From the Book Lounge newsletter, a notice for this Wednesday of what sounds like an exceptionally interesting conversation. They're launching Bury Me at the Marketplace, a collection of Es'kia Mphahlele's letters from 1943 to 2006, and co-editor Dr N Chabani Manganyi will be in conversation with Professor Harry Garuba. Dr Manganyi is a distinguished clinical psychologist and author. Professor Garuba teaches in the African Studies and English departments at UCT and is renowned as a poet as well as a scholar. I found two poems by him on "African Writing on line" and they're so wonderful I've printed them at the end of this listing. The book they're talking about is of course another reason to be there. From the publishers' website: This selection of Mphahlele’s own letters has been greatly expanded; it has also been augmented by the addition of letters from Mphahlele’s correspondents, among them such luminaries as Langston Hughes and Nadine Gordimer. It seeks to illustrate the networks that shaped Mphahlele’s personal and intellectual life, the circuits of intimacy, intellectual inquiry, of friendship, scholarship and solidarity that he created and nurtured over the years.
At the Book Lounge
Wednesday, 24 March, at 5:30 for 6:00pm
OUT THE BOX FESTIVAL OF PUPPETRY AND VISUAL PERFORMANCE
There are so many inviting things on offer in this programme, it's hard to limit one's choices to a sensible number of shows.
Check out the programme at www.outtheboxfestival.com
I won't repeat the blurbs, but when I see something outstanding I'll post a little review (as with Nkosazana and Hatched below.)
I'm planning to get tickets for "High Diving", "27 Windows,4 Doors,2 Taps", "Inua", "Angel" "Eu Peca de Terra ll" and "Stadium" and Jill Joubert's "Sealskin"; and films of 1) War Horse and 2) Hispano-America shorts; and the Handspring talk on Sunday.
NKOSAZANA
Nkosazana is a collaboration between actor/writer Cindy Mkaza and director/writer Leila Anderson, which I caught on the first night of Out the Box It's the story of a girl growing up in an African rural culture (implicitly Zulu.) In the frame of magic realism, sociologically real elements like polygamy and AIDS co-exist with talking snakes and bargains made with one's ancestor underneath the sea. Alone on stage, Mkaza plays the heroine of the story at many stages from child to eternally old woman . She uses direct story-telling, acting, and at times pure dance (quite exquisite dance.) But it's never about virtuosity itself, it's about making meaning and it is captivating entertainment. Collaborations do present particular challenges, and there is some disjuncture here between two distinct story-telling styles. But the play between different kinds of expression is also what makes the work so strong, and fresh, and at times magical. Catch it in the Playroom on Hiddingh campus at these times this week: Monday 22 at 14.00, Tuesday 23 at 18.00 and Thursday 25 at 21.00
INUA
I'm really sorry I missed this one - it's the talk of the festival. Let's hope that it returns to a stage in Cape Town sometime soon !
HATCHED
After seeing Hatched, I would go out of my way to see anything by dancer/performance artist Mamela Nyamza. Mamela was born in Gugulethu in 1976 and trained in the Zama Dance School from the age of eight; later she studied ballet at the Pretoria Technikon and won a scholarship to the Alvin Ailley American Dance Centre. She created and performs Hatched, and it's like a film in which almost not a single frame is wasted - there is so much that is beautiful, strange, and arresting. It works through images and movement, and I won't try to describe it further - just to recommend this incredible artist.
You can still catch the show at Out the Box in the Rehearsal Studio at Hiddingh on Friday 26 at 19h00 and Saturday 27 at 21h00.
RARE PLANT FAIR THIS SATURDAY
This sale happens twice a year, once in autumn and once in spring, and it's not to be missed for gardeners, especially plants people. About 25 specialist growers sell plants of every description "from trees and shrubs to bulbs, succulents, orchids, grasses, perennials and much else." Last time lots of them were hardy but it's not restricted to indigenous species. Expect to find beautiful and/or fascinating variations on plants you already love, as well as some altogether new botanical discoveries. And feel free to ask questions, many growers are passionate specialists who love to talk about their subject.
Rustenburg Wine Estate in Stellenbosch
27 March 2010 Time: 9.30-4.30 Entry: R10
Contact Barbara Knox-Shaw for more info: 021 8440154 or 078 0212101. For directions, go to www.rustenberg.co.za
EXHIBITIONS ETC.
I'm planning to see:
The Spier Contemporary at the City Hall
Michael Subotzky with Patrick Waterhouse at the Goodman
Fritha Langerman's Subtle Thresholds at the SA Museum
........but not the top-most priority in a packed week as they'll all be there next week! So will the play London Road at Kalk Bay Theatre which I've heard is a must.
WOLF HALL
If I'd had no competing demands on my time this week, I would have been reading day and night - Wolf Hall has got me by the scruff. The 2009 Booker winner by Hilary Mantel is a big book and a big story, set in the political world of sixteenth century England. I am not generally a reader of historical novels and the Tudor genre has always seemed to be at a very far remove. But from the first page Mantel pulls you in to a world that feels astonishingly real, with sensory detail that you can feel on your skin and characters that take root in your mind. Though the physical world of the book is so distinct from ours, the human world is not at such a remove at all - plotting and machinations in the corridors of power are our daily fare in twenty-first century South Africa. With Wolf Hall you can go to the heart of all the intrigue and fascination of that world, while at the very same time being transported to somewhere radically different.
Post Script
Two Poems by Harry Garuba, author of Shadow and Dream, professor of African Studies at the University of Cape Town
Monkey Love
hanging from the branches of your arms
dreaming of bananas,
I long only for things prosaic
things without poetry or fire
like bread and flesh and earth
like soil and seed and water
like the body evidence of sweat,
undeodorized, fresh with odour,
neither seas nor sunsets will serve this need
I long only…
to clasp the trunk of your body
and hug you like the monkey hugs the tree
a hairy love in an embrace of leaves
Death of a Poem
(For Sesan)
there is a lie in every line that rhymes
a line in every rhyme that lies
to tell the tale of a boy who loved beauty
so much he could not take the warts
that punctured the rhyming lyrics of his life
the debris and the log that punctuated
the flow of the river and the grace of the seagull
he couldn’t take it here
and one cloudless day
sunshine pouring like crystal showers
his spirit soared above the skies
leaving behind the lies in the rhymes
This dull, dull craft of words
Can it capture the dark delight of his life?
