 More than this, it is a platform that attracts participants near and far, from North West Province and Mpumalanga as well as Botswana. Over its lifespan, the Dance Xplosion! has also evolved, and as such later offerings of this platform have also included choreographic, stage craft, and lighting design workshops run through Sibikwa for participating choreographers. Adjudicators for the festival have included South African dance stalwarts such as Sifiso E Kweyama and David Thatanelo April, amongst others. Yuhl Headman joined the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company in 2012 in the role of company manager, with the company that year consisting of Freddie Zwane, Rosie Mqaba, Melusi Mkhwanjana, and junior member, Andima Maria Kula. A University of Cape Town dance graduate and freelance dancer/choreographer, Headman’s drive and vision towards artistic collaboration informed his leadership of the company over his time as company manager. Headman’s Internal Findings which was one of the company’s major performance works in 2012, also sig­ nalled a shift in terms of the company’s performance engagements, towards more internal/speculative works focusing on cultural identity and custom (this too in line with Klotz’s sentiments expressed earlier about the importance of our “roots” in informing contemporary artistic practice). Several versions of the work were created, with Internal Findings – Kwentaba being presented as part of the Baxter Dance Festival in 2012. This dance piece choreographed by Headman was drawn from his experience as a young Xhosa man who underwent the rite of traditional male circumcision. Headman says the following about his work Internal Findings: “Actions pushed to the subconscious, stored and hidden in the mind, informing other and new experiences.”26 The arguably esoteric pro­ gramme note was a way into a dance work that offered excellent technique and an interesting look into the hearts and minds of young South Africans. A further major performance highlight for the company this year (2012) was their participation on the Detour programme at the Wits Amphitheatre where the company presented a revisited version of dancer Freddie Zwane’s solo

Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy 215

Unnatural Presence #4, re-visioned for the company of four dancers. Both works were also packaged as a double bill entitled Into the Unknown which was performed at the Sibikwa Arts Theatre for the Sibikwa community to ex­ perience the work of their own dance company. Under Headman’s management, the company also initiated their adopt-aschool programme. Through this programme, company members worked with teachers and learners, over a six-month period, to share dance knowledge and skills. A core component of this programme was offering assistance to teachers in planning and structuring lessons and assessments in relation to the dance component within the creative arts learning area of South Africa’s school syllabus. The programme initially identified eight Ekurhuleni schools, and a group from each school worked on a combined performance which was presented at Sibikwa as a kind of consolidation of the programme and its value in knowledge/skills sharing and transfer. Alongside this, the dance company also participated in Sibikwa’s Mpumalanga Programme which was aimed at out-of-school youth, a significant project for rural youth who may not otherwise have access to arts training and education. The Mpumalanga Programme was later re-visioned as the Rural Outreach Holiday Programme and re-located to North West Province, to the Moretele District in Makapanstad – this was due to Mpumalanga’s Tweefontein Education Department officials’ lack of commitment to the sustainability of the Mpumalanga Programme. The Rural Outreach Holiday Programme which was facilitated through the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company included workshops in five disciplines that were led by members of the company. Thapelo Kotlolo offered workshops in contemporary dance, Yuhl Headman and Nosifiso Motaung provided street dance workshops, while creative movement was facilitated by Thuso Lobeko; the fourth and fifth areas of focus were on African song and dance, offered by Ayanda Ndlovu and finally African indigenous music which was offered by Lydia Mokhele, a member of the Sibikwa African Indigenous Orchestra. By 2013, company funding was severely under threat, and as such limited public performances were possible – nonetheless, a highlight this year was the dance programme Ndihambile (The Journeys People Travel) which included two works by Yuhl Headman: Kwentaba (Internal Findings) and Ndihambile along­ side Journeys which was choreographed by multi-award winning Sbonakaliso Ndaba for a short run at the Soweto Theatre (Figure 10.3). This programme was carried over into the company’s 2014 performance calendar, where it was performed as part of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (Makhanda). Alongside this, 2014 was a year that Sibikwa Arts Dance Company began to seek wider collaborations within the Johannesburg dance community (this due to minimal funding and the need to find sus­ tainable ways for continuing work). The company’s participation in the My Body My Space27 initiative hosted by Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative28 saw Yuhl Headman in collaboration with peers from Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative, Moving into Dance Mophatong, and Vuyani Dance Theatre29 creating a flash mob performance for this platform. This collaboration grew into a larger project, dubbed Spring-Loaded which was performed at the

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Figure 10.3 Ndihambile (2013) Sibikwa Dance Season at the Soweto Theatre. The dancers are dressed in rich brown costumes and leap off both feet while looking down at the ground - simultaneously airborne and grounded as they work in unison to express community. The dance work depicts the insightful personal journey we all travel to find ourselves). The two dancers in the forefront are Ayanda Ndlhovu and Nosifiso Alice Motaung (choreography: Yuhl Headman; Dancers: Yuhl Headman, Thapelo Kotlolo, Thuso Lobeko, Ayanda Ndlhovu, Nosifiso Motaung; photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer). Source: Two female members of the Sibikwa Dance Company performing in Ndihambile (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer May 2013).

University of Johannesburg’s Con Cowan Theatre and included Sibikwa Arts Dance Company in collaboration with Moving into Dance Mophatong, Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative, and Vuyani Dance Theatre. The crisis of sustained national funding (or lack thereof) faced by many dancers and dance companies in South Africa thus resulted in a combination of mixed bills

Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy 217

of new and existing works as well as collaborative performances developed through the above four-way partnership. The collaborative season, SpringLoaded, included choreography by various independent choreographers asso­ ciated with the partnering companies as well as company members from the respective companies involved. Headman’s Ndihambile performed alongside Road … by Moving into Dance Mophatong’s Oscar Buthelezi and Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative’s Thulani Chauke’s Black Dog; while Vuyani Dance Theatre’s Thoko Sidiya’s 5 hats shared a programme with Lulu Mlangeni’s Page 27 and Thapelo Kotlolo’s Shades among others including works by Nadine Joseph, Sunnyboy Mandla Motau, and Sbonakaliso Ndaba.

So, where to now? Although the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company was disbanded in 2015 due to the lack of core funding, Sibikwa Arts Centre remains actively involved in dance through their community and education initiatives as well as their ongoing festival initiatives. Most recently, in 2016, the setting up of Thunya Lerole (Sibikwa Dance Season) was initiated to mark the 60th anniversary of the women’s 1956 March to Pretoria in defiance of the apartheid Pass Laws – the same event that inspired the collective Wathint’Abafazi, Wathint’Imbokodo at the beginning of Sibikwa’s journey. This festival, with a focus on supporting young emerging women choreographers, was offered again in 2017, with the theme, Mzansi’s Young Female Choreographers in Action, thus continuing Sibikwa’s quest to unearth and nurture young talent. Zinhle Nzama and Jabu Siphika (from Flatfoot Dance Company30) both participated in the inaugural Thunya Lerole (Sibikwa Dance Season) and ar­ ticulate the value of this platform: There are not many spaces for young female choreographers in South Africa to test their strength and this was a wonderful place for us to present our duet Ukubana Ngokwmi (In My Perspective). We loved the festival as we also got very useful feedback from David April and Adrienne Sichel. (Authors’ interview with Nzama and Siphika, March 2020) The subsequent 2017 edition of Thunya Lerole also boasted a mentorship programme with critically acclaimed dance maker Neliswa Xaba who offered workshops and support for the young women choreographers who took part in the initiative. Once again Ndaba and Klotz’s original body politics and the socio-political impulse to use theatre and performance to drive change, with a profound push to support genderbased initiatives in South Africa, found a life within the Sibikwa trajectory. Perhaps, too, this is one of Sibikwa’s richest cultural and political legacies – that of offering space for female dancers and dance makers to re-think, reimagine, and place themselves within a South African contemporary dance landscape as “makers” and “doers” and not simply as the bodies acted upon. Christy Adair in interrogating alternate spaces and places for female dancers in global dance history, says “[b]y taking the viewpoint that gender is not just

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difference but oppression, changes are possible in the making and viewing of dance” (1992, p. 65). This interrogation is further supported in Germaine Acogny’s31 powerful statement: As a dancer and choreographer, I am a storyteller and I use this power to reshape the stories that women should tell, can tell and want to tell. African women – like most women around the world – have to shape their own stories in their own creative processes; it is in our dreams and in our creativity that we are set free. (in Loots et al., 2020, p. 131) Here, Acogny brings into sharp focus the power of the performing arts to change lives – echoing the sentiments of Sibikwa founders Klotz and Ndaba offered throughout this chapter. Significantly the two Sibikwa-initiated Thunya Lerole festivals set up what both Adair and Acogny imagine is pos­ sible for the potential of racial and gendered re-visions when placing black women at the centre and in an environment that facilitates women-led agency.

Parting shots: The legacy continues In archivally traversing this significant 30-plus year history of the various dance branches of Sibikwa Arts Centre, it becomes evident that not only has a profound South African driving force in the dance landscape been initiated, promoted, and supported, but it is also clear that the intense personal devel­ opmental support offered by Klotz and Ndaba has opened many careers and pathways for dance practitioners in South Africa. At its heart, as with all other branches of the Sibikwa tree, the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company and all its related education, community, and festival initiatives evidence a commitment by Klotz and Ndaba to grow, support, and nurture community engagement. The 1988 roots of the very beginning were – and are – never forgotten. Poignantly, Klotz notes: From the outset, Sibikwa has been bringing theatre and dance to the community. It has opened dialogue between all sections of the commu­ nity – be this family, neighbourhood or the bigger arts and dance South African community. It has enabled dialogue and empowered youth to find their voices. We recognise the role the arts and dance can play in community development and in the growth of individuals and artists. (authors’ interview with Ndaba and Klotz, January 2020)

Notes 1 Workshop ’71 which was founded by the South African Institute for Race Relations in Johannesburg, in 1971 under the guidance of Dr Robert Mclaren (aka Robert Mshengu Kavanagh) was “started as a training workshop [that] gradually turned into a professional company […] founded on the premise of experimental political theatre aimed at

Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy 219

2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22

23 24

engaging with South African social issues prevalent during the time” (https://www. sahistory.org.za/article/workshop-71). See: https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/whats-on/jarring-beauty-with-butohs-honesty1110232 (accessed 5 November 2020). In John Kani’s 1994 edition of plays it was titled “You Strike the Woman, You Strike the Rock.” See: http://kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/50/304/32–130-E76–84-al.sff.document.af000006. pdf (accessed 23 March 2021). Moving into Dance Mophatong was established by Sylvia Magogo Glasser in Johannesburg in 1978. It was one of the first inter-racial dance companies in South Africa during apartheid rule. See https://www.midance.co.za. The Johannesburg Dance Umbrella launched in 1989 in Johannesburg, at the height of the second state of emergency under apartheid rule in South Africa. The Stepping Stones platform of the Dance Umbrella was initiated in 1998 to include work from young choreographers and youth groups onto the festival’s platform. See Cole, C.M. 2018. “Johannesburg Dance Umbrella: Thirty Years On” in Theatre Journal, 70 (4). For a description of this urban street style. See https://ourpastimes.com/the-history-ofpantsula-dance-12214858.html For more information on South African gumboot. See https://dancehistorygumbootdancing. weebly.com/narrative.html See: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/butoh-japanese-dance-darkness/, accessed 13 November 2020. See: Sanders, Vicki, 1988. “Dancing and the Dark Soul of Japan: An Aesthetic Analysis of Buto.” Asian Theatre Journal, 5(2): 148–163. Boaz Barkan is a performer and educator based in Denmark. He focuses on embodi­ ment in his performance and education work. For further information see: https:// boazbarkan.com Anika Kristensen Barkan is a Danish performance-maker who “works in the inter­ section between performing arts and social engagement” (https://www.anikabarkan. dk/anika-barkan-english). Archival report from Sibikwa Arts Centre (2008). See: https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/whats-on/jarring-beauty-with-butohs-honesty1110232 (accessed 5 November 2020). “ABOUT SADC 2009” – archival document from Sibikwa Arts Centre. Archival report from Sibikwa Arts Centre – 2009. See: https://www.youtube.com/c/SibikwaArts/videos for Freddie Zwane’s solo per­ formance. Drama for Life (DFL) is an academic programme offered by the Wits School of Art at the University of the Witwatersrand that focuses on applied drama and its capacity for critical reflection and the generation of alternative ways of being in the world. See https://www.dramaforlife.co.za. The Baxter Dance Festival is an annual festival that began in 2004 and is hosted at the Baxter Theatre. The JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience is a Durban-based dance festival hosted primarily at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in Durban each year. See https://jomba. ukzn.ac.za. From a 2010 press release in the Sibikwa Archives. No further date is available. Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre is a Durban-based contemporary dance theatre company under artistic directorship of Jay Pather. See https://www.facebook.com/siwelasonke/. Their 2002 Durban season CityScapes is one of the first intentional site-specific per­ formance seasons on record in South African contemporary dance history. See: http://infectingthecity.com/2019/. Programme note from “Public Oscillation” (Sibikwa archives 2011).

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25 Hillbrow Theatre Project is an after-school programme for school-going children who attend Johannesburg’s inner-city schools. It was established in 1999 and is currently under management of Gerard Bester. See https://theatre4youth.co.za/theatre/ hillbrow-theatre-project/. 26 Programme note from “Into The Unknown” (Sibikwa archives 2012). 27 My Body My Space is a public arts festival held in public spaces throughout the Emakhazeni Local Municipality in rural Mpumalanga. See http://forgottenangle.co. za/?page_id=458. 28 The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative is a dance organisation based in rural Mpumalanga under the artistic directorship of PJ Sabbagha. See http://forgottenangle. co.za/?page_id=11. 29 Vuyani Dance Theatre is a Johannesburg-based dance company under the artistic di­ rectorship of Gregory Maqoma. See https://www.vuyani.co.za/about. 30 Flatfoot Dance Company is a Durban-based dance company under the artistic direc­ torship of Lliane Loots. See https://flatfootdancecompany.webs.com. 31 Germaine Acogny is a Senegalese dancer and choreographer who founder of the prestigious École des Sables – one of the first dance training centres in Africa. She mixes traditional African dances and contemporary dance and is often referred to the mother of contemporary dance in Africa (Loots, L. et al. (2020)).

References Adair, C. (1992) Women and Dance: Sylphs and Sirens. London: McMillan. Boal, A. (1979) Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communications Group. Boswell, B. (2016) ‘Rewriting Apartheid South Africa: Race and Space in Miriam Tlali and Lauretta Ngcobo’s Novels’. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 23 (9), pp. 1329–1342. Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin. Goldberg, J. (2017) How Butoh, the Japanese Dance of Darkness, Helps Us Experience Compassion in a Suffering World. URL: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/butoh-japanesedance-darkness/ (accessed 13 November 2020). Grotowski, J. (1968) Towards a Poor Theatre. London: Methuen. Kani, J. (ed). (1994) More Market Plays. Johannesburg: AD Donker Publishing, pp. 162–204. Loots, L. (1997) ‘Re-remembering Protest Theatre in South Africa’. Critical Arts, 11(1–2), pp. 142–152. Loots, L., Hutchison, Y., and Mbele, O. (2020) ‘Voicing the Imaginative in Africa: Three Creatives Speak’. Agenda, 34(3), pp. 126–136. McKemmish, S., Chandler, T., and Faulkhead, S. (2019) ‘Imagine: A Living Archive of People and Place ‘Somewhere Beyond Custody’. Archival Science, 19, pp. 218–301. Sanders, V. (1988) ‘Dancing and the Dark Soul of Japan: An Aesthetic Analysis of Buto’. Asian Theatre Journal, 5(2), pp. 148–163. Schechner, R. (1991) ‘An Intercultural Primer’. American Theatre Quarterly, pp. 26–31 & pp. 135–136. Sichel, A. (2011) Jarring Beauty with Butoh’s Honesty. URL: https://www.iol.co.za/ entertainment/whats-on/jarring-beauty-with-butohs-honesty-1110232 (accessed 5 November 2020). Sichel, A. (2011) Urban Psyches, Fractured Souls. URL: https://www.iol.co.za/ entertainment/whats-on/urban-psyches-fractured-souls-1173505 (accessed 5 November 2020). Thompson, C. (2019) ‘Rethinking the Archive in the Public Sphere’. Canadian Journal of History, 54(1–2), pp. 32–38.

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Appendix 4: A Chronology of Sibikwa Dance Company Productions and Festivals 2007

In the Wake of the Body. Choreographed in a collaboration with Boaz and Anika Barkan (Denmark) The dancers embarked on a new chapter in dance performance by incorporating Japanese Butoh dance and traditional African dance. Dancers: (South African) Busisiwe Nyundu, Freddie Zwane, Lehlohonolo Dube, Lesego Modiga, Lucky Modiselle, Mandla Sibeko, Tebogo Munyai and (Danish) Boaz and Anika Barkan. Singers: Imbumba Choir Original Music Composed by: Neo Leleka. Staged at: The Dance Factory, Newtown.

2008

As We Go, We Grow. Choreographed by Bafikile Sebide. The Sibikwa Arts Dance Company’s first public performance as part of the Sibikwa Grafting Dance Programme incorporating the learners of the Inyanda Programme. Dancers: Lehlohonolo Dube, Lucky Modiselle, Taemane Mothobi, Lungile Maboe. Staged at: The Dance Factory, Newtown. Down Flesh Road. Choreographed by Boaz and Anika Barkan (Denmark). A continuation of the collaboration between Sibikwa Arts Dance Company and Danish choreographers Boaz and Anika Barkan, integrating their use of Japanese Butoh dance and traditional African dance. Dancers: (South African) Lehlohonolo Dube, Gladwel Rakoma, Keaoleboga Seodigeng, Taemane Mothobi, Thapelo Kotlolo, Tebogo Munyai and (Danish) Boaz and Anika Barkan. Staged at: The Dance Factory, Newtown.

2009

(E)motions of the Heart. Choreographed by Cherice Mangiagalli. A love duet Dancers: Cherice Mangiagalli and Tebogo Munyai. Staged at: The FNB Dance Umbrella, Wits Theatre, Johannesburg; The Soul Dance Festival, Johannesburg; Space Dot Com, Johannesburg Civic Theatre Recognition: Soul Dancer Award (2009) A Cultural Dance Exchange and collaboration between Casa Da Cultura Do Alto Mae (Maputo, Mozambique). Dancers: Cherice Mangiagalli, Lehlohonolo Dube, Lucky Modiselle, Taemane Mothobi, Tebogo Munyai. Staged at: Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni and Casa Da Cultura Do Alto Mae, Maputo. Dance Xplosion! Festival. A unique platform for community groups, across all genres to showcase their work and compete for a monetary prize. Hosted at: Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni (2009/2010/2019); Dance Factory, Newtown, Johannesburg (2017). (Continued)

222 2010

Clare Craighead and Lliane Loots Place of a Wo(man). Choreographed by Cherice Mangiagalli. Using six male dancers, the dance piece explores the essence of womanhood. Dancers: Gladwel Rakoma, Keaoleboga Seodigeng, Lehlohonolo Dube, Taemane Mothobi, Tebogo Munyai, Thapelo Kotlolo. Original Music by: The Sibikwa African Indigenous Orchestra. Staged at: Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni and the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Recognition: National Arts Festival Standard Bank Ovation Award (2010) Eye of the Storm. A programme comprised of 3 solo performances and 2 ensemble pieces. Solo performances: Reborn /Rebirth. Choreographed and performed by Lehlohonolo Dube. Internal Barriers. Choreographed and performed by Taemane Mothobi. Escalating Drop. Choreographed and performed by Tebogo Munyai. Ensemble Pieces: The Place of Wo(man). Choreographed by Cherice Mangiagalli and performed by Gladwel Rakoma, Keaoleboga Seodigeng, Lehlohonolo Dube, Taemane Mothobi, Tebogo Munyai, Thapelo Kotlolo. Common. Choreographed by Boaz and Anika Barkan and performed by Freddie Zwane, Keaoleboga Seodigeng, Tebogo Munyai. Staged at: The Grahamstown National Arts Festival, Wits 969 Festival, the Dance Factory Newtown. Unspoken words. Choreographed by Cherice Mangiagalli. A love duet Dancers: Cherice Mangiagalli and Tebogo Munyai. Staged at: Jomba Festival, Durban and the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town. Breaking New Ground: A Festival of Solo Work A platform for choreographers and dancers to experiment and explore different spaces. Breaking New Ground was accompanied by an art exhibition. Dancers: Ayanda Sengwayo, Bongani Radebe, Craig Morris, Evaline Malesotho, Fana Tshadalala, Funeka Ramourula, Joe Teffo, Joni Barnard, Kerry –Lee Brandt, Kieron Jina, Leigh Yudelman, Madala ‘Lefty’ Mbenenge, Mpho Kunene, Mpho Molefe, Mthunzi Mlambo, Oscar Buthelezi, Robert Pomba, Sunny Boy Motau, Thabethe Khabonia, Tshidiso Mokhotu, Tshireletso Molambo. Staged at: The Sci-Bono Education Centre, Newtown, Johannesburg.

2011

Sharing A Sin. Choreographed by Thabo Rapoo. An exploration of male sexuality. Dancers: Freddie Zwane, Lesego Ngwato, Taemane Mothobi, Thapelo Kotlolo, Yuhl Headman. Original Music by: Sibikwa African Indigenous Orchestra. Staged at: Goethe on Main, Johannesburg. Negotiating Spaces: A Festival of Solo Works A platform for dancers to experiment with space, accompanied by an art exhibition. Dancers: Bongile Lecoge-Zulu, Julia Zenzi Burham, Leigh Nudelman, Maleshwane Mohoasi, Menzi Mbonambi, Nhlanhla Mbuyisa, Mxolisi Masilela, Nonkululeko Mthetwa, Rachel Mohlabane, Roseline Keppler, Sinsi Sampson, Smakaleng Osopong, Thami Majela, Wesley Mabizela. (Continued)

Celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy 223 Animation and Live Music. Adrian Ziller. Exhibited Artists: Nicola Taylor, Nicola Hertz, Rosemary Joynt and Sibusiso Mokhachane. Staged at: The SCI-Bono Education Centre, Newtown, Johannesburg. 2012

Kwentaba (Internal Findings). Choreographed by Yuhl Headman. The journey follows a young isiXhosa man undertaking the rituals towards manhood. Dancers: Andima Kuli, Melusi Mkhwanjana, Rosie Mqaba, Thapelo Kotlolo, Thuso Lobese, Yuhl Headman. Staged at: Baxter Dance Festival, Cape Town; Danse I’Afrique Danse 9th Edition; Soweto Theatre, Johannesburg; Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni and Wits Theatre, Johannesburg. Unnatural Presence #4. Choreographed by Freddie Zwane. The piece has its roots in Japanese Butoh. Internalized images are used as a springboard for movement. Dancer: Freddie Zwane Staged at: The Detour Festival at Wits Theatre, Johannesburg; Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni and The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown.

2013/2014

Ndihambile A programme of three dance pieces. Kwentaba (Internal Findings). Choreographed by Yuhl Headman and performed by Thapelo Kotlolo, Thuso Lobeko, and Yuhl Headman Into the Unknown. Choreographed by Sibonakaliso Ndaba and performed by Ayanda Ndhlovu, Nosifiso Motaung, Thapelo Kotololo, Thuso Lobeko, Yuhl Headman. Ndihambile. Choreographed by Yuhl Headman and performed by Ayanda Ndhlovu, Nosifiso Motaung, Thapelo Kotlolo, Thuso Lobeko. Staged at: The Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni; Wits Theatre, Johannesburg and Soweto Theatre, Johannesburg and Grahamstown National Festival of the Arts.

2014

Spring Loaded. Choreographed by PJ Sabbagha. A workshopped contemporary dance work in collaboration with the Forgotten Angle Theatre Company (FATC), Vuyani Dance Theatre (VDT), Moving Into Dance Mophatong (MIDM), and Sibikwa Arts Dance Company. Staged at: Con Cowan Theatre, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg.

2016/2017

Thunya Le Role (Kick Up the Dust). A dance season which included: Negotiated Spaces where dance companies collaborated in exploring different spaces for dance at Newtown Junction Shopping Mall, Johannesburg. Dance Xplosion! Festival a unique platform for community groups to showcase their work and compete for a cash prizes, presented at the Dance Factory, Johannesburg. Rural Outreach Holiday Programme taking place in Mpumalanga, it included a Dance Workshop Programme, facilitated by Mcebisi Bhayi. Female Choreographers Showcase where young female choreographers were given a platform to create new work, presented at The Dance Factory, Johannesburg. (Continued)

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Clare Craighead and Lliane Loots 2016: Emma Tollman (Still Breathing), Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama (Ukubana Ngokwami/In My Perspective), Katlego Mogola (Last Supper), Lerato Lipere (Man-Made World), Lorin Sookool (BAD), Nadine Joseph (i.d.Entity), Qiniso Zungu (The Conversation Within Our Bodies and Souls), 2017

2019

2021

Female Choreographers Showcase Dancers: Grace Barnes, Thoko Seganye, Palesa Matabane, Tania Vossgatter, mentored by Neli Xaba. Staged at: Sibikwa Arts Centre Choreographers Showcase. A Sibikwa Arts project which provided a platform for choreographers to showcase their work. Choreographers: Katlego Mogola, Mcebisi Bhayi, Yuhl Headman. Kabusha (Tradi-Contemporary International Dance Festival) Presented the journeys of 3 dancers re-imagining, re-inventing and redefining their understanding of identity, connection, tradition and spirituality during the Covid-19 pandemic. Choreographers: Edna Jaime-Mozambique (Um Segundo ‘One Second’), Mcebisi Bhayi (Iqhawe Elingaphakathi kum ‘Shadow Pillar’), Thapelo Kotlolo (Kuzaliwa Upya ‘Reincarnation’).

11 Keeping the African sound relevant Evans Ntshengedzeni Netshivhambe

Introduction Sibikwa has always promoted a variety of South African styles and genres of music – music styles that have helped to shape a South African music industry identity. They are music styles that have become the soundscapes of South African township music and an urban sound such as Kwela in the 1950s, Mbaqanga from the 1970s, Disco from the 1980s, Kwaito in the 1990s and Afropop in the 2000s. These are styles that developed as South Africa pro­ gressed from one era to another. The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra became the epitome of Sibikwa’s music influence with the offering of tradi­ tional African music.1 Sibikwa embraces and promotes South African music in its entirety from the indigenous to the emergence of new styles and the orchestra itself went on multiple tours abroad.

The South African music scene from the 1950s onwards David Coplan, an American ethnomusicologist who arrived in South Africa in 1975, encountered a multitude of social tensions, dynamics, and complexities in urban environments such as Johannesburg. He fell in love with the cultural dynamics that were unfolding at the time, and from his love for the township lifestyle, he became interested in the emerging popular music in shebeens – illicit bars (often in a private dwelling) where alcoholic beverages are sold without a licence – of the time. He explains that most people who came to Johannesburg were migrant labourers surging into industrial urban complexes from their re­ spective ethnic homelands and that there was an immediate need for a new kind of cultural revolution in a mixed socio-cultural environment (see Coplan, 1985). Coplan (1985) and Wells (1996) use the term “neo-traditional” to describe music that identifies itself as traditional within the urban city environment. Coplan explains this as music that is “traditional in idiom and style but trans­ formed by the urban context or by changes in performance rules and occasions, or performed on Western instruments” (2007, p. xii). Wells on the other hand explains it as “those song-styles that consciously mobilise established aesthetic DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-13

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values and styles in a greater proportion than foreign influences. They are performed by members of society who wish to root themselves within culturally-established notions” (1996, p. 2). The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s members comprised different ethnic orientations coming from the surrounding townships. This is con­ sidered normal for many townships in Gauteng where the living environments are socially mixed. Coplan experienced the same socio-cultural mixture in his earlier encounter in the mid-1970s – of migrant labourers moving to Johannesburg from their rural homes. People needed to adapt to their new social environments, which often included transforming traditional music from their homelands. The approach is often employed when using Western and traditional elements within new mixed environments. The period Sibikwa was established as an organisation in the late 1980s coincides with the emergence of other popular music styles such as Kwaito, Disco, House music, Afropop, Mbaqanga (even though Mbaqanga can be traced as far back as the early 1970s). The late 1980s and late 1990s were vital in the realisation of a new regime in South Africa. Music styles such as Kwaito were right at the core of the emergence of a new South Africa. Gavin Steingo (2006) discusses the music of the time just before and after the end of apartheid as a bridging tool that brought about a new South African musical identity. Kwaito music with its traces to bubble-gum music and influences from American house dance music sets itself up as the new style with which many black South Africans were finding resonance. It is the music that celebrated township lifestyles as these had become regular homes for many black South Africans, and Sibikwa played an indirect role in influencing such a music style through its community theatre. Sibikwa’s history covers two regimes: from the apartheid era to the newly democratic dispensation. With the formation of a marimba band, African music was introduced to Sibikwa in 1995. The primary motivation behind its in­ troduction was to promote music that was entirely African. Sibikwa initially focused on South African music, particularly that which was performed and played during the 1950s. Using the stage to change perceptions and advocating for new hope through acting and music, Sibikwa used its influence to promote the new realisation of the rainbow nation narrative through the arts. However, a large part of Sibikwa’s historical focus has been on music of the 1950s and indigenous music. Sibikwa was educating people about indigenous music appreciation while embracing the 50s vibe music that was happening in Johannesburg – particularly within the mineworkers’ community of emerging urban black dwellers. The 50s also celebrated the musical culture of Sophiatown that has shaped much of the South African music industry at large. Sibikwa brought about the most interesting academic debates about what is community theatre as opposed to professional theatre and what is community concert as opposed to a professional one. Making the arts accessible to the township community while cultivating local talent, Sibikwa brought different music

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Figure 11.1 First Marimba Ensemble rehearsing in 2004 for a tour of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus to celebrate 10 years of democracy (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer April 2004).

performance styles such as Marabi, Kwela, Mbaqanga, Kwaito, and hip-hop right into the heart of the community as a way to celebrate South Africa’s rich music history through dance and music performance. Most township com­ munities miss out on great productions that are only staged in city centre venues due to a lack of accessibility and affordability. Sibikwa dismantled the idea that community concerts and theatre are not professional just because they are based in areas that may be considered unsafe for the elite (Figure 11.1). Sibikwa quickly acquired international recognition, despite being con­ sidered a community project. It garnered some of the best accolades through its innovative, multimodal, interdisciplinary musical and drama theatre performances. More than anything, Sibikwa’s stage performances also em­ bodied the resurgence of the pantsula dance styles through black community music performances. Sibikwa used the dance theatre stage to feed into music styles such as Afropop, Disco, Kwaito and many more that were char­ acterised or accompanied by the pantsula dance style – a style that later took over the music industry. These are some of the influences that Sibikwa was able to underscore in the development of the South African local music industry from a community music perspective. As music styles were evolving so were the dance styles that accompanied the music. Specific dances are generally associated with certain music styles. Kwela music has its own kwela dance, while disco and kwaito are associated with the pantsula dance. Dance styles such as pantsula have been associated with many

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different music styles and it is considered the longest surviving dance style because it has been crossing over from one music style to another (Inggs, 2017, p. 91). For instance, American jazz music of the 1950s as well as South African emerging music styles of that era are considered the biggest influence of pantsula dance (Inggs, 2017). Sibikwa’s use of the theatre stage has revived much of the 1950s music and the dance styles associated with the music of that era. The music of the 1950s was a direct influence in the development of modern dance styles and particularly influenced Kwaito music which emerged in the late 1980s at the same time as Sibikwa’s establishment. Kwaito was the most dominant music style amongst the black community in the 1990s. The Indigenous Orchestra, which performed on many international stages, is like a signature and a symbol of success in demonstrating some of the true values of South African traditional music – traditional music in this context refers to indigenous music within the black community. Unfortunately, the Indigenous Orchestra did not survive very long. Despite touring locally and internationally, the orchestra was disbanded after two years because financial support from the Lottery came to an end. Sibikwa and the musicians worked on a six-month exit strategy. However, sadly, the orchestra’s members did not hold together, and each went their se­ parate ways to establish individual careers. The orchestra’s practice of travelling with and participating in a variety of Sibikwa’s productions taught the group that their sound is the signifier for some of the values of their African origins. Audiences can be disappointed if the music performed does not demonstrate distinct South African elements such as tradi­ tional music sung in vernacular languages with performers garbed in traditional regalia. Sibikwa made a conscious effort to overcome the dominance of Western influences on the group’s productions. Even in instances where a mix of both Western and African flamboyance was present in certain collaborative perfor­ mances, some specific African values2 retained their prominence. Sibikwa would strive to retain the African characteristics necessary to any production in which it played a part. This reinforced the reputation of some unique African values for those who experienced their productions. Sibikwa continuously tried to ad­ vocate for a vibe specific to the musicals of the 1950s, specifically those popular during the time of forced removals in Sophiatown. Music became one of the links between various developing and emerging township spaces that were celebrating and embracing people’s differences through art performances. The majority of the great 1950s bands came from the East Rand. They looked to America for inspiration, but instead of allowing foreign flavours to dominate their sound, they instead used their closed harmony singing to turn the American influence on its head, creating a new culture still homogeneous to their distinct sound (Ballantine, 1999 and Coplan, 1985). They used the ’50s dance styles and music as a form of resilience (and resistance) to the American influence, maintaining the local elements. The music of the 1950s, with people moving from Sophiatown to other areas since they were forcefully removed in 1955, was the main influence of Sibikwa’s

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musical performances. This music also influenced many great legends and fa­ mous bands that were also coming from other areas such as the East Rand, where bands such as The Manhattan Brothers were performing. It was all about the African dances’ identity and the dance of the time emerging from musical styles, such as jazz, kwela, marabi, bump jive and many more. Many Sibikwa pro­ ductions epitomised the ’50s, with shows such as Kwela Bafana, a musical story of life in the ’50s, bloated with the sound of the police siren, shebeen beer drinking, and the unpleasant reality of forced removals. Kwela Bafana (a musical theatre performance) was first performed in 1993 and was followed by a folk opera, called Ubuntu Bomhlaba, which was commissioned by the Standard Bank National Arts Festival for its Main Programme. Uhambo (The journey), was an­ other moving tale from Sibikwa. It told a story in drama, music, song, and dance of a young man travelling to Egoli (Johannesburg) in search of his parents. In 1998, Sibikwa received a Vita Award nomination for Uhambo. Isizwe Sethu (which had a full orchestra including marimba, Western and African drums, saxophone, bass guitar and piano) was another captivating musical theatre piece that celebrated the vibrancy of South Africa’s democracy and its rainbow nation. Isizwe Sethu reflects on the past while embracing the pain that accompanies democracy because of the effort in realising the dream of the “rainbow nation.” Sibikwa is committed to bringing the experience of theatre to the people, and it is for this reason that the Centre is often referred to as community theatre. It is with this vision that Sibikwa was able to tour extensively, both nationally and internationally. The performers of the Sibikwa Arts Centre have showcased their talents on big stages and at festivals, such as the Cultural Calabash Festival in the North West Province, as well as the Standard Bank National Arts Festival. In South Africa the performers also travelled to the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, and Gauteng, while outside South Africa they staged performances and workshops across the globe, in places such as Botswana, Zimbabwe, Europe, Singapore, Canada, and the USA. When Sibikwa showcased their performances on the world stage, their productions maintained their traditional ethos, because this is what sets the Centre apart from other arts centres. After this period of reviving the spirit of 1950s’ musical shows and per­ formances, it was time to focus on boosting the African sound. After attending several symphonic performances, Phyllis Klotz considered creating a symphony orchestra for Sibikwa itself, where indigenous African instruments would feature prominently. This would be in addition to the marimba band already present at the Centre. This meant that the African drums were already available to use, which made it easier for the indigenous orchestra project to be established. Initially, Sibikwa students could neither read nor write music, although they did know how to play certain percussion instruments. They also knew Tonic Sol-Fa and they could play the marimba.

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The establishment of Sibikwa indigenous orchestra and its sound Before the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra was officially established in 2009, music lessons were offered from as early as 1995 for students who played in the marimba band. When the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra was es­ tablished it offered training in indigenous instruments, such as the marimba, uhadi, umrhubhe, kudu horn, traditional drums, shakers, as well as other small percussion instruments. Through the Orchestra, Sibikwa was able to expand the boundaries of musical education, by offering a new kind of indigenous music performance. The training that was offered by Sibikwa through the Indigenous Arts Orchestra was advocative to African music appreciation in the surrounding community. The biggest challenge that South Africa faced re­ garding African music training in schools stemmed from government policies that provided very little support for arts education. Despite challenges within the basic education system, arts organisations in South Africa like Sibikwa succeeded in creating working models in which arts education can thrive. Organisations such as Sibikwa could create a level of practical teaching with a fresh learning model and could leverage this as a means of influencing policy change in government. They achieved this through the provision of solutions to basic arts education, specifically moti­ vating for the training of qualified teachers to teach music, drama, fine art, and other art disciplines in the standard school curriculum. Despite music, drama, and dance’s inclusion in the basic education curriculum, there still exists the challenge of insufficient teachers qualified to teach these disciplines effectively. It is within the government policies that strong advocacy by arts organisations and arts activists should be made for music education and/or arts education at large to be appreciated with efficient teaching support staff. The primary aim of this chapter is to demonstrate, in more specific ways how Sibikwa, with its broad programmes, enriched the debate around com­ munity music performance and music education through its community theatre; and how Sibikwa became a symbol of influence for many different music styles that have many followers in South Africa. The chapter will also expand on the use of African cultural principles in teaching African music and how the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra initiative was a successful practical performance model as to how indigenous music can be taught at schools. The Centre used traditional instruments to create an awareness of indigenous music appreciation in urban areas. Traditional instruments are often associated with rural primitiveness and unschooled performers, who are old and not interested in professionalising their practice. Yet (as this chapter will show), when these performances take place in urban areas, they succeed in both igniting interest amongst the urban youth and activating indigenous music education appre­ ciation all the while providing a deeper understanding of heritage, roots, culture, etc. Urban areas or cities become the platform and a melting pot of cultural exchange between diverse people who can relive the same traditional

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customs practised in rural communities. With that being said, the potential for traditional and mixed cultural beliefs to adapt to a new context cannot be ignored, specifically within the urban indigenous sound world. It is against this backdrop that this chapter discusses the role of the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra in arts education in South Africa and its con­ tribution to the music industry. The importance of fusing African indigenous instruments with Western ones, particularly in the realisation of new sound worlds within cities, will be discussed. The chapter will focus on some African values espoused by the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra in its musical performances, particularly concerning the integration of various elements (from a multitude of art disciplines) within a single performance. These in­ clude singing, drama, poetry, and storytelling. While there may be some overlap of both values and music across Africa and amongst ethnicities, there are also areas that differ markedly. Some practices are identifiable in some African performances that have symbolisms of commonness within their va­ lues. Shared values amongst many different ethnic groups tend to have a homogenised perspective in many African practices. Since the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra challenges the status quo by providing new modes of music performances for teaching and learning, it also centres itself in the nascent debate around arts education in South Africa. This is the era of a decolonising discourse in the institutions of higher education and teaching. The chapter will continue by providing an analysis of a selection of the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s compositions. Through this disquisition, the chapter will also show the importance of keeping orchestras such as this one, for the development of indigenous African music. The vision of Sibikwa is symbolic to that of a father, whose works change lives and leave a mark on the lives of many young township people. Sibikwa aligns its core objectives with educational developments, but its vision is broader than education: by expanding its horizon to professional performance and touring work it creates a bigger benefit for artists nationally and internationally, thereby becoming the arts centre of choice for many. Its broader vision is underpinned by values of encouraging learning and the teaching of indigenous knowledge. The centre embraces African cultures in a modern world, where there is a constant battle between access to information for the poor and the human instinct for survival in urban dwellings. Arts organisations are not only striving to provide education to the less fortunate but are also committed to job creation and alleviating unemployment in the country. Since its inception, Sibikwa has managed to navigate these social problems by training and developing undeveloped talents to become worldstage professional performers; and by developing marketable skills in a com­ petitive world that demands education as the means of empowerment. Klotz and Ndaba strove to expose both learners and teachers to arts and cultural developments that would enhance their experiences and better equip them for the future. As a result of their efforts, as well as many other existing, in­ dependent non-profit arts organisations in South Africa, most of the youth that

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comes from these arts organisations is exposed to various arts disciplines. The work that these arts organisations do is intended for government, and despite the lack of financial support they continue to do it for the development of the arts in general. They equip the youth with market-related skills, particularly those unavailable at higher institutions of learning, to enable them to face life with dignity through education. Sibikwa uses the power of arts education to reconnect some cultural values such as those that have been re-imagined through the orchestra performances to the communities in which people are born and raised. The empowerment of the youth by Sibikwa is also an edu­ cational instrument that helps to develop these communities. The education provided by Sibikwa offers hope to these youth. By using the arts to open doors to a better life through creativity, social imbalances are transformed, and human dignity is restored.

Decolonisation: forms of recording, preserving, and promoting indigenous music In South Africa, as in many other African countries as well as the rest of the world, music forms part of those countries’ cultural heritage knowledge – long before a discipline or indeed even an academic study of music existed. Music on the African continent has always been a question of communal learning, ritual, celebration, cohesion, and teaching experience, which encompasses and embraces some traditional values of each culture. As a result, African music has suffered significant loss through its exclusion from the academic sphere of subjects considered worthy of study. The process for “legitimising” scholarly studies has given much consideration to Western classical music as a music that can demonstrate the study of science in music but very little of other musical traditions such as African music. African music studies first entered a sys­ tematised educational discipline as ethnomusicology, which is a sub-field of musicology. In the colonial world, from the very outset, the colonial en­ counter with aboriginal people was also often a musical encounter. If we look at the diaries of the first Portuguese explorers who came around the southern tip of Africa in the late 1400s, we find that they were already writing about the musical practices of the people they encountered (see Christine Lucia, 2009). For centuries before music was taught at South African universities, there existed historical records of musical encounters. These are largely accounts from explorers, sailors, missionaries, and later colonial administrators. It is important to acknowledge the “pre-history” of recorded texts generated by the colonial experience, even though such texts were merely a description of art objects and performance experiences travellers encountered (Agawu, 2016, p. 74). This pre-history documented, before the discipline of ethnomusicology was established, the backdrop against which the study of music in South African universities began. Before we engage with the current exclusions of African indigenous music as a subject of study at higher learning institutions, it is im­ portant to understand this history and to recognise what happened the moment

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that music actually became an object of academic inquiry. Documented musical encounters tell us more about the music experiences of the South African people before the officially adopted systematised discipline of ethnomusicology in the mid-twentieth century. This systematisation, however, also serves to exclude the extensively undocumented rich cultural heritage of South African music, which Sibikwa promoted and documented at its centre. The work of Sibikwa certainly holds great value in the efforts towards decolonisation. African scholars critically see themselves in two places: first, as members of a settler society, and secondly, as to how their own practices that are inscribed against the backdrop of colonialism, are viewed in the world. Those learning African music at universities are now looking back, criticising the approaches of ethnomusicology. Another group of African scholars, not following the precepts of musical canonisation at universities, are generally attending less lofty “schools,” such as conservatories and arts organisation. They are more in touch with the practical performance of African music on the ground, compared to those in universities, as they are not handicapped by mostly Western conventions. What is also fascinating about the unfolding decolonial debate within music is that scholars now write as explicitly in­ digenous scholars. African scholars are themselves sometimes engaging in the practice of reinventing in, and on, their own terms, some of the previous methodological and topical focal discussions within earlier comparative mu­ sicology and ethnomusicology. For example, there exists a debate as to whether one should be studying texts when studying music, as the music in itself possesses a richness of scope, with its own merits. Lectures on African musicology that have emerged (largely in West Africa with scholars such as Nketia, and later Kofi Agawu and others, and composers), claim the presence of post-colonial African textual musical composition after the 1970s. In other words, African artistic music also merits musicological attention, especially as ethnomusicologists with a bias towards privileged traditional and popular music have traditionally excluded it. Africans hungry to study and learn African indigenous music as a performance, rather than as an ethnomusico­ logical study can only find practical examples in arts organisations like Sibikwa, which are not tied to university policies and curriculum regulations. The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra bridged gaps between decolonial debates and the appropriation of African knowledge for African scholars in academia. The Orchestra emphasised the importance of performing in­ digenous African instruments to advocate for a formal model for learning and teaching indigenous African music. When they auditioned in 2009, the Orchestra’s members were inspired by performing indigenous African instruments. Universities are rigid in their conventional analytical processes of appropriating other forms of knowledge, including indigenous African in­ strument performances through studying them and mimicking them. Qualifying processes of what is worthy of study at universities are based on Western conventions of systematising disciplines, which in turn exclude many systems of knowledge. Many of the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s

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members express how they found peace and joy in performing African music in their own way, without being critically analysed as to whether they are in tune or following a score. They took the traditional African musical concepts, which are based on African principles and customary practices – such as how a king summons his subjects to address them, the celebration of a new life in a community, rite of passage functions, how a community responds to the loss of life musically, and many more – to greater heights. The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra members were not ashamed at embracing and celebrating their cultural heritage through African music. Compositions of the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra were inspired by the cultural music of the performers (who composed the songs). I would like to call the period between 2008–2010 the golden era which included the pick of the Sibikwa music vibe of the indigenous orchestra performances. Since the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s 2009 inception, many op­ portunities have been realised for learners keen to celebrate their indigenous cultural heritage through performance. This platform encouraged the per­ formers to bring their cultural dynamism to their performances (based on evoking their ethnic rhythmic and melodic colours embedded in each cultural philosophy). The cultural dynamics found in Gauteng townships are the product of South Africa’s past. Indigenous African music experiences a con­ tinual conflict between fighting for survival within its core functional en­ vironment in rural areas as a direct consequence of urbanisation encroaching even into the rural homelands, while simultaneously attempting to solicit new appreciation within those self-same developed cities. It is important to note that music styles that evolved during urbanisation into the homelands and townships around cities would still consist of traditional elements while re­ taining both old and new cultural values that emerged because of cultural adaptation. In the urban and township developments, any aspect associated with traditional or indigenous practices cannot be regarded in any way as consistent, specifically regarding legacy customs such as performances that are symbolic of the cultural way of life that is passed down from one generation to the next; or to those past cultural beliefs distinctive to a particular group of people or what the majority considers authentic to a particular group of people. By creating a legacy of indigenous arts, Sibikwa could participate in the broader indigenous African music collection, while making it physically more accessible for many scholars than would be the case for performances held in rural provinces. The collection which is stored at Sibikwa in the form of CDs and DVDs of performances will contribute to the sustainability of indigenous African music. Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra brought to light the importance of using accumulated cultural memory banks of experiences as sources of knowledge about the African oral tradition that include song, musical instruments, praise poetry, handclapping patterns, dance movements, and many more. The range of musical/cultural differences between orchestra members was vast. Players’ ethnicities were Zulu, Xhosa, Pedi, Venda, Sotho, and Tswana. Daniel Banks (2011) argues that the resilience of Sibikwa

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encompasses a lasting legacy that the centre has retained over two decades of running a successful educational training centre. He refers to Sibikwa as “the oldest community theatre in South Africa,” (2011, p. 65) where its sustained existence is a symbol of resilience and endurance despite unstable funding policies in South Africa. The Orchestra began with sixteen members, and a programme that offered four different modules of learning African music performance, namely in­ struments: African percussion (drums); African xylophone (marimbas); African strings (bows); and African wind instruments (horns). After the selection of the orchestral members in 2009, the Sibikwa Arts Centre moved from Saturday lessons to lessons conducted during the week. The academy offered training in African drum lessons, marimba music, and the theory of music based on the graded Trinity music exam. The Sibikwa Arts Centre had a teaching venue of its own, which was an advantage as it enabled the Centre to develop better and survive an unstable funding terrain. Having a venue for teaching and learning made it easier for the Sibikwa Arts Centre to start offering lessons during the week. This also meant that the organisation could expand its offerings to those that were available during the week. Between 2010 and 2012, funding policy challenges were threatening the arts education industry, which also resulted in many arts organisations struggling to remain afloat. Adrienne Sichel (2012) writes about the complexities of navigating performance spaces – a problem directly related to policy changes – in her chapter entitled, “Gate-Crashing Prejudices and Perceptions: The Enduring Legacy of Arts and Dance Festivals in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” in the book Post-Apartheid Dance: Many Bodies Many Voices Many Stories (edited by Sharon Friedman, 2012). She mentions how organisations such as Sibikwa continue to bring light to the performing arts by activating previously unused performance spaces during difficult funding times threatened by a policy change. The activation spaces were “at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown in Johannesburg, and the Africa Centre’s Infecting the City Public Arts Festival in Cape Town,” (Sichel, 2012: 116). These productions empowered and encouraged people to continue to soldier on regardless of the funding problems the sector was facing. In 2009, the Orchestra began with small performances, which were the first fruit of the development of this indigenous orchestra. Towards the end of 2009, the Orchestra began to collaborate with other production shows at the Sibikwa Arts Centre. Its first collaboration was a drama piece entitled Malindi: The Sex Strike, which became the first show where the Orchestra entertained a wider audience. Another collaboration took place in 2010, between the Orchestra and the Sibikwa Dance Company, where the orchestra performed small solos and duets, in a show called Place of a Woman. The Orchestra later performed its own productions, which were purely indigenous orchestral performances, with no collaboration from other genres at Sibikwa. The Orchestra began performing outside Johannesburg, in places such as the Grahamstown National Arts Festival. The Sibikwa Arts Centre started using its indigenous orchestra as a means to create an awareness of indigenous African

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Figure 11.2 SAA (Sibikwa Arts Academy) end-of-year concert at Sibikwa in 2017. The players are dressed in brightly coloured Swazi clothes (photograph by Herman Verwey December 2017).

musical performance in the surrounding schools, as part of an outreach pro­ gramme. This was intended to heighten educational awareness, which would inspire schools and learners about indigenous African music performance. The orchestra was under the leadership of Artistic Director Mr Neo Leleka, who worked with Easy Mathipa, and composed many songs for marimba learners and band. In 2010, the Sibikwa Arts Dance Company, in collaboration with the Indigenous Orchestra won an Ovation Award at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival. In 2011, the Sibikwa Arts Centre staged another moving and innovative work, under the name Harreeng Sibikwa, which put on two pro­ ductions, Public Oscillation and Re-Alignment 1. Public Oscillation was a six-piece performance, comprising entirely male dancers, who were accompanied by the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra, and was performed at the Sibikwa Arts Centre. Re-Alignment 1 was another moving production delightfully accom­ panied by the Indigenous Orchestra. It highlighted beautiful compositions for indigenous African instruments as new and original soundscapes, within the 21st century. The two productions were both staged at the Sibikwa Arts Theatre between 24 and 26 June 2011. In the same year, the Orchestra went on to perform at the grand finale of the Celebration of the Delphic Games that were hosted by Germany, the grand finale at the ITB Berlin and had a second opportunity to perform at the Jaffna

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Figure 11.3 The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra in their simple, earth-coloured costumes. At the back two members of the orchestra are blowing on kudu horns, another two are holding mbira. In the centre a member is playing the marimba and on the left in front a dun dun drum can be seen (photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer February 2011).

Folk Music Festival in Sri Lanka, between 25 and 27 March 2011. In 2011, the Orchestra also received a second Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival. The growth of the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra through its increasing number of performances showed how it had begun to reach unprecedented heights, year on year, as greater numbers of people fell in love with the in­ digenous instruments and their music. The years 2011 and 2012 were the most eventful for the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra, with many tours and ac­ tivities. In 2012, the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra presented its stunning production of The Origins – Ekuqaleni, on 4 and 6 July, at the St Aidan’s Church in Bamburgh, England. In the same year, the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra participated in the Afrovibes Festival (produced by UK Arts International) that toured to the UK, staging an outstanding performance at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff in the week of October 15–21 of 2012. The Sherman’s foyer was a hub of activity, including performances of music, poetry, theatre, dance, and spoken word. It was here that the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra was able to highlight its talent internationally in an appropriately extravagant way. The Orchestra followed the Afrovibes Festival to perform in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and The Hague. After the Netherlands’ leg of the Festival, the Orchestra joined the UK leg of the Festival at the Sherman Theatre.

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The success of the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s outreach pro­ gramme, aimed at educating learners and creating awareness at schools led to funding support from the national Sasol Schools Festival. The Festival forms part of the South African National Schools Festivals organised by the Grahamstown Foundation of Arts Education Department. The support en­ abled Sibikwa Arts Centre to perform nationally, participating in a tour of schools that offered lectures with performance demonstrations. In May 2012, under the mentorship of famous percussionist, Tlale Makhene, the group launched its vibrant debut CD, Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra. What made the teaching formula and structure of skills development offered by the Sibikwa Arts Centre so unique, was that when it came to indigenous instruments, Sibikwa taught these completely differently from the way other schools would teach them. There was a much greater focus on playing technique over merely taking the instrument and playing different music off it, without understanding the instrument’s technical aspects. The Centre pos­ sessed a greater understanding of the craft, which was done so at the insistence of Neo Leleka. Leleka worked together with Easy Mathipa, and they wanted to be sure learners knew the instrument in and out before starting to perform songs with it. Leleka had a different vision of teaching indigenous instruments, in contrast to how most schools approached teaching lessons on indigenous instruments. He preferred to follow the classical Western approach of mas­ tering the technique of playing the instrument before diving into performing with the instrument. However, he preferred to use African philosophies of teaching African performance. Thokozani Nsibande is a young man who was born and raised in the township of Daveyton in Benoni. He is a young Swati man raised in a mixed-race society, where his home language was lost in the mix of dominant languages in the township. He was one of the performers in the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra. He says Leleka wanted to ensure learners first understood the instrument in-depth, through the analysis of scales and the tonal range of the instrument, before applying any playing technique (Nsibande, 2020). Nsibande says Leleka’s teaching philosophy was about finding a truly African sound. This meant the key and scale were not im­ portant factors in the music, rather it was using the shared notes and chords between keys, and including harmonics to create the desired sound. Leleka was determined that the learners understood the concept of blending the indigenous instruments as a philosophy that then overcomes the complexities of tuning indigenous African instruments. Leleka left the academy, after which Tlale Makhene joined the Orchestra as its Artistic Director. (Incidentally, Leleka was Makhene’s previous student from the Funda Centre in Soweto.) At the Centre, Makhene aligned his teaching methodology and style with his philosophy about the horn. He believed the sound of the horn is the “truth” because of the cultural authority the instrument commands. He said that once the horn sounds, everyone in the community will recognise the sound as a “call” that should never be ignored by any person. This authority grounds the music through providing an authoritative soundscape in the

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music. This call is generally an announcement, a call for help or notifying the community of other important things such as cultural events. The horn symbolises or impersonates the truth because when the horn is sounded, ev­ eryone obeys its call. Makhene also details two functions the horn can perform in an African production. One is when it is used as a sound effect or ambient sound, which re-emphasises its authority without disturbing the performance of the music. Its other function is to create the kind of sustaining bass, through emphasising certain fundamental notes or harmonics in the musical perfor­ mance. This first function is found in traditional performances that are based on cultural dances, while the other is found in indigenous African music performed by indigenous instruments as a professional performance. The Orchestra’s members had found something about which they felt a great deal of passion, and they believed they had been given the opportunity to embrace their own cultural experiences in an environment that made this possible. They were able to display their talents with ease and passion. The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra planted a seed that cultivated their passion for devel­ oping their careers. The Orchestra’s members took pride in what the Centre groomed them to become, especially as most of them had never considered that they would have the opportunity to experience this kind of performance in a schooling environment. They were ahead of their own peers, and they were pioneering a musical practice that set the tone and precedent for future schools that taught African musical performance. Makhene wanted to align the CD recording project with Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba’s vision for their indigenous orchestra. The vision was intended to record and display their activities. Sibikwa possessed something unique that was not taught anywhere else – neither at universities nor schools. The practicality of Sibikwa’s model of teaching was along the lines of the Fuba School of Dramatic & Visual Arts and the Funda Centre in Soweto. The objective was to preserve, modify, and move ahead with the vision while exposing the learners to diverse opportunities. Sibikwa’s selling point was its approach to teaching, which has already been stated as being very different from all other schools offering African music lessons. The lessons Sibikwa offered gravitated towards contemporary sound spacing, which negotiates new models of blending different cultural soundscapes. Recording the songs pro­ fessionally yielded other benefits, including generating revenue. This is im­ portant for organisations that depend on public funding, as government and other funding institutions emphasise the importance of self-sustainability by the organisations they support. The government’s frequent reluctance to fund these organisations often leads to many of these centres dissolving, because of their inability to be self-sustainable. It is a difficult situation, as the organisa­ tions are expected to maintain their existence as non-profit organisations while simultaneously ensuring they are sustainable through the creation of some form of revenue to protect them from solely relying on public funding. The creation of the CD and other live performances for paying audiences enabled the Orchestra to contribute to the sustainability the government required from

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non-profit organisations. Although the proceeds were often very small, in that they alone could not sustain the organisation, they were used for fixing in­ struments and covering transport costs to attend performances. An additional source of revenue for the Sibikwa Arts Centre was its use of digital diffusion platforms, such as phone caller tunes and radio broadcasts, to create royalty revenue for the organisation.

Repertoire selection The Orchestra’s approach to the repertoire was to provide something new to the world of music – music untainted by Western instruments. In other words, the purity that comes with indigenous African music. Makhene taught the Orchestra many songs performed with the traditional djembe drum, but he believed it would be most beneficial to teach them through their African beliefs, as there is always deeper meaning in the words of African songs. One such song he taught the Orchestra was Bab’ulidzela, the first and the longest track (eight minutes) on the Sibikwa album. The song is a traditional Swati song, which Makhene grew up singing in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). The song talks about a father, who was strong, a leader, a protector, and with the characteristics of heroism. This song praises a father who is not in the present past, but in the present future. The words talk about the cycle of life where figures who are providers in life pass away without a proper honouring of their works. The best way to honour their lives is to sing about their works. As mentioned earlier the vision of Sibikwa is like that of a father, whose works change lives and leave a mark on the lives of many young township people. The words of the song memorialise and embrace the great works conducted by this heroic person. Makhene added his own chorus to the song – to include a touch of his creativity – to praise and be thankful for the heroism of a father of the community. The words of the song are as follows: Traditional original words of Bab’ulidzela Bab’ulidzela Safa, safa Lukufa kuyasehlula Bab’ulidzela

our father is a hero we are dying, we are dying the death is defeating us our father is a hero

Words added by Makhene Silioniel liqhawe Lishyil’ inselelo Kwa sala tinbongo

we have seen the works of the hero he has left a mark the only things he left are his praises

The father has fallen, but through his death his works still live on, and they speak for themselves. The rhythmic interlocking within the songs speaks a different language. The songs are based on the dual time comparison. Two instruments are playing a triplet feel, against one instrument playing a duple feel in the music. This is a common feature in a great deal of traditional African

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music because the word “father” is used figuratively to symbolise the ideal characteristics of a man within an African community. One of the reasons for this is the fact that much of traditional African music contains a component of dancing, which often takes the triplet feel, while one or two drums play a dual time for keeping the tempo. The song also demonstrates three-half notes (minims) over four-quarter notes (crotchets) triplet, which is a rare triplet feel against a duplet one. The usual duplet against triplet feel is three-quarter notes against two-quarter notes. This is the best way of maintaining interlocking rhythmic metric dialogues between the instruments. Another philosophy in African music and this song, in particular, is the two-tonal centre focus which is evident in the vocal lines. The descending melodic philosophy (see Hugh Tracey (1962) and Dave Dargie (2013)), resolves itself on the one tonal centre in the one phrase, and the next tonal centre in the other phrase. The tonal centres are usually a tone apart, as John Blacking (1970) and Jaco Kruger (2006) refer to in their analyses of Venda music as shown in the transcription done by the author (Figure 11.4–11.6). Makhene talks of the preservation of language, instruments, and heritage through indigenous music. The music the orchestra played took the two keys found in a normal marimba instrument and not the chromatic one because they wanted to keep the simplicity of African music in their performances. The two complete scales that could be found in the marimba instrument are C and G major. Because much of African music uses major chords, the entirety of the normal marimba keys can only accommodate four major chords, – C, F, G, and D. This means the song could either have a tonal centre of C, F, or G, depending on the choice of melodic and harmonic progression of a song. Much of African music does not follow the Western diatonic scale but chops off melodic motifs and a few selected chords, such as two or three chords. Other indigenous instruments the Orchestra used were melodic and could complete the melodic passages that are part of the chord family in any tonal centre the song used. In this way, the music was able to modulate any tonal centre using pivotal chords shared between the diatonic scales. A song could have different tonal centres based on the intentional tonality of the music. Some songs are generally performed as symbols of South African enlight­ enment, such as struggle songs. These songs tend to resonate with many per­ formers due to their social position in the South African context. A song like “Meadowlands“ (which refers to a suburb of Soweto) has been rearranged and performed on many occasions, in different ways, from kwela, jazz, African marimba, choral, as well as other existing versions. Songs that are associated with the struggle movement will embody new characteristics in the post-apartheid dispensation, as they are not sung to promote the struggle in the current context, but to celebrate the victory of what the struggle brought to our people. The same message the songs carried to the oppressors during apartheid becomes a reminder of the victory these songs achieved. Struggle songs are embraced by many cultures because they carry a common message shared by many people, regardless of the language used. Hillary Clare, Allyss Angela Haecker (2012),

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Figure 11.4 The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s Track number 1 score page 6, titled Bab’ulidzela. Introductory section from the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s album (2012).

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Figure 11.5 The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s Track number 1 score page 7, titled Bab’ulidzela. The bridge section before the change in the middle of the song, from the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s album (2012).

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Figure 11.6 The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s Track number 1 score page 26, titled Bab’ulidzela. The last section towards the end of the song, from the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra’s album (2012).

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Eunice Rojas and Lindsay Michie (2013), and Andra le Roux-Kemp (2014) all indicate how “Meadowlands” was a symbol of racial injustices while the song also embraced the new reality with which people were faced. Sibikwa also ar­ ranged “Meadowlands” as part of the songs on its CD collection. This is different from cultural songs intended to promote a particular cul­ ture’s ethos and heritage, which may not be shared by many people in urban cities. Compositions of celebration, such as those in the album, are symbolic of African celebration. Songs such as “Molo” are key to understanding African concepts embedded in cultural respect and harnessing values of harmonious living. It is a traditional practice for African cultures to enforce the importance of greeting one another before commencing any conversation. This instils some respect and cultural values amongst the people.

Opportunities and successes of members after their involvement in the Sibikwa arts indigenous orchestra The Orchestra’s members that remained with it from its inception to the end were Thokozani Nsibande (who played Mbira), Bebe Shongwe (who was the lead vocalist), Lucky Tshimbudzi (who specialised in playing the horn), Lydia Tlhompho Mokhele (who specialised in percussion), Mokhalinyana Mokhere (who played the panpipes and kalimbas), Siyabulela Sifatyi (who played the marimbas and recited poetry), and Esther Maumela (who was a singer and also played various indigenous instruments). The Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra offered exposure for many of these members, especially with their increased access to other musicians in the country. They shared stages with great musicians and with their role models. Prominent musicians have had conversations in workshops with these aspiring musicians. A significant number of Sibikwa’s members have gone on to become facilitators and tea­ chers, performing and teaching at both the Centre as well as many other places. Some have formed their own musical ensembles.

Conclusion Sibikwa’s vision and values have largely been to enrich and promote a variety of South African styles and genres of music. Its location in the heart of Benoni township is a testimony for successful community theatre and music concert performances both locally and globally. Though it largely drew its inspiration from the Kwela music style from the 1950s, it has embraced several different music styles that continue to inspire many South Africans, particularly in the area of traditional African music. Many of its graduates have become ambas­ sadors of indigenous African music performances and teachers through the training they received at Sibikwa. Through its different shows such as theatre performances, musical theatre pieces, dance pieces, and multimodal produc­ tions, Sibikwa shines as a symbol of a heroic father whose works speak for themselves and continue to live on in different South African communities.

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Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba’s vision of reaching out to the surrounding townships of Benoni, such as those located in Boksburg, Dersley, Zesfontein, Vosloorus, and Daveyton, all of which fall within the Ekurhuleni munici­ pality, promotes community enrichment through the arts. These townships have a high concentration of unemployed residents, especially within the black community. The youth in these townships is often subjected to poor living conditions and fewer opportunities to be successful in their lives which are often exacerbated by crime and poverty. The Sibikwa Arts Centre became a shelter, home, educational refuge, as well as a hub that restored hope to many of the youth from the surrounding areas. All this could not be more em­ phasised without mentioning the Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra which created a platform for enabling young aspirant musicians of African indigenous music, particularly from the poor townships in and around the Benoni area. The centre created a working model for teaching indigenous African music as an educational tool to influence policymakers in both the lower and higher education sectors. The Sibikwa Arts Centre used the arts to influence, equip, develop, and create and tell stories and memories, as well as to heal wounds created by the apartheid regime and create a new dawn of hope through the arts. South Africa needs more arts organisations such as Sibikwa, to empower young people through education, particularly for those who are not rich or middle-class earners. The Sibikwa Arts Centre’s training in indigenous African music became a solution for job creation for many talented youths from Benoni. Institutions of higher learning can use the model presented by the Sibikwa Arts Centre to change environments in the South African education landscape, but it will require relevant market-related skills for the survival of the generations to come. Sibikwa also provided a model of how financial selfsustainability could save arts organisations through staging performances and productions. Arts organisations need to learn how to adapt to changing en­ vironments if they are to survive like Sibikwa in the future.

Notes 1 Traditional African music in the context of this paper refers to music that is practised in homeland communities that incorporates cultural dance performances, which are largely performed by a group of community participants. This music largely incorporates dance movements, handclapping, singing, stylised choreographing with indigenous drums. It can to some extent include indigenous African instruments as part of the performance. 2 African values in this context refer to cultural belief systems, the way of life that is commonly known within a specific community, rites of passage, ceremonies associated with certain stages of life, events that celebrate and mark notable social achievements and acceptable lifecycle patterns within a cultural structure.

Interviews Matiba, E. (2020) Interview (10 July 2020) over online zoom meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng. Nsibande, T. (2020). Interview (15 July 2020) over a telephone meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng. Makhene, T. (2020) Interview (15 July 2020) over online zoom meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng.

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Maumela, E. (2020) Interview (18 July 2020) over online zoom meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng. Tshimbudzi, L. (2020) Interview (19 July 2020) over a telephone meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng. Shongwe, B. (2020) Interview (20 July 2020) over a telephone meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng. Mokhele, L. (2020) Interview (20 July 2020) over a telephone meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng. Mongarenyana, M. (2020) Interview (25 July 2020) over a telephone meeting in Pretoria, Gauteng.

Discography Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra (2012) Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra. SABC RBF Studios.

References Agawu, V.K. (2016) The African Imagination in Music. London: Oxford University Press. Banks, D. (2011) ‘Youth Leading Youth: Hip Hop and Hiplife Theatre in Ghana and South Africa’, in Cohen, C.E., Varea, R.G. and Walker, P.O. (eds.) Acting Together II: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict. New York: NYU Press. Ballantine, C. (1999). ‘Looking to the USA: The Politics of Male Close-Harmony Song Style in South Africa during the 1940s and 1950s’, Popular Music, 18(1), pp. 1–17, DOI: 10.1017/S0261143000008709. Blacking, J. (1970). ‘Tonal Organization in the Music of Two Venda Initiation Schools’, Ethnomusicology, 14(1), pp. 1–54. Coplan, B.D. (1985) In Township Tonight: South African’s Black City Music and Theatre. London and New York: Longman. Dargie, D. (2013). ‘Kavango Music’, African Music, 9(3), pp. 122–150. http://www.jstor. org/stable/24877318 Friedman, S. (2012). Post-Apartheid Dance: Many Bodies, Many Voices, Many Stories. UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Haecker, A.A. (2012) ‘Post-Apartheid South African Choral Music: An Analysis of Integrated Musical Styles with Specific Examples by Contemporary South African Composers’. DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) thesis. Iowa: University of Iowa. Inggs, A. (2017) ‘The Suit Is Mine: Skhothane and the Aesthetic of the African Modern’, Critical Arts, 31(3), pp. 90–105, DOI: 10.1080/02560046.2017.1383491. Kruger, J. (2006). ‘Tracks of The Mouse: Tonal Reinterpretation in Venda Guitar Songs’, in Reily, S.A. (ed.), The Musical Human: Rethinking John Blacking’s Ethnomusicology in the Twenty-First Century. Ashgate Publishing, pp. 87–1006. Le Roux-Kemp, A. (2014) ‘Struggle Music: South African Politics in Song’, Law and Humanities Journal, 8(2), pp. 247–268, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3176465. Lucia, C. (ed.) (2009) The World of South African Music: A Reader. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press. Nketia, J.H.K. (1974) The Music of Africa. New York: W.W. Norton. Rojas, E., and Eades, L.M. (2013) Sounds of Resistance: The Role of Music in Multicultural Activism. Santa Barbara: Praeger. Sichel, A. (2012) ‘Gate-Crashing Prejudices and Perceptions: The Enduring Legacy of Arts and Dance Festivals in Post-Apartheid South Africa’, in Friedman, S. (ed.) Post-Apartheid Dance: Many Bodies Many Voices Many Stories. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishing.

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Steingo, G. (2005) ‘South African Music after Apartheid: Kwaito, the “Party Politic,” and the Appropriation of Gold as a Sign of Success’, Popular Music and Society, 28(3), pp. 333–357. Tracey, H. (1962). ‘The Arts in Africa the-Visual and the Aural’, African Music, 3(1), pp. 20–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30250156. Wells, R. (1996) ‘Sesotho Music: A Contemporary Perspective’, African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 7(3), pp. 67–75.

Appendix 5: A Chronology of Sibikwa Music Productions and Programmes 1995-Present

Young Marimba Band Since 1995, Sibikwa Arts Centre has taught and developed young people in the art of marimba and drumming; for both its Sibikwa Arts Academy programme and other leadership courses. 2009 the Band won 1st Prize at the National Marimba Competition at St Dominic’s School, Boksburg.

2002-2004

Marimba Ensemble A marimba and percussion ensemble which performed for corporate events. Its most notable performance was for former president Nelson Mandela. In 2004, the ensemble toured on behalf of the South African government in celebration of South Africa’s 10 years of democracy, Toured Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. Original Band: Luyanda Ntombela, Martin Lebotse, Molebatsi “Eazy” Mathipa, Neo Letlojane, Nomasonto Mchunu, Sibulelo Lephaila, Tebs Jiyane, Simon Khumalo, Volley Ntshabeleng.

2009-2012

Sibikwa Arts Indigenous Orchestra An African orchestra celebrating South African indigenous instruments and music towards encouraging young people to appreciate and value the sounds of indigenous African music. In 2011 the success of the orchestra culminated in an album titled “Celebration” produced by Tlale Makhene. Celebration Album: Produced by Tlale Makhene. Album Composers: Molebatsi “Eazy” Mathipa, Thokozane Nsibande, Neo Leleka, and Tlale Makhene with a guest appearance from Mbuso Khoza and Siya Makuzene Original Orchestra Members: Esther Maumela, Joseph Bebe Shongwe, Lindiwe Nhlapho, Lucky Tshimbudzi, Lunga Mcina, Lydia Mokhele, Mokhalinyana Mokhere, Mpho Mabogoane, Percival Mbonani, Siyabulela Sifatyi, Thandi Dube, Thokozani Nsibande.

2009

2010

Notable Performances: The National Women’s Celebration. Performed at Germiston Civic Theatre, Germiston. YOTV television programme, SABC studios, Auckland Park. The Human Rights Conference, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The 4th World Summit in Arts and Culture, Museum Africa, Johannesburg. Opening and closing ceremonies of the FIFA World Cup, Melrose Arch, Johannesburg. (Continued)

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2011

2012

2008

2010

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Rhythm Falls, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown Delphic Games, Berlin, Germany. Jaffna Festival, Sri Lanka. Re-alignment, Sibikwa Arts Centre National Arts Festival, Grahamstown The Origins-Ekuqaleni, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Recognition for Re-alignment: National Arts Festival Standard Bank Ovation Award. Zabalaza Festival, Baxter Theatre, Cape Town. North West Schools Keeping the African Sound Relevant, Mafikeng, Celebration Concert, the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. Afrovibes Festival toured Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Original Music composed to accompany dance Down Flesh Road (Accompanying dance performance) A Butoh dance piece. Original Band: Molebatsi “Eazy” Mathipa, Neo Letlojane, Sibulelo Lephaila, Taps Jiyane, Nomasonto Mchunu, Martin Lebotse, Volley Ntshabeleng, Luyanda Ntombela, Simon Khumalo Place of a Wo(man). Performed: Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni; National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Malindi- The Sex Strike. Performed at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. National Arts Festival, Grahams Town.

2011

2010/2011

Public Oscillation, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Eye Of The Storm Festival, Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni, Sharing a Sin, Goethe on Main, Johannesburg. Hosted Workshops: Sasol National Schools Festival in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North West and Free State provinces.

2016/2019

Live In The Beat Festival Celebrating the art and sounds of African drums. Hosted by Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni.

2019

Marimba Jam A collaborative musical exchange with the Springs-Londulusha Field Band and Sibikwa’s Marimba band.

2018/2019/ 2021

Phola Vibez Jazz Initiated by Sibikwa to offer a platform for South African Jazz musicians in order to foster an appreciation for the genre. The project presented the following jazz icons: Phola Vibez Jazz Under One Roof with Banda Banda (6 string bass) accompanied by Karabo “Redman” Mohlala (tenor saxophone) and Sizwe Mashinini (piano). Phola Vibez Jazz with Linda “The Piano Lady” (piano). Accompanied by Zola Futshane (vocalist), and Lex Futshane (piano). Phola Vibez Jazz with Mongezi Conjwa (piano). Accompanied by Khaya Mahlangu (tenor saxophone), and Lucky Nkosi (drums).

2018

(Continued)

250 2019 2021

2022

Evans Ntshengedzeni Netshivhambe Phola Vibez Jazz with Ekurhuleni Jazz Ensemble. Phola Jazz with Sisonke Xonti (saxophone). Accompanied by Tumi Mogorosi (drums); Shane Cooper (double bass) and Phola Vibez Jazz with Nduduzo Makhathini, presenting his latest work titled Impicabadala. Accompanied by Linda Sikhakhane (saxophone) and Nduduzo Makhathini (piano). Phola Vibez Jazz with Banda Banda (6 string bass) and The Crocodiles.

12 Framing the intersectional gender politics of the Sibikwa legacy Lliane Loots

The idea of intersectionality – as both theoretical concept and political strategy – was first coined by American lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) in her ongoing struggle to understand her own lived reality of being both Black and female trying to find space in an 1980s American legal environment which often rendered her multifaceted identity, at best, invisible, and at worst, silenced. In her struggle to unpack both her race and gender identity and how this con­ nected to her marginalisation, she started to engage with how aspects of a person’s social and political identities (for example, though not exclusively, gender, race, class, sexuality) might combine – or intersect – to create unique modes of discrimination. Patricia Hill Collins, building on Crenshaw’s ideas in her growing of Black Feminist politics, defines intersectionality as a way to unpack “interlocking systems of oppression” (1993, p. 615). She argues that this frame allows for analysis of the intersection of multiple identities that deeply influence ways of being, opportunities, politics and even ideas of belonging, and thus offers a more complex insight into marginalisation and discrimination than simply looking at a single form of social stratification. Crenshaw’s ideas have arguably become some of the most significant contributions to con­ temporary feminist scholarship and activisms. This said, it is noted that a lot of the feminist scholarship around inter­ sectionality has come from North America and while some of the synergy of struggles for women of colour can be argued to resonate across continents and North-South hemisphere divides, it remains important to continue to inter­ rogate what this frame might mean for Africa. Meer and Müller (2017, p. 3), for example note … how context – place and history – informs the identity at stake; how social status, such as marital status and profession, might be important identity categories in African contexts, independent of class; and how to expand an intersectional approach beyond social relations, to include intersections of social power with material resources such as water. Thus, expanding intersectionality to go beyond looking exclusively at a layered analysis around identity politics and to include both subjectivity and experience, DOI: 10.4324/9781003253686-14

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alongside a deeper understanding of how this intersects with what Scott (1992, p. 25) calls “an analysis of the historicity of oppressive systems” and how they re/ produce themselves, seems like a more fulfilling African-centred insight into intersectionality. This chapter, imagined as a companion to many of the genre specific chapters written in this collection, offers a possible framing of the Sibikwa legacy set up and created – in many manifestations and forms – by Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz. This framing takes up these ideas of thinking about feminist politics of intersectionality from African perspectives to interrogate over 30 years of arts, community and performance making that has offered deeply significant gender forays into hegemonically remembered/written South African histories of theatre, theatre training and performance making. Focus will be placed in this chapter on looking at how Sibikwa – through selected per­ formances and arts programmes – has not only spearheaded an intersectional cultural activism around gender inclusivity and visibility in South Africa and the telling of marginalised Black women’s histories but has also never lost sight of the layered and complex intersections of how the structural politics of apartheid and capitalism (for example, though not exclusively) have influenced the lives of primarily Black South African women. In a one-on-one interview with Phyllis Klotz1 (2021) set up to provoke Klotz’s own memory around both her and Sibikwa’s linked gender legacy, she stated that Even though Sibikwa is an arts and theatre space, our work has tangentially always been about growing, supporting and nurturing – through the arts – viable and committed human beings. This has, of course, meant that at every turn we have focused on gender inclusivity and a need to challenge that women and girls do not always experience their own best possibilities in South Africa. She adds that Smal Ndaba would often chant at her during an audition process: “How many girls? How many girls?” (author interview with Klotz, November 2021) in a constant reminder about gender inclusivity as one of the prime mechanisms for shifting lived realities for both women and girls. While creating professional productions, training professional performers, both Klotz and Ndaba, as echoed through various of these chapters, have never relinquished this socio-political and deeply intersectional understanding that Sibikwa has been and is still a deeply committed space for realising community – both inside and outside of arts and theatre training. It is also in this idea of building community (and as Klotz says above of “nurturing viable and committed human beings”) through the arts, that has seen most of the sustained gender activisms unfold in Sibikwa. It is also where, as May (2015, pp. 22–23) articulates it, the “im­ plications of matrix thinking … can help us account for relationships of power and how they impact people.” This chapter thus has a two-prong structure that firstly sets out to archivally trace some – definitely not all – of Sibikwa’s community-based programmes

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that have significantly impacted the lives of girls and women both in and outside of the arts, and, secondly, focuses on more of a literary and sociopolitical analysis on two of Sibikwa most theatrically and politically significant plays focusing on intersectional – or as May puts it “matrix” (2015, pp. 22–23) – politics. These two arguably connected Sibikwa plays (You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock [1986] and Chapter Two, Section Nine [2016]) also celebrate the considerable voice of Phyllis Klotz as historically one of South Africa’s most significant female (and, I argue, intersectional feminist) theatre makers. Archivally picking at the huge multifaceted historical threads that make up the Sibikwa legacy is a mammoth task and why, by way of the above in­ troduction, I place such importance on unpacking Ndaba and Klotz’s link between theatre and performance, and the creation of community-based (and owned) spaces that support – in the wake of dehumanised socio-political systems like apartheid – a more human-centred vision of how arts can parti­ cipate in democratic revision around who belongs, what is home, and whose rights are supported. Sibikwa’s legacy has understood that arts can and have become a type of intervention methodology for addressing community-based problems and finding community-led solutions. These are ideas that originally gained global agency in the writing of Augusto Boal (1979) where he started to advocate that theatre can be a weapon for change. He states (1979, p. viiii) that theatre is a weapon. A very efficient weapon. For this reason, one must fight for it. For this reason, the ruling class strive to take permanent hold of theatre and utilize it as a tool for domination. In so doing they change the very concept of what “theatre” is. But the theatre can also be a weapon for liberation. For this, it is necessary to create appropriate theatrical forms. Change is imperative. We can change out Boal’s reference to the “ruling class” above, with – for example – the apartheid government (and its ongoing legacy), and even pa­ triarchy, leaving us to take up Boal’s 1979 call to imagine, create and nurture into being new and “appropriate theatrical forms” (Boal, 1979, p. viiii), that sits at the heart of social change. This sits at the core of Sibikwa and while other chapters in this collection trace this impulse and history effectively, this chapter picks up on negotiating this in terms of the overarching intersectional gender activisms as manifest in the connection to grassroots community-based intervention (what Klotz refers to as the work to create “viable and committed human beings” (author interview with Klotz, November 2021), and the growth of a theatre and performance industry in South Africa. Dhamoon (2015), in interrogating intersectionality as a feminist strategy for challenging existing knowledge and making visible gender gaps and silences, challenges the narrow understanding of intersectionality out of simply being a strategy to engage “identity politics” (2015, p. 32) by asserting that it is a feminist practice that encourages seeing women’s lived reality not simply as “Oppression Olympics” (Dhamoon, 2015, p. 33) – groups competing for

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acknowledgment of being the most oppressed – but as a “socially located, political practice” (2015, p. 33). This link between women’s lived reality/ identity and the bigger socio-political structural violence within, for example, capitalism and colonialism, lies at the heart of Sibikwa’s link of community engagement within the artistic frame of performance making and training. This is why when asked about what constitutes a successful programme at Sibikwa, Klotz (author interview with Klotz, November 2021), is able to say: While Smal and I are theatre makers through and through, a successful project is not always about how many professionals we have trained and how many have gone onto successful performance careers – there are stories of this of course – but we are also interested in the onward journey of those women who come out of Sibikwa. There are teachers, arts administrators, mothers, project leaders, car mechanics … huge diversity! And I take enormous pleasure in seeing women’s lives changed – personally and economically – through Sibikwa. It feels like this is the real work. One significant example of Sibikwa’s matrix of intersections – of theatre-making as gender activism and concurrently as community intervention – is a theatre piece called Behind Closed Doors (1999–2002) which was birthed in a Sibikwa youth programme that led to this performance piece having a four-year life travelling all over the world. Over and above this, it eventually became the signature theatre piece for the Sibikwa Sisters Co-Operative, an arm of Sibikwa that also started in 1999 – not as a theatre initiative but as a women’s skills de­ velopment programme that aimed to enable women to create jobs for themselves and be financially self-sustainable. This link will be made clearer in the below archival narrative2 of the evolution of Behind Closed Doors (1999–2002). In 1999, Sibikwa began what they called the Youth Employment Programme that set out to use theatre skills and training as a vehicle for first, giving a voice to township youth in the wake of South Africa’s very recent shift (1994) into democracy, and secondly to offer theatre as a viable space for job creation for youth. Sibikwa took on a core group of fifteen trainees who underwent very rigorous and intensive theatre training with the hope and eventual aim of getting to the place of setting up an independent well-run theatre company. The company never materialised for a number of reasons that included two members being offered technical support work at the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg (a fact celebrated by Klotz who indicates that “our programme was working if it was preparing people for significant offers of employment” (author interview with Klotz, November 2021), and a sometimes inconsistent attendance by some of the participants. While this Youth Employment Programme gave rise to some significant theatre pieces like Isizwe Sethu (1999) and The Patriot (1999 – written by Percy Mtwa), what remains germane is the evolution of the performance piece, Behind Closed Doors. Created by the women of the Youth Employment Programme (Noluthando Boqwana, Ntombi Maphosa, Zanele Nkala and Thabile Ngwenya), this

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play – in this first 1999 incarnation – was an unapologetic look at rape and women abuse in South Africa and how it related to the very personal lives of these young women. Drawing on the subjectivity and experience of the female cast, the play intentionally began to articulate an African-centred approach to intersectionality that included not only connecting interrogations of race, gender, and class but also included looking at the specifics of Black township family dynamics and cultures of silence that were also about culturally experi­ enced African patriarchy.3 The play hit a deeply felt gender chord of growing disgruntlement with the erstwhile promises of the 1994 “new” South Africa and the seeming silence on gender issues alongside rising levels of gender-based violence. The overarching 1994 liberatory discourses that named apartheid a race crime only, meant that the more in-depth need to look at the intersections of how race and gender and class marginalise women (for example) was the personal and political impulse that pushed Behind Closed Doors. In 1999, as the work was newly being created with its interrogation of the lived reality of gender violence in South Africa, its unique message received an invitation to tour Norway. This was, for all of the cast of women, the first time that they had travelled outside South Africa and became a very enriching experience in seeing gender solidarity emerge from outside places and spaces. Concurrently to this Youth Employment Programme, April 1999 also saw the start of a unique programme for Sibikwa, the Sibikwa Sisters CoOperative made up of thirteen women from townships around the East Rand. Moving completely away from theatre and performance training and seeing the continued intersectional lived reality of township women, the main ob­ jective of the project was to give these participating women skills that would enable them to create jobs for themselves and be financially self-sustainable. Coordinator of the project for Sibikwa, Maggie Dunbar, set up a curriculum of textile design, silk-screening, embroidery, dyeing, doll making and various other hands-on techniques. Participants received business training from Savi Veerapan in September of 1999 and her course included basic business prin­ ciples like profit and loss, costing articles, marketing, fundraising and how to draw up a business plan. In order to secure serious commitment and atten­ dance the women participating in the project were required to pay a nominal fee of R20,00 per month for the project. Klotz notes that “the attendance of the women during the project was not always consistent. Family constraints played a significant role in the attendance of these women as some of them had to make other arrangements to meet their family needs” (author interview with Klotz, November 2021). Once again, the intersectional lived reality of poor working-class Black women and the confluence of gendered divisions of labour within South African family life again manifest around the possible spaces for participation. The successes of the Sibikwa Sisters Co-Operative programme saw the women exhibiting some of their craft work as part of the Ma Afrika (Women of Africa) competition which showcased work from thirty African countries. Sadly, given that Sibikwa only had funding for one year of delivery, and

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despite the very substantial way this programme addressed up-skilling of Black township unemployed women, this community-based pilot programme could not be carried forward. What did remain, however, was the name Sibikwa Sisters and given the success of Behind Closed Doors, Klotz and Ndaba for­ malised, re-visioned, and re-imagined this as a space for women making theatre about women and set in motion a further three-year life of various incarnations of the play as it evolved – with the cast – into a type of zeitgeist community intervention performance work that began to significantly create space for gender dialogue. As such, in 2000, quite a few changes were made to the original production as it readied itself for presentation at the National Arts Festival (NAF) in July. The original cast of Noluthando Boqwana, Ntombi Maphosa, Zanele Nkala, and Thabile Ngwenya was supplemented by the addition of three singers: Wendy and Nondumiso Tobi and Nomboniso Nkwali, from Port Elizabeth. Zanele Mbatho also re-joined the Sibikwa Sisters. The play itself evolved into unequivocally confronting the horror and trauma suffered by survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in an attempt to put a human face to women’s suffering against the rising levels of GBV in South Africa. After NAF, the Sibikwa Sisters were invited to Botswana and the performance stimulated such incredible dialogue that on return to South Africa the cast asked for – and received – counselling training from FAMSA (Family South Africa)4 so that they would be better equipped to deal with – through theatrically mediated dialogue – the way the play affected audiences. This request for counselling training from the cast once again shifted the play, and in 2001, having seen the potential for the play as a “weapon” (Boal, 1979, p. viii) for dialogue and for the way in which it spoke to the lives of audience members (specifically women), the Sibikwa Sisters revised the play for its invitation to the KZN Women’s Arts Festival at the Playhouse Durban. The Sibikwa Sisters called in Paula Kingwill – a trained drama therapist – to continue to push their developing understanding of how to work within this evolving gendered theatrical intervention that was now version three of Behind Closed Doors. The cast also shifted and evolved due to performers’ availability, but it was unanimously decided that Kingwill and the cast would lead a dis­ cussion after each show with the intention to shift the emotional reaction to the play, to discussion around action for change. The fourth (and final) incarnation of Behind Closed Doors evolved in 2002 with the play offering an even deeper look into the specifics of gendered family violence. After a lot of interrogation of the past versions of the play and the resulting feedback (from audiences and communities), the Sibikwa Sisters wanted to find a way to continue to present the play in an environment that supported real dialogue and pushed for change. It was communally agreed that the Sibikwa Sisters would engage in an intersectional theatre and community engagement programme to empower young women and girls and, from this, create peer support groups to support victims of sexual violence. The idea of finding space to give agency to girls to help and support themselves was imagined as an ideal outcome for the onward life of Behind Closed Doors. The

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new programme was set up with two components that involved, first, the presentation of the play as the Sibikwa Theatre, and this would be followed up, secondly, by a series of workshops/interventions with those who had seen the play. Aiming at high schools, the schools who participated in the pro­ gramme had to commit to three workshops post the viewing of the play. The goal of the workshops was to create a performance with the learners to be presented to the rest of the school. This school theatrical presentation – learners speaking to learners – was to serve as a further springboard for dis­ cussion/dialogue (Figure 12.1). Six East Rand secondary schools participated in the programme and selected learners were chosen by the school to participate in the follow-on workshops, and as reported in the 2002 Sibikwa Board Report5, This intervention made these young people re-evaluate their ideas and begin to understand the wider impact of family violence. Without such interventions acts of violence remain unspoken of and healing cannot begin to occur. What become clear in this evolution of Sibikwa’s ongoing and evolving brand of workshopping and socially conscious theatre work in this small case study of Behind Closed Doors, is first, the ability of personal narratives and the lived

Figure 12.1 Behind Closed Doors. A compelling and perspective exploration of child abuse within a household (photo by Ruphin Coudyzer-1997).

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identities of cast members to become the groundwork for theatre making which brings a level of authentic voice to performance. This is, second, very significant as a gender methodology for performance making where women’s stories and voices have often been marginalised and have not formed the key narratives being explored. Klotz’s own 1986 award-winning workshopped play (discussed more fully below), You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock, is one of the starting points that began this methodological journey into this evolving way of Sibikwa creating theatre. In Behind Closed Doors this has the added insight of seeing a play really evolve – in form and content – over its four-year life to meet the needs of the community and in so doing to continue to sediment the key relationship Sibikwa set up around not only making significant theatre but never losing sight of who they were making theatre for. This commitment to community engagement and really listening to the voice of performers and of audiences are at the heart of a race and gender episte­ mological shift that begins to allow those silenced or marginalised in society to become “knowers and producers of knowledge, as well as creators of counterhegemonic knowledge” (Gouws, 2017, p. 19). As articulated in the 2002 Sibikwa Board Report, “Behind Closed Doors has been playing for three years and we are proud of the young actresses who have made their own journey during this time as people and as performers” (no reference). I selected Behind Closed Doors to engage as one of possibly many such Sibikwa case studies,6 first because of the extra-ordinary evolving, unfolding, and living nature of its intersectional content and form, and secondly because it so germanely captures Sibikwa’s ongoing commitment for community-based relevance and support – even within its professional theatre programmes. It is also, finally, a very good example of a gender-sensitive working methodology that Phyllis Klotz (and Sibikwa) began to develop (and share) as early as 1985/ 6 when she began creating – in collaboration with the actors – one of Sibikwa’s signature theatre works, You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock (1986). Strike (as it is affectionally called) cemented Klotz as one of South Africa’s early feminist theatre makers at a time when the genre of South African Protest Theatre began to emerge from theatre writers/makers like Mbongeni Ngema, Barney Simon, Percy Mtwa, and Maishe Maponya. Into this arguably boys club stepped Klotz who offered up a play that unashamedly looked at intersections of race, class, and gender and how these are primarily articulated from working-class Black women’s lived realities. Protest Theatre of the 1980s, mostly about protesting the racisms of apartheid, got a dangerous facelift with Strike and suddenly the single struggle race politics of much prior South African Protest Theatre was pushed into dangerous rocky gender wa­ ters. Strike was not afraid, to also interrogate how Black men were oppressing Black women and, to push so far as to challenge how struggle politics often side-lined Black women. This was radical theatre making in terms of per­ forming, hearing and giving voice to substantial Black women’s anti-apartheid narratives.

Intersectional gender politics 259

In Scene7 (1986, p. 188), for example, Sdudla says, These men think they can control us. I remember attending meetings long time ago where men stood up and said that the government cannot give us Black women passes because the woman is under the control of the man. Some men are frightened by the passes we carry, they thought we would not listen to them anymore. Referencing the apartheid pass laws,7 the character Sdudla articulated a very profound intersection of race and gender oppression and the complicity of some Black men in arguing over the evils of Black women carrying passbooks, instead of, arguably, fighting the bigger system of oppression in the form of the apartheid government and its invidious pass law system for all people of colour. The gender politics of Black women’s gendered emancipation was not often firmly articulated as an anti-apartheid linked struggle – Strike (1986) made this connection on stage. Written, in part to honour (and reference) the 30-year anniversary of the historic women’s march8 held on 9 August 1956 where almost 20,000 women of all races and political affiliations marched on the Union Budlings in Pretoria (South Africa) to protest against amendments to the Urban Areas Act, Strike (1986) took as its title from the famous rallying cry of the march, “You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock – Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo.” The play set itself up to look at the gains – if any – made since 1956 but also to interrogate the very particular lives of three Black working-class South African women characters and how they find their lived reality under the very harsh conditions of the 1980s apartheid legislation. We see onstage some of the most disenfranchised characters ever presented on a South African stage – Black, female, poor, and working class – and yet the message of the play is one of resilience and defiance. Within the growing form of South African Protest Theatre (heavily influenced by Jerzy Grotowski’s ideas of “Poor Theatre” (1968)), these characters speak truth to power and find ways to remain committed to intersectional ideas of emancipation and change. The final scene, Scene 13 of the play, for example, ends with these three incredible female characters having negotiated their lives around being mo­ thers, being workers in the informal economy, being domestic workers … all against the spectre of racism and apartheid, and who end the play enacting Zulu stick fighting chanting, “The sun will rise for all the working women of the world” (1986, p. 204). It is a controversial ending as stick fighting is linked to male Zulu rites of passage, but these women defiantly step in, step up and show solidarity with one another as well as a defiance to the racist and classist superstructures of apartheid and capitalism. It is a living breathing form of intersectionality enacted on stage. Of note too, is that the play evolved methodologically out of an intense and very personal workshopping process where Klotz asked the actors to reflect on their own lives and to go and interview informal workers in the markets. Some of the text remains directly taken from these stories. This methodology

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evolved (and was preferred) in the 1980s in South Africa as the genre of Protest Theatre began to stretch its political muscles and became understood as a playmaking method that offered truthful narratives around Black lives under apartheid with cast members often verbatim telling their own stories on stage. For Strike (1986) it had the added gendered dynamic of also allowing space for women’s voices to be heard onstage. Klotz’s own position as a white woman crafting, directing and writing a play about Black women’s lives meant that she too took on workshopping as a way of situating the need to allow a theatre making process to open space for all kinds of women’s voices to be heard – voices that were not her own. While Klotz took on the crafting and final direction of the play, she pointedly names Thobeka Maqhutyana, Nomvula Qosha, Xolani September, Poppy Tsira, and Itumeleng Wa-Lehurere as joint co-authors of the play (Figure 12.2). The reach of Strike (1986) has been well documented (see, for example, Fuchs (2002) and Loots (1997)). It is also now a set play studied in first-year Drama and Performance Studies at the University of Kwazulu-Natal (for example), and – as of 2021 – is studied in the IEB South African matric school drama syllabus. The journey and trajectory of this play, however, is not over and as much as it now reads as an exceptional theatrical archive of the 1980s Protest Theatre in South Africa, and as a testament to profound intersectional feminist theatre making (in both form and content), Klotz – in 1996 – revisited Strike (1986) in a sig­ nificantly linked creation of another play called Chapter 2 Section 9.

Figure 12.2 You Strike A Woman, You Strike A Rock. The play was revived in 2006 to commemorate 50 years since the women’s march to Pretoria to protest against the introduction of the Apartheid pass laws for black women (photo by Ruphin Coudyzer-2006).

Intersectional gender politics 261

Taking its title from the democratic Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) and its “Equality Clause” (Chapter 2 Section 9)9, Klotz revisited her impulse to create Strike (1986) – the need to look at marginalised South African Black women’s narratives against a socio-political climate that mostly excluded women’s stories. This revisited impulse, significantly 30 years after Strike (1986), and pointedly well into the democratic Mandela South Africa, asked how women’s lives have shifted in a newly post-apartheid environment. It is, interestingly the same questions Klotz asked in 1986, 30 years after the 9 August 1956 women’s march on the then apartheid South African seat of government, of course, the shift in 1994 into democracy spearheaded deeply welcomed and significant shifts in South Africa, but Klotz was also mean­ ingfully aware of continued and violent gender oppressions. One such form of gendered violence that began to emerge was a phenomenon called “corrective rape.” Defined as follows, Corrective rape is a hate crime in which a woman is raped because of their perceived sexual or gender orientation. The common intended conse­ quence of the rape, as seen by the perpetrator, is to ‘correct’ their orientation, to turn them heterosexual, or to make them ‘act’ more in conformity with gender stereotypes. The term was coined in South Africa after well-known cases of corrective rapes of lesbians like Eudy Simelane and Zoliswa Nkonyana became public.10 Kammila Naidoo (2018) states that since 2000, there have been recorded close to forty lesbian women murdered and on average about ten lesbians are raped each week by men who subscribe to the view that they are “correcting” these women’s sexual orientations. Mwanbene and Wheal (2015) further argue that a patriarchal society (like South Africa) is a strong enabler of corrective rape, claiming that the perpetrators of corrective rape are men who hold the belief that women “belong to me.” Mwanbene and Wheal (2015, p. 58) state that “victims are also seen as a threat to patriarchy and hetero-normativity which demarcate women’s bodies as male property.” The shocking emergence of this violent and deadly homophobia against Black lesbian women in post-apartheid democratic South Africa formed the impulse for Klotz to open up her theatrical exploration of women’s lived reality once again. Broadening her feminist intersectionality to now include sexual orientation and sexuality, Klotz set out to create a performance working space that once again began to offer protest and voice to continuingly mar­ ginalised women and to negotiate that ongoing lack of democracy for all women in South Africa. Klotz has stated that “if women do not feel safe in their own homes and in their own lives and life choices, then we do not have a democracy!” (Author interview with Klotz, November 2021). In the same impulse as Strike (1986), and considering ideas of authentic voice, Klotz set up interviews with South African lesbian women and their families, with police and even with lawyers. The entire performance text of

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Figure 12.3 Chapter 2 Section 9. This play is premised on the equality clause of the South African Constitution. It is an assemblage of different interviews with lesbian women who have experienced the loopholes in the law (photo by Herman Verwey- 2016).

Chapter 2 Section 9 is taken – verbatim – from these interviews. The interviews were conducted on the basis of very strict confidentiality and agreements were signed to safeguard the identities and locations of the women. For this reason, too, the characters in the play do not have names but are identified by number (for example, Voice 1, Voice 2, etc.) (Figure 12.3). This also has the added effect of reminding the audience that while these are indeed real and authentic stories being told and performed, the intersectional issues of GBV are not – by extension – limited to only these voices and only these stories. The non-naming of characters is thus also an act of solidarity that extends to all women situated under the intersectional oppressions of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. This is a device used often in feminist theatre and I reference here (for example) Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is not enuf (1976) where her characters are simply named Woman in Blue, Woman in Red (etc.). The verbatim methodology of writing and collecting stories is also, once again, Klotz’s own sensitivity to allowing voices not her own, to have agency through the performance. As indicated with the discussion of Strike (1986), Klotz’s own positionality as white and heterosexual, encouraged her to find methods of making feminist theatre that empathetically opened space for si­ tuating protest and rage for the differently situated voices of marginalised women of South Africa.

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What emerges, finally, in this chapter is an inextricable linking of Sibikwa’s gender sensitivity in creating, writing, crafting, and workshopping perfor­ mance to a lived idea of evolving intersectional feminist politics. While Klotz’s own work has formed a big part of this chapter, not only for her own gender impulses but her theatre making work sets up and helps cement for Sibikwa (and alongside the work of Smal Ndaba), a way of working that, as I have indicated before, never lost sight of its community roots and who the intended audience were that they were making theatre for. At the heart of this is a deeply activist approach and outlook that continues to place theatre and performance at the heart of socio-political change.

Notes 1 The open-ended interview between Lliane Loots and Phyllis Klotz was held over zoom on 18 November 2021. 2 Much of this narrated archival history has been gleaned and focused from two sources. The first is the interview the author did with Klotz on 18 November 2021, and the second is from the Sibikwa annual reports for this period (1999 – 2002) held in archive in Benoni at the Sibikwa Arts Centre. 3 For more discussion on unpacking the complexities of understanding ideas around “African Patriarchy” please look at (for example) https://www.ipl.org/essay/ Patriarchy-In-African-Society-P3TL5CUH4SJPR (accessed 10 January 2022). 4 For more information: https://www.opencounseling.com/south-africa/durban/counselingagency/families-south-africa-durban-famsa-dbn (accessed 10 January 2022). 5 The 2001 Sibikwa Board Report is houses in the Sibikwa archive on-site at the Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni. 6 Further interesting gender-based performance programmes (not discussed in this chapter) that bridge the spaces between community interventions and theatre making, are – for example – the African Orchestra programmes set up by Sibikwa in 2009 that birthed the Women Drummers Programme, and further, the girl’s gumboot team – two distinctive genres that often support hegemonic masculine performance ownership of spaces. 7 For more information on the apartheid pass Laws see (for example); https://www. thoughtco.com/pass-laws-during-apartheid-43492 (accessed 18 January 2022). 8 For more information on this historic march, see (for example): https://www.sahistory. org.za/article/1956-womens-march-pretoria-9-august (accessed 18 January 2022). 9 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) Chapter 2 (Section 9). The Equality clause: “The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual or­ ientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.” 10 Definition is taken from https://www.definitions.net/definition/corrective%20rape (accessed 21 January 2022).

References Boal, A. (1979) Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communication Group. Crenshaw, K. (1989). ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of anti-discrimination doctrine, feminist theory and anti-racist politics’, In University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140, pp. 129–167. Dhamoon, R. (2015) ‘A feminist approach to decolonizing anti-racism: rethinking trans­ nationalism, intersectionality, and settler colonialism’, Feral Feminisms, 4, pp. 20 37.

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Fuchs, A. (2002) Playing the Market. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Gouws, A. (2017) ‘Feminist intersectionality and the matrix of domination in South Africa’, Agenda, 31(1), pp. 19–27. Grotowski, J. (1968) Towards a Poor Theatre. London: Methuen. Hill Collins, P. (1993) ‘Black feminist thought in the matrix of domination’, in Lemert, C.C. (ed.) Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, pp. 615–625. Klotz, P. et al. (1986) ‘You Strike the Woman, You Strike the Rock – Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathinti’ Imbokotho’, Published in Kani, J. (ed) 1994. More Market Plays. Johannesburg: AD. Donker. Klotz, P. (1996). “Chapter 2, Section 9”. Unpublished script – Sibikwa archives. Loots, L. (1997). ‘Re-remembering protest theatre’, Critical Arts, 11(1-2), pp. 142–152. May, V.M. (2015) Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. New York: Routledge. Meer, T. and Müller, A. 2017. “Considering Intersectionality in Africa”. Agenda, 31(1), pp.3–4. Mwanbene, L. and Wheal, M. (2015) ‘Realisation or oversight of a constitutional mandate? Corrective rape of black African lesbians in South Africa’, African Human Rights Law Journal, 15, pp. 58–88. Naidoo, K. (2018) “Sexual Violence and ‘Corrective Rape’ in South Africa”. https:// globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/articles/sexual-violence-and-corrective-rape-in-southafrica (accessed on 21 January 2022). Shange, N. (1976) For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. New York: Scribner Poetry. Scott, J. (1992) ‘Experience’, in Butler, J. and Scott, J. (eds) Feminists Theorize the Political. New York: Routledge, pp. 22–40.

Appendix 6: A Chronology of Gender Based Productions, Festivals and Training 1989

So Where To? Written and Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba. The play examines the effects of political violence on three impressionable pregnant teenage girls. First staged at the Human Rights Festival in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Original Cast: Busisiwe Zokufa, Doris Sihula, Nomvula Nene, Smal Ndaba supported by Moses Mphahlele, Zandile Mthethwa. Internationally staged at: Gaborone, Botswana (1989); The Albany Empire, London, England (1989); The Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland (1989); Zuricher Theater Spektakel, Zurich, Switzerland (1989); A national tour of Zimbabwe (1990). The Singapore Festival, Singapore (1992) Nationally staged at: Joseph Stone Theatre, Cape Town (1989); The Market Theatre, Johannesburg (1989); The Westville Cultural Festival, Durban (1990). Revival staged at; the Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni (2015); Soweto Theatre, Johannesburg (2015). Recognition: Naledi Award nomination for Best production for Young Audiences (2016). (Continued)

Intersectional gender politics 265 1999–2022

Vocational Training in Theatre and Dance for young Women at Sibikwa Arts Centre.

1997

Flower of Hope. Devised and Directed by Phyllis Klotz. An interrogation of South Africa’s constitution addressing women’s rights. The play was staged at schools, women’s organizations, and shelters for abused women across Gauteng. Original Cast: Khabo Mbatha, Linda Mahlangu, Nomsa Mbatha, Wendy Makgamatha, Zanele Nkala.

1998

Red Shoes Bleeding. Written and Directed by Justine Loots. Using the Red Shoes tale as a metaphor, the play addresses the plight of violence against women. Staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Linda Kgomosotho, Noluthando Boqwana, Ntombi Maphosa, Thabang Masupha Thabile Ngwenya, Zanele Nkala.

1999–2022

Behind Closed Doors. Devised and Directed by Phyllis Klotz. Through the use of music, movement and song, the play depicts violence and abuse in the home and its effects on its victims. Chorus dialogue adapted from T.S. Elliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. The play was first staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Linda Mahlangu, Noluthando Boqwana, Ntombi Maphosa, Thabang Masupha, Thembeka Mavuso, Zanele Mbatha, Zanele Nkala. Internationally staged at: A tour across Norway (1999). Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2000); The South African Women’s Arts Festival, Playhouse Theatre, Durban (2001), Baxter Theatre Cape Town, (2002), Sibikwa Arts Centre (2002); Mpumalanga Province Schools Festival (2002); Northwest Province Schools Festival (2002).

2002

Girls Gumboot Ensemble. An ensemble of young women, performing at corporate events throughout Gauteng. Original Dancers: Deborah Leshika, Makeba Hlatshwayo, Zanele Nkala.

2006

You Strike A Woman, You Strike A Rock. Written in collaboration with Poppy Tsira, Nomvula Qosha and Thobeka Maqhutyana. Directed by Phyllis Klotz. Three women of low socio-economic standing discuss their daily lives under the Apartheid regime. The play was revived in 2006 and went onto a national tour. Original Cast: Nomvula Qosha, Poppy Tsira and Thobeka Maqhutyana. Nationally staged at: Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni; The Market Theatre, Johannesburg; The South African State Theatre, Pretoria and The Baxter Theatre, Cape Town.

2009

MaLindi-The Sex Strike (An adaptation of Lysistrata by Aristophanes) Adapted and Directed by Phyllis Klotz. Women refuse to have sex with their men unless they end their war. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Ameera Patel, Andries Mbali, Busi Zokufa, Elton Landrew, Esther Maumela, , Irvine van der Merwe, Kabelo Thai, Lehlohonolo Dube, Lerato Moeketsi, Lungile Maboe, Lynet Matsheni, Mkdudzi Mkhethi, Rakotsoane Matlodi, Sechaba Mafa, Thandi Dube, Tsholofelo Ross. (Continued)

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Lliane Loots Original Music Composed by: Mokhalinyana Mokhere, Lydia Mokhele, Lucky Tshimbudzi, Zanele Nkala. Staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, (2010).

2010

Place of a Wo(man). Choreographed by Cherice Mangiagalli. Using six male dancers, the dance piece explores the essence of womanhood. Presented at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni and the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Dancers: Gladwel Rakoma, Keaoleboga Seodigeng, Lehlohonolo Dube, Taemane Mothobi, Tebogo Munyai, Thapelo Kotlolo. Original Music Composed by: The Sibikwa African Indigenous Orchestra. Recognition: National Arts Festival Standard Bank Ovation Award (2010)

2015

Influences: Nail Salon. (In partnership with the British Council). British artist Phoebe Davies in collaboration with the Sibikwa Arts Centre, presented Influences Nail Salon as part of the 16 Days of Activism for Violence Against Woman and Children. The group developed a series of nail designs, depicting South African women of influence.

2016

Chapter 2 Section 9. Devised and directed by Phyllis Klotz. Testimonials from women in the LGBTIQA+ community who are unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity, sex and/or sexual orientation which too often manifests itself in the form of violent crimes. First staged at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Original Cast: Ayanda Fali, Ayanda Sibisi, Khanyisa Nanase, Tsholofelo Ross. Original Music Composed by: Isaac Molelekoa. Nationally staged at: The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (2016); Popart Theatre, Johannesburg (2016); The Vavasati Festival at The South African State Theatre, Pretoria (2016); Wits Theatre’s 969 Festival, Johannesburg (2016); The Baxter Theatre, Cape Town (2017) Recognition: Winner of the National Arts Festival Standard Bank Ovation Award

2016/2017

Female Choreographers Showcase where young female choreographers were given a platform to create new work, presented at The Dance Factory, Johannesburg. 2016 Emma Tollman (Still Breathing), Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama (Ukubana Ngokwami/In My Perspective), Katlego Mogola (Last Supper), Lerato Lipere (Man-Made World), Lorin Sookool (BAD), Nadine Joseph (i.d.Entity), Qiniso Zungu (The Conversation Within Our Bodies and Souls), 2017 Dancers: Grace Barnes, Thoko Seganye, Palesa Matabane, Tania Vossgatter, mentored by Neli Xaba. Staged at: Sibikwa Arts Centre

2020

Amavuso Project. (A collaboration between Sibikwa Arts Centre and Nhimbe Trust) Directed by Zimkitha Kumbaca. Explores the contemporary phenomenon of “The Blesser.” Due to the COVID19 pandemic, the play was partly developed in both Zimbabwe and South Africa, and filmed. Presented online as part of the Urban Festival, Johannesburg. (Continued)

Intersectional gender politics 267 Original Cast: South African Cast: Dineo Komane, Eutychia Rakaki. Zimbabwean Cast: Agnes Ncube, Charmaine Mudau. Nationally staged at: The Free State Arts Festival, (2020); Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni (2020). Chronology of Festival and Events 2006–2008

2006

2007 2008

2009

Ntombi Nto Festival. A festival that showcased the arts’ ability to offer personal perspectives that inspire conversations in addressing issues around gender-based violence. First hosted by Sibikwa Arts Centre. Iso – Broken Eye. Choreographed by Lucky Ratlhagane. A provocative, issue-based dance piece addressing sex education, teenage pregnancy and virginity testing. Dancers: Participants of Sibikwa’s learnership programmes. Cast: The Sibikwa Arts Academy (SAA) learners. Isikathi Senhlanganiso. Choreographed by Lucky Ratlhagane. An African Fusion dance performance. Dancers: Participants of Sibikwa’s learnership programmes. The Ntombi Nto Festival honoured women through the mediums of poetry and dance. The Ntombi Nto Festival showcased the perspectives of Sibikwa’s students towards sparking conversations on gender-based issues. The festival went on to tour schools in Gauteng with a staged performance at the Market Theatre Laboratory Theatre, Johannesburg. Olive Tree. Directed by Ntshieng Mokgoro. In Our Kasi. Directed by Tina Johnson. Ha! Bra Fats. Directed by Napo Masheane. We are all in the same shoes. Directed by Robert Coleman. Seriti Sa Basadi Women’s Festival. Presented by Sibikwa Arts Centre. Hosted by Sibikwa Arts Centre,the festival offered a platform for female artists to share their work and perspectives. The first year of the festival took place at Baseline in Newton, Johannesburg. It showcased Slam Poetry performances from emerging young female poets and established female poets.

2011

Again hosted at Baseline in Newtown, Johannesburg the festival presented poetry by Ameera Patel, Linda Gabriel, Natalia Molebatsi, Ntsiki Mazwai, and Phillippa Yaa Devilliers. Women in Song by Ladies In Jazz, performed at Sibikwa Arts Centre.

2019

A day’s event that was notably inspired by a talk from Jackie Phamotse on her journey to overcoming trauma, the programme sought to provide an enabling space for women. It included First Aid training, Zumba aerobics classes and performances by female artists, including musicians Zoe Modiga and Sexy Sthe, storytelling from Faith Busika, poetry from Wazi Kunene, as well as the comedian Stella Dlangalala. (Continued)

268 2020

2021

Lliane Loots Due to the COVID19 pandemic, the festival was screened virtually across Sibikwa’s social media platforms. The festival hosted a panel discussion entitled: Women’s Perspectives on a Reimagined World with a Welcome Address from Avril Williamson, the Director General of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. Panellists: Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, Swankie Mafoko, and Zanele Madiba. Chaired by Michelle Constant. In celebration of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke’s 150th Birthday, the three-day hybrid festival was themed: HERSTORY; Re-birthed, Re-told, Re-lived. The programme curated by Napo Masheane included virtual panel discussions by influential women across business, creative and social development sectors; with an additional live event, hosted at Sibikwa Arts Centre, Benoni. Panel Discussions: Writing Revolutions: D’bi Young (UK), Rebecca Tinger (Sweden), Kharyishi Wigington (U.S), Bola Stephen-Atitebi (Nigeria), Maryam Fati Foye (U.S), Mapula Setlhako (SA). Words of the womb: Jabulile Buthelezi (SA), Mavundla (SA), Lucy Hamlet (Canada-Ghana), Micia De Wet (SA), Ligia Xavier (Brazil), Philisiwe Twijnstra- (SA). Live Event hosted by: Penny Lebyane (Media Personality). Presenters and Performers: Sibulele Gcilishane, Solace Can, Zesuliwe Hadebe, Lebohang Masango, Teresa Phuthi, Mojela, Yamoria, Mmatseko Mpsito, Sthe Mfuphi.

Index

Note: Page numbers followed by “n” refer to notes; and page numbers in Bold refer to tables; and page numbers in italics refer to figures Achmat, Z. 69, 70 Acogny, G. 217, 220n31 actors and interpreters 26 Adair, C. 216 African-centred approach 253 African indigenous orchestra 235, 236 African renaissance and the nation-building initiatives 56–64 African sound relevant: decolonisation 231–239; forms of recording indigenous music 231–239; music scene from 1950s onwards 224–228; opportunities and successes of members 244; promoting indigenous music 231–239; repertoire selection 239–244; Sibikwa Arts indigenous orchestra 229–231 Agisanang National Capacity Building Programme 161 Aids and Its Metaphors 55 Albie Sachs’ memorandum 19 aligned artists converged in Gaborone and Amsterdam 19–21 The Amnesty Committee 47 ANC governance 76–84 apartheid decades 6–11 Apartheid Museum 60, 104 apartheid rule 175–181 April, D. T. 213 April Fool’s Child 40, 41 Arts Administration Learnership 160 arts and culture policy document 84–87 audiences and reporters 49 Baartman, S. 59, 116 Banks, D. 233

Bantu Education Act 149 Baqua, S. 66 Barkan, A. K. 205, 219n12 Barkan, B. 205, 211, 219n11 Barnard, N. 28 Barnes, H. 147–163 Bayley, M. M. 186 Behind Closed Doors 50, 254–256, 258 Benjamin, W. 47 Bennett, T. 135 Bester, G. 220n25 Biden, J. 111 Biko, S. B. 18, 33n3 Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) 18 Black Feminist politics 249 Blacking, J. 240 Boal, A. 157, 203, 251 Boesak, A. 113 Bolton, G. 148, 153 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting 112 Boqwana, N. 254 Botha-Malan regime 23 Botha, P. W. 22, 33n1, 113, 114 Bower, V. 147–163 Breaking New Ground 211, 212 Brechtian model 26 Business and Arts South Africa’s (BASA) Board Bank programme 137 Cameron, E. 116 Carman, J. G. 137 CASA resolutions 25 CATHSSETA 78 celebrating Sibikwa’s legacy: beginnings 201–203; education, community, and

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Index

dance 208–216; establishing a legacy 206–207; parting shots 217; Youth empowerment to leadership 203–206 Chabal, P. 6 Chatikobo, M. 123–145, 124, 128, 130, 133, 136 Chauke, T. 216 Chipkin, I. 31, 33n2, 47, 57, 58 Clare, H. 240 Cole, C. M. 47, 53n7 Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) 28 Coplan, D. 224, 225 Cornforth, C. 133 corrective rape 259 Craighead, C. 200–219 Cray, D. 139 creative industries 86 Crenshaw, K. 249 Cultural Action for Freedom 149 Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA) 78, 158, 161 Dado, Y. 16n3 Dance Motsamai Schools Festival 208 Daniel, R. 184 Deacon, H. 126 de Klerk, F. W. 28, 36, 113 democratic dispensation 78 D.E.T Boys High 50, 175, 176, 179 Dhamoon, R. 251 Dlamini-Zuma, N. 66, 67, 68 Dube, L. 207 economies 86 educational programmes: arts education for young people 149–151; changes of approach 147; community arts training 160–161; organisation’s response 147; teacher training programmes 152–156; vocational training in performing arts 156–159 Education for Critical Consciousness 149 entering the world of work 11–14 Eye of the Storm 209, 210, 211 Fassie, B. 98, 99, 116 Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) 18 #feesmustfall 59 Finney, B. 11, 201 Fischer, B. 61

Fisher, N. 202 Formal deliberations 27–28 framing the intersectional gender politics 249–261 Frances, B. 51 Freeman, S. 139 Freire, P. 149, 157 Fynn, H. F. 187 Gandhi, M. 61 GEAR 79 Geldof, B. 73n3 Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) 137 Gevisser, M. 54, 64, 65, 68 Glasser, S. M. 219n5 Glow, H. 133–135 Golding, J. 182 governance of Sibikwa Arts Centre: brief historical, policy, and organisational context 125–132; colourful and vibrant front courtyard 127; cultural institutions 132–133; funding partner visibility 142; notion of cultural governance 123; participatory governance 81; peculiar attributes 140–143; principles of cultural governance 134–140 Gqola 94, 95, 99, 101 Gqola, P. 93 Green, C. 123–145, 144 Grotowski, J. 112, 174, 192n1, 203, 204 Haecker, A. A. 240 Hagg, G. 125 Harding, J. 130 Headman, Y. 209, 213, 214, 216 Heathcote, D. 148, 153 Herbst, T. 183 HIV/AIDS crisis 64–73 Hogg, J. 163 Huddleston, T. 16n3 human rights and the public presentation 45–52 iLembe 187–189, 188, 189 Inglis, L. 139 interlocking systems of oppression 249 In the wake of the body 205 Isizwe Sethu 54, 228 Jackson, A. 148 Jameson, F. 182, 184 Joffe, A. 124, 128, 130, 133, 136

Index 271 Jordan, L. 181 Joseph, H. 61 Joseph, N. 216 Kani, J. 219n3 Kavanagh, R. M 17n9 Kente, G. 193n2 Kgosana, P. 16n6 Khumalo, S. 17n8, 17n11 King, I. W. 124 Klerk, F.W. 18 Klotz, P. 3–10, 12, 16n7, 20, 24–26, 30, 32, 33, 38, 39, 41–44, 49, 50, 54, 57, 60, 61, 62, 64, 67, 69, 71–73, 75–80, 85, 87–89, 91, 93, 94, 96, 98, 100, 102, 104–114, 125–127, 129, 147, 150, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 182, 189, 192–207, 209, 211, 213, 216, 217, 228, 230, 250–254, 256–261 Knight, S. 44, 45 Kotlolo, T. 211 Krog, A. 49 Kula, A. M. 213 Kundera, M. 112 Kuzwayo, F. N. 99 Kwela Bafana 228 Kweyama, S. E. 213 Leach, C. 174 Lebethe, A. 124, 128, 130, 133, 136 Ledwaba, J. 174 Lehmann, H. 189, 192 Leleka, N. 235, 237 Lobeko, T. 214 Loewe, M. 193 Loots, L. 200, 249–261, 263n1 Luthuli, A. 16n3, 61, 69, 92 Maboe, L. 207 Madiba, J. 7 Madlala-Routledge, N. 70 Madonsela, T. 52n5 Mahomed, I. 180 Makhene, T. 237, 238 Malema, J. 118 Malindi: The Sex Strike 234 Manaka 17n10 Manaka, M. 193n2 The Mandela-Mbeki years (1994-2005): human rights and the public presentation

45–52; individual and collective covenants 35–42; South Africa’s global integration and transition to democratic governance 42–45 Mandela, N. 27, 28, 35–53, 59, 61, 64, 65, 66, 69, 73, 91–93, 102, 111, 114, 115, 118, 186, 259 Mangiagalli, C. 207, 208, 210, 210, 211 Maphosa, N. 254 Maponya, M. 17n10, 193n2, 256 Maredi, D. S. 17n8 Marimba Ensemble rehearsing 225, 226 Market Theatre 4, 13–16, 25, 78, 111, 174, 194 Mashigo, P. 206 Mavhungu, J. 124, 128, 130, 133, 136 May, V. M. 250 Mazwai, T. 7 Mbali, A. 177 Mbatho, Z. 254 Mbeki’s mode of governance 82 Mbeki, T. 35–72, 82, 115 McLaren, R. 11, 201, 205 Mclaren, R. 219n1 Md 73n6 Mda’, Z. 73 Meadowlands 240 Meer, T. 249 Mhlope, G. 174, 193 Michie, L. 244 Millesen, J. L. 137 Mkhwanjana, M. 206, 213 Mlangeni, L. 216 Mngoma, N. 151 Moalosi, A. M. 17n11 Modderbee 204 Modiselle, L. 207 Mokhele, L. 214, 244 Moosa, R. 61 Morgan, N. 153 Motaung, N. A. 214, 215 Motau, S. M. 216 Mothobi, T. 207 Motlanthe, K. 117, 171, 172 Motsamai Festival 208 Mqaba, R. 213 Mthoba, J. 17n8 Mtwa, P. 17n10, 17n11, 256 Müller, A. 249 Munyai, T. 207, 208, 211

272

Index

Murder in the Cathedral 72 Mwanbene, L. 259 Naidoo, K. 259 National Arts Council (NAC) 85 National Peace Accord 28 Ndaba, S. 3–17, 4, 15, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 29, 32, 37, 62, 78, 214, 216 Ndebele, N. 15, 16, 26, 27, 98, 99, 173, 181 Ndihambile 214, 215, 216 Ndlazelwane, V. 8 Ndlhovu, A. 162, 214, 215 Ndlovu, D. 12 Nel, A. 173, 195 Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech 33 Netshivhambe, E. N. 224–245 New Plan for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) 55 Ngema, M. 17n10, 66, 174, 256 Ngoyi, L. 61 Ngugi wa Thiong’o 58 Ngwenya, B. B. 181 Ngwenya, T. 254 Nkabinde, S. 177 Nkala, Z. 254 Nkwali, N. 254 Nsibanda, T. 237 Nsibande, T. 244 Nudelman, L. 211 Nzama, Z. 216 Oliver Tambo 22 Oppression Olympics 251 Orchestra’s approach 239 O’Toole, J. 148 Otto Ziqubu 177 pantsula dance 227 Parris, M. A. 133–135 Pedagogy of the Oppressed 149 Place of a Woman 234 political promises and failures in delivery 76–84 The Politics of Suffering and Smiling 6 Post-Apartheid Dance: Many Bodies Many Voices Many Stories 234 Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 46 Public Oscillation 213 Purkey, M. 194 Pyman, A. 133–135

Qinis’ulwazi National Capacity Building Programme 161 Qosha, N. 203 Radbourne, J. 136, 137 Radebe, A. 17n11 Raduški, D. 135, 136 Rakoma, G. 209, 212 Ramaphosa, C. 117 Ramphele, M. 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 93, 193 Rapoo 212, 213 Rapoo, T. 211 Ratlhagane, L. N. 203–205, 206 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) 43, 76–79 Rentschler, R. 134, 140 Reparations Committee 47 Rethinking the Archive in the Public Sphere 200 #rhodesmustfall 59 Roberts, S. 3–17, 18–34, 35–53, 54–74, 75–90, 91–112, 171–196 Rojas, E. 244 Ronge, B. 184 Rubicon Speech 22, 34n5 ruling class 251 Sachs, A. 16n2, 114 Sanders, Vicki 219n10 Sassen, R. 193 Saturday Arts Academy (SAA) programme 151, 203, 235 Saxton, J. 153 Schadeberg, J. 52n1 Schechner, R. 206 Schmitt, T. M. 132 Schramme, A. 124 Scott, J. 249 Selebi, J. 117, 118 Seodigeng, K. 209, 212, 212 September, X. 258 seven-volume report 48 Shaik, S. 117 Shange, N. 260 Shleifer, A. 132 Sibikwa Arts Centre 27–28 Sibikwa 18–34, 75–90, 123–145, 147–164, 171–196, 200–218, 249–261 Sibikwa’s: arts and culture policy documents 84, 84–87; arts indigenous orchestra 233, 241–243, 244; community-based programmes 250; co-operative

Index 273 programme 253; dance company productions and festivals 220–223; descending melodic philosophy 240; educational programmes 147–163; founding of Art centre 27–28; identity and operations 15; intersectional gender politics 249–269; music history 247–248; personal introductions 3–6; theatre-ineducation projects 87–89; work (1990–1994) 29–33; Youth Employment Programme 252, 253 Sichel, A. 202, 206, 211 Sidiya, T. 216 Simmel, G. 92 Simon, B. 4, 13, 174, 175, 195, 256 Siphika, J. 216 Slade, P. 148 Slovo, J. 61 Sobukwe, M. 10 Sobukwe, R. 61 social justice in gender-based violence: African languages, heritage, and culture 101–105; festivals, fostering partnerships and dialogues 105–108; issues of governance and leadership 92–93; spirit of Sibikwa 109–111; women’s issues and gender-based violence 93–101 Sontag, S. 55 South Africa: HIV/ AIDS 54–73; intensified resistance and oppression 21–27 “Space of Influence” creation 171–175 The Stadium 72 Steingo, G. 225 Steve Collins 66 Straus, H. 93 Stubbs 7 Suzman, H. 29 Thapelo Kotlolo 209, 214, 216 theatre-in-education projects for high school learners 87–89 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting 112 Themba Ndaba 27, 177 Theo Rakale 7 The Politics of Suffering and Smiling 6 Thobeka Maqhutyana 203, 258 Thompson, C. 135, 136, 200 Thunya Lerole 216, 217

Tobi, N. 254 Trash Truck 40 Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) 69, 70 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) 35 Tshabalala-Msimang, M. 68 Tshimbudzi, L. 244 Tsira, P. 203 Turbide, J. 133 Tutu, D. 7, 21, 43, 49, 69, 114 Ubuntu Bomhlaba 21, 32, 181–186, 183, 185, 228 Uhambo 36, 37, 38, 40, 181–182, 187, 188, 194, 228 unbanning of the ANC 28–29 United Democratic Front (UDF) 18 Uys, P. D. 26 Vaughan, C. 177 Veerapan, S. 253 verbatim methodology 260 Vishny, R. W. 132 Wa-Lehurere, I. 258 Wathint’Abafazi, Wathint’Imbokodo 189, 203–205 Way, B. 153 Wells, R. 224 Wheal, M. 259 Williams-de Bruyn, S. 61 Williams, R. 60 Woodpeckers, W. 181 Wootli, J. 174 Xaba, N. 216 You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock 256, 258, 259 Young People’s Theatre in the Western Cape 33 Youth Employment Programme 252, 253 Zokufa, B. 177, 193n4 Zuma, J. 83, 89n2, 90n3, 99, 100, 117, 120 Zwane, F. 63, 64, 204, 205, 207, 211, 213, 219n17