Composers’ Concert

Wits Theatre, in association with the Music Department, will be staging this concert.

Composers’ Concert features new work by three of Wits Music’s composition lecturers: Andile Khumalo, Cameron Harris and Chris Letcher.

The programme will showcase work for piano and clarinet, marimba and electronics, marimba and voice.

Performers include Peter Cartwright (piano), Morné van Heerden (clarinet) and Magda de Vries (marimba).

Add event to calendar

O-Week @ Wits Theatre

Orientation week will showcase six plays from the Wits School of Arts Drama students.

The O-Week @ Wits Theatre programme features a range of new plays directed and performed by students.
At the end of each year, students are invited to make artistic submissions to be a part of the programme. A panel of judges chooses the winning “0-Week” line-up.

This year Wits Choir will present a concert on 4 February in the Main Theatre at 6pm. Wits Choir is a much lauded choir comprising students and graduates whose repertoire of music is designed to show their range as well as celebrate the diversity of musical cultures of both South Africa and the continent.

Wits Theatre in association with the Music Department will also be staging The Composers’ Concert on Saturday 06 February @ 19h30 in the prestigious Wits Great Hall and features new work by three of Wits Music’s composition lecturers: Andile Khumalo, Cameron Harris and Chris Letcher. The programme will showcase work for piano and clarinet, marimba and electronics, marimba and voice. Performers include Peter Cartwright (piano), Morné van Heerden (clarinet) and Magda de Vries (marimba).

View the programme details here.

Add event to calendar

Il Vero Violino - The True Violin

Join violinist, Antoinette Lohmann and harpsichordist, John Reid Coulter for a rich and varied programme of works from the 17th and 18th century.

The title of the concert alludes to a time when the violin we know and love today was a very different instrument and while its origins are highly contested, we do know it evolved out of a three stringed instrument played by gypsies providing light merry “let’s dance” tunes . It was a lowly regarded musical instrument and it was not until the addition of the fourth string that endowed the violin with its extraordinary range that the violin was accepted as a classical instrument.

IL VERO VIOLINO (the true violin) implies that the music will be performed on a violin as it was in its original form. After the 18th century, violins were more often than not altered in a radical way thus changing the original design concept. The neck was literally cut off and reset at a steeper angle, the bridge was raised, the bass bar changed, a chin-rest added and the shape, length and weight of the bow was changed.

Although these changes were gradual they were implemented primarily to meet the demands for greater volume production. However gut strings were used well into WW II. This means that the highly prized instruments of Stradivarius and Amati, two famous pre-19th century violin makers, exist today in an altered form quite different from the originals!

Antoinette has visited South Africa many times and teaches at the Early Music Department of the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands. John completed his harpsichord studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and has taught at a number of South African universities and is in much demand as a continuo player and accompanist.

Their programme explores some of the lesser known gems of the golden age of the true violin by Marco Uccellini, Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, Johann Jacob Walther, Jacobus Nozeman, Jean-Marie Leclair and Johann Sebastian Bach. Some solo harpsichord works by Johann Jacob Froberger will be included as 2016 marks the 400th anniversary Froberger's birth.

Add event to calendar

Wednesday lunch hour concerts

Grab a snack and join us for the Wednesday Lunch Hour Concerts brought to you by the Wits Theatre and Wits School of Arts/Division of Music.

Performer: Max Liebenberg (BMus III) - Drumkit

Add event to calendar

Wednesday lunch hour concerts - Thomas Nichol

Grab a snack and join us for the Wednesday Lunch Hour Concerts brought to you by the Wits Theatre and Wits School of Arts/Division of Music.

Performer: Thomas Nichol (BMus III) - Drumkit

Add event to calendar

Wednesday lunch hour concerts - Sean Flint

Grab a snack and join us for the Wednesday Lunch Hour Concerts brought to you by the Wits Theatre and Wits School of Arts/Division of Music.

Performer: Sean Flint (BMus III) - Jazz Guitar

Add event to calendar

Electric Dawn Album Tour

Electric Dawn is the new project (released in November 2015 on Sospiro Records) from award winning British saxophonist Alastair Penman.

Electric Dawn is the new project (released in November 2015 on Sospiro Records) from award winning British saxophonist Alastair Penman, which is supported by the City Music Foundation and produced by legendary saxophonist John Harle. Hailed as a “pioneering instrumentalist and writer, Alastair Penman’s exciting new album, Electric Dawn, explores the fusion of saxophone and electronics, creating rich soundscapes and haunting melodies as well as showcasing his explosive technique.

Alongside Alastair’s own compositions are new works written for the project by Jenni Watson, Geoff Sheil and Daniel Harle, and new arrangements of works by Graham Fitkin and Marius Neset. Critics have praised the playing as “exemplary”, “diamond-sharp, tonally burnished and singing free” and recognised that “each piece had a perfection of its own”, creating a “cohesive and triumphantly experimental debut”. Whilst the material is loosely based within a contemporary classical framework, it also draws on influences from jazz, folk and even dance music, which Alastair brings together within his unique sound-world.

Having studied Information and Computer Engineering at the University of Cambridge before studying Saxophone at the Royal Northern College of Music, Alastair is perfectly placed to explore the fusion of the saxophone with live electronics as he extends the instrument’s musical palette, allowing the electronic effects to augment and extend the acoustic instrument and reveal a rich and vibrant sound-world.

Although classically trained, Alastair enjoys exploring many musical worlds; such influences can be heard in his compositions and performances, which often transcend genre definition.

As a soloist, Alastair has performed at venues including Milton Court Concert Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trinity and St Catharine’s College Chapels (Cambridge), The Forge, and the Concert Hall and Carole Nash Recital Room at the Royal Northern College of Music. He has also made numerous concerto appearances, including opening the 2012 Wycombe Arts Festival. Alastair has been a guest recitalist both at the RNCM and Canterbury Christ Church University Saxophone Days, presenting material from his debut album, Electric Dawn.

Alastair’s talents have been recognised with awards from the City Music Foundation, Countess of Munster Musical Trust, RNCM (Fewkes and Harwood Scholarships) and St. Catharine’s College. Alastair has also been a finalist in the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe and RNCM Gold Medal Competitions.

http://www.electricdawn.co.uk / http://www.alastairpenman.co.uk

Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

Cost
Full price = R80.00; discount price = R55.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). Tickets are available at the door. Full price = R85.00; discount price = R60.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). 

Add event to calendar

Nortasuna (Identity)

The Drama for Life (DFL) SA Season is back on home turf this year. The Season brings to its audiences the thought provoking theme of Forgotten Futures.

Nortasuna (Identity) - Directed by Lidija Marelic and designed by Julian L. Kruger
(South African Theatre Season 2016: Forgotten Futures)

After a successful 2015 Season at the State Theatre in Pretoria the South African Theatre Season is back at The Wits Theatre (Braamfontein) for 2016. Running from the 6^th to the 9^th of April 2016 the Season brings to its audiences the thought provoking theme of Forgotten Futures.

The Season takes the form of live theatre performances, films showings, live music and performance poetry by some of South Africa's emerging young voices within the arts. Nortasuna is an important part of the Season.

South Africa is home to a wealth of peoples, cultures and creeds. This diversity makes us a complex society which is compounded by our painful past characterised by segregation and histories negated, distorted, ignored and lost. So who are we and how do we define ourselves in this morass? Are we merely the sum total of our race, ethnicity, genetic makeup and culture? Or is there another tale to be told, the beginning and endings located in different places, the middle spanning the atypical, the imaginary?

Using the workshop process, a tool of creative working that has shaped South African theatre, the cast of Nortasuna has been taken on a journey of devising a new South African folktale…

In a forgotten realm beneath the roots of an ancient tree, a village of fantastical creatures are forced to come to grips with the impending death of their world. Each is torn between protecting the organic home which has sheltered them for millennia, and the natural impulses which set them apart.

As the social order shuffles and reshuffles, as each seeks to do what is “right”, we begin to get glimpses of not only our own struggles, but also into the core of what is killing our nation slowly: fear.

Lidija received an Honours degree in Dramatic Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, with a research project centred on semiotics in directing for theatre. She has performed at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, on several occasions including in a one-woman show which she wrote, performed and directed – this experience taught her that she should NOT direct herself.

Lidija was awarded the Percy Tucker Award for Best Director in 2011 and in 2014, she performed in the Afrovibes Festival, touring in the Netherlands and London. Her most recent project is Cheers to Sarajevo, co-written and directed by Lidija Marelic.

Julian L. Kruger worked with Lidija for the first time on her fourth-year directing final as the lighting operator and subsequently played the lead.

He was set designer on Cheers to Sarajevo and AFDA’s Second Year Festival in which Julian was involved in converting two venues into pop-up theatres for the events above.

In his ‘spare time’, Julian acts and directs. 

PARKING: Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

SEASON:Wednesday 6 April – Saturday 9 April 2016
Wed 06:04:2016 @ 19h00
Thu 07:04:2016 @ 19h00
Fri 08:04:2016 @ 13h15
Sat 09:04:2016 @ 18h00

RUNNING TIME: Sixty minutes no interval.

COST: ONLINE at www.webtickets.co.za                     
Full price                                                 R45.00                            
Discount for students and pensioners         R30.00                                           

DOOR
Full price                                                 R50.00
Discount for students and pensioners         R40.00    

Add event to calendar

Motswako the Mix

Motswako the Mix concert (Part 1), will showcase the best of the Wits School of Arts’ Classical and Jazz Student musicians.

Students are selected following a rigorous audition round judged by the music performance staff. This ensures that only the best students are part of the concert, with extensive preparation and rehearsals guaranteeing a high standard of performance across two major musical genres. This concert provides a professional platform for these students to engage with a responsive public audience. It also serves as a showcase for the young talent and high standard of teaching provided at Wits University, encouraging potential young audience members to find out more about possible careers in music.

The annual Motswako concert has proven to be such a hit in previous years that this year it will be in two parts.

Part 2 will take place in the second semester. 

Free parking is available in the basement of University Corner; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

Add event to calendar

1st Years in Concert

The Music Division’s first –year students perform live.

On Tuesday 26 April, the first-year music students from the Wits School of Arts / Music Division will perform for friends, lecturers and the public, on the open stage. This varied group of musicians will sing, and play the piano, guitar, drums and violin.

For the privilege of being a part of this pleasing aural combination, the ‘casting’ process is a rigorous audition in order to ensure that only the top students from a strong first year class are heard on the night. For many of these students, this is the first time that they will perform in public as Wits School of Arts students, showcasing the work they have done in the first quarter.

Please come and support our first-year students as they take their first step on the ladder to musical success.

Safe parking is available off Yale Road, East Campus, Braamfontein.

Add event to calendar

(Un)Bridaled

Drama for Life and Wits Theatre are proud to present the work of artist - in –residence, Marina Magalhães.

What makes the work exceptionally dynamic and unique is its seamless blend of Bossa Nova and Brazilian Funk music, Afro-Latin and Contemporary dance, and live song and interactive theatre. It brings to life the deeply moving and hilariously defiant stories of women at the precipice of change.

Investigating the archetypal role of the “bride” as a site for patriarchy, subversion, and ultimately transformation, the piece has been reworked to fit the South African context of its nine member all-female cast. 

Marina Magalhães is a seasoned dancer and award-winning choreographer from Brazil, based in Los Angeles, USA. She has shared her work and unique approach to movement with people all over the world, including the US, Cuba, Brazil and currently is in South Africa working with the Drama for Life programme. She holds a B.A. in World Arts & Cultures/Dance Concentration from UCLA and for seven years toured internationally with CONTRA-TIEMPO Urban Latin Dance Theatre as a performer, teaching artist, and Assistant Artistic Director. Magalhães's choreography draws from her unique background in Afro-Latin and Contemporary dance practices to create a dance theatre grounded in subversive politics and deeply personal story-telling.

In 2013 she was awarded the LA Weekly Theatre Award for Best Choreography and her most recent evening-length work, (UN)BRIDALED, was hailed by LA Dance Review as “the type of show that keeps concert dance relevant in our lives”. 

The Drama for Life Human Rights and Social Justice Project started in 2009 as the “Drama for Life Zimbabwe Project”. The project aimed to contribute at normalising the Zimbabwean social and political situation, as well as promoting democracy. Realising that Human Rights and Social Justice are topics that also need to be discussed in a South African and African context, Drama for Life changed the project’s title to “Human Rights and Social Justice Project” to be more inclusive. This year, under the theme of “States of Emergency”, Drama for Life Human Rights & Social Justice Season 2016 hosts a series of performances- theatre, dance, film screenings and poetry- that look at conflict zones both personally and politically.

Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

SEASON: 

Wednesday 4 May-Saturday 7 May 2016
Wed 04:05:2016 @ 19h00 – WitsTix
Thu 05:05:2016 @ 19h00 –Opening Night
Fri 06:05:2016 @ 13h15
Sat 07:05:2016 @ 18h30

RUNNING TIME: Sixty minutes no interval.

BOOKING: www.webtickets.co.za

ONLINE                      
Full price - R45.00                            
Discount for students and pensioners - R30.00
WitsTix - R10.00                                                  

DOOR
Full price - R50.00
Discount for students and pensioners - R40.00
WitsTix - R15.00     

Add event to calendar

Ruined

Ruined launches the 2016 Student Drama programme. The story is both a romance and thriller, in a chaotic war-torn world of music, fear and celebration.

Wits Theatre and the Wits School of Arts /Division of Theatre and Performance (TAP) are proud to present the Pulitzer award-winning play Ruined written by Lynn Nottage and directed Megan Willson.

The play is the result of interviews conducted by the playwright about the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a complex drama about the inhumanity of war where women are the soft targets, whose lives are “ruined”. While the subject matter is dark and intense, it is also a play about hope and survival amidst the most dire of circumstances.

Set in a rural whorehouse, where sex is the currency and money the salvation, the story is both a romance and thriller. The goodies and baddies are intertwined in a chaotic war-torn world of music, fear and celebration.

Director Megan Willson says, “On the surface Ruined may appear to be a story of devastation, but in fact it is one of the most magnificent love stories ever written. I believe the characters Mama and Christian will win the audiences over with their poetry, chocolate, food, wine, music and money which all form the tapestry of their relationship and their exquisite story of compassion, love, truth and their ultimate survival against a harsh background.”

Ruined launches the 2016 Student Drama programme and was chosen because it offers students the opportunity to grapple with issues facing our country including their role as artists in reflecting and questioning societal values. It deals with the very worst of human atrocity yet also reminds us of how resilient the human spirit is, confronting us with tough questions that demand answers.

Willson is a busy, proudly South African playwright and director. For a number of years she worked solely as an actress with some of South Africa’s best known directors including Barney Simon, Claire Stopford, Craig Freimond, Lara Foot and Mark Graham. She stepped into the director’s role in 1991 and has not looked back since. She has won numerous awards and over a 9-year period has conceived, written and directed more than 300 theatre shows for both the corporate, educational and private sectors in her scripting-cum-directing partnership with Graham Hopkins. Her directing credits include television shows like the Big Brother and Project Fame series. Currently she, Hopkins and Elton Hesketh run a live event and experiential marketing agency, 360 Degrees Production House. She remains passionate and committed to the theatre industry and continues to write and direct theatre productions while running the business. This ultimately led to Wilson receiving the Top Woman Entrepreneur Award with 360 making it onto the list of Top 300 Black Empowered Companies in the country.

“South Africa is going through troubled times and collectively we are questioning concepts related to liberty, freedom, power, democracy. Crime against women has reached unprecedented levels. Ruined allows our acting students to enter that dialogue and to wrestle with telling a painful story without lapsing into stereotypes or oversimplification. It is provocative theatre at its best,” says Gita Pather Director of Wits Theatre.

Age Restriction: No under 10L and sensitive viewing

Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

BOOKING: www.webtickets.co.za
ONLINE                      
Full price-R 45.00                        
Discount for students and pensioners-R 30.00
WitsTix-R 10.00                          

DOOR
Full price-R 50.00
Discount for students and pensioners-R 40.00
WitsTix-R 15.00  

Add event to calendar

Detours Festival

Celebrate the Detours Festival fifth birthday this year with a series of workshops that are open to both students and the public.

The DETOURS festival is proud to announce the celebration of its fifth birthday this year. In 2016 we are taking a moment to reflect upon the last four years, the founding ethos of the festival and our growth as an experimental fringe platform. We continue to promote alternative and experimental approaches to movement composition, choreography and physical theatre. This year DETOURS responds directly to the academic climate both of Wits other campuses across South Africa by encouraging our students performers to engage with themes of creative resistance and insurrection .

Since its inception in 2012, DETOURS has placed the nurturing of students and young professionals at the heart of its programme and this year it will include work from Wits senior Physical Theatre Students, Wits Fourth year Dance Theatre and Composition Choreography students as well as work from Tshwane University of Technology and City Varsity. We are also very excited to announce an international exchange with the Dance Department at the University of Coventry, London. This exchange will take place in the form of an Online Interactive Learning Project between 10 students at the University of Coventry and 10 students from the Division of Theatre and Performance, Wits University. This project is process-orientated involving the students completing four choreographic tasks in the four weeks leading up to the festival. The nature of this exchange is to encourage students to work independently and use online platforms to communicate and share their choreographic explorations and discoveries. The cross-continental online interaction of this process will be documented and presented at the DETOURS festival platform. This presentation will take the form of a live Skype call between participants, where participants can interact and reflect on the project.

DETOURS is interested in maintaining and growing the connections and relationships we have made with participants and students across the years. In 2016 we will be showcasing solo work from Nomcebisi Moyikwa, currently based at Rhodes University and Kwanele Finch Thusi, currently based in Johannesburg. Thusi will also be engaging with the work of the Wits Fourth-year choreography students during process and assisting these students in the realisation of their choreographic works.

To enhance the educational aspect of the festival, DETOURS will be hosting a series of workshops that are open to both students and the public. We are excited to once again be hosting a workshop by Mersiha Mesihovic (NY) as well as workshops hosted by Nomcebisi Moyika and Kwanele Finch Thusi.

Directed by: Joni Barnard and Jane Crewe and produced by Wits Theatre for Wits School of Art, Division of Theatre and Performance
Venue: Detours will be held in the Wits Downstairs Theatre
Dates: 26^th, 27^th May @ 19:30, 28^th May @ 18:00, 29^th May @ 15:00

Ticket Prices:
www.webtickets.co.za
Full price: R45 online | R50 @ door
Students and Pensioners: R30 online | R40 @ door
Block Booking of 10 or more: R30 per person
WitsTix, R 10 online I R 15 @ the door
WITSTIX: 27^th, 29^th May

Add event to calendar

Tales of Ovid: Metamorphosis

Tales of Ovid: Metamorphosis is the final presentation of 8 final year Theatre and Performance students.

Tales of Ovid: Metamorphosis is the final presentation of 8 final year Theatre and Performance students. Six of these students have worked as performers and storytellers, while others have worked in stage management and dramaturgy. Facilitated by lecturer Kieran James Reid, the project and the process have been focused on the development of improvisation, storytelling skills and play between the students.

The culmination of this training is the staging of Ted Hughes’ excellent translation of a selection of the Roman poet Ovid’s classic stories. These are stories of gods and men vividly tracing moments of transformation and change with lots of sex and death where gods morph into animals, people into trees and everything into gold. All illuminate Ovid’s world with each story steeped in a moral lesson or warning, a world of mad and jealous gods and a natural order defying explanation. Maybe a little like the world we live in?

Ovid and Hughes have presented the performers with a vehicle to practice their improvisation skills and to play with notions of the actor’s transformations on stage. Their metamorphosis is not of a supernatural order, but the art of the changing storyteller who at one moment is a staged version of themselves, talking to the audience and in the next a pregnant woman morphing into a tree. The cast has worked with the dramaturge and Hughes’ text to create a series of short stories that exist in a variety of styles. Throughout the rehearsal process, improvisation and a mutually supportive cohesive ensemble were the goals.

The same is true of the performances.

In Tales of Ovid: Metamorphosis, the audience is invited to play this great game of improvisation with the ensemble. How this game will unfold is as unknowable as Ovid’s world with the storytelling ensemble deciding during the performance how to tell each story. Part of the process of creating this work was to allow the performers to own the stories and tell them in ways meaningful to the process of improvisation and the moment. By playing with and listening to the audience, they will relate these stories on a whim, and whimsically.

The set too has elements of the whimsical based on a design that will change every night with the creative choices our young storytellers will make.. These talented students have encompassed Hughes’ delightful and beautiful rendering of these ancient stories and embraced an improvised form of storytelling. The mythical, the supernatural, gods and men, the storyteller, the ensemble and the magic of bodies on stage all come together in this retelling of Tales of Ovid. 

Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein.

Perfomance dates and times:
Tuesday 17 May – Witstix – 19:30
Wednesday 18 May – Opening Night – 19:30
Thursday 19 May & Friday 20 May - 19:30
Saturday 21 May - 15h00 & 19h30

Running time: Seventy minutes no interval

Booking: www.webtickets.co.za
Online                   
Full price-R45.00                            
Discount for students and pensioners-R30.00
WitsTix-R10.00                                                  

Door
Full price-R50.00
Discount for students and pensioners-R40.00
WitsTix-R5.00     

Add event to calendar

Wits Choirs in concert with Missouri State University Chorale

The Wits Choirs in concert with Missouri State University Chorale, USA is an event that will offer something to everyone’s taste.

It is no secret that music has always played a significant role in building bridges between people, communities, cultures and even countries. Activists, politicians, community leaders, historians and academics have noted the importance of song and music in mobilising communities, highlighting issues, building alliances, galvanising action and forging bonds. Music knows no boundaries and its appeal defies the narrow categories of race, class, gender and age.

With this in mind, and coupled with their motto “Excellence Through Diversity”, Wits Choir and the Young Wits Choir, under the expert leadership of conductor Dalene Hoogenhout, will host the Missouri State University Chorale in a once-off performance. An express objective is to use our brand of music and joy of singing to share the wonderful treasure of our mostly home-grown repertoire with our American guest choir.

The Chorale under the direction of Dr. Cameron F. LaBarr, is the flagship touring choir of Missouri State's Department of Music. This select choir of approximately 50 voices performs regularly at conferences of the American Choral Directors Association, Missouri Music Educators Association, and the National Association for Music Education, and has toured throughout the United States and Europe. In May 2015, the MSU Chorale performed by invitation at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Members of Chorale also perform in Grand Chorus. They will be on tour in South Africa in May 2016. The three choirs will also render some combined items representing the two countries’ repertoire.

The Wits Choirs in concert with Missouri State University Chorale, USA is an event that will offer something to everyone’s taste and it is a collaborative effort which promises to be a joy to chorister and audience member alike.

Cameron F. LaBarr is director of choral studies at Missouri State University where he leads a comprehensive choral program including over 200 singers in five choirs. He has held university choral positions at Lee University (Cleveland, Tennessee) and the University of North Texas. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Missouri State University, where he studied with Dr. Guy B. Webb, and he earned a Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of North Texas, where he studied choral and orchestral conducting with Dr. Jerry McCoy and Maestro David Itkin. Dr. LaBarr has been awarded conducting fellowships at the Yale International Choral Festival, the Sarteano (Italy) Chamber Choir Workshop, and was named a Salzburg Fellow in April 2014, where he participated in the Salzburg Seminar: Conflict Transformation through Peace-Building and the Arts. Dr. LaBarr has worked as guest conductor and clinician for various institutions and international festivals across the United States, Europe, South Africa and China. 

The Choral Studies programme at Missouri State University includes Chorale, Men’ Chorus, Women’s Chorus, Choral Union and Grand Chorus, as well as a graduate conducting program. Choirs from Missouri State perform regularly at conferences of the American Choral Directors Association, Missouri Educators Association and the National Association for Music Education, and have toured throughout the United States and Europe. The choral program at Missouri State University was led for 34 years (1980-2014) by emeritus faculty Dr. Guy B. Webb, during which the program experienced substantial growth and gained a highly acclaimed reputation both nationally and abroad. A variety of advanced choral repertoire is performed in concerts and tours throughout the year.

Add event to calendar

Sound Us Out

It’s that time of the year again when some of the Division of Music’s final year student composers are introduced to the public.

The concert on 17 July in the Wits Atrium is staged with the able guidance of one of the Division of Music’s lecturers who is one of South Africa’s finest composers and musicians, Andile Khumalo

2016 has seen an unprecedented number of students specialising in Music Composition, and nine young specialist composers will showcase their talents in Western Art chamber music compositions: 

• Thomas Dodson
• Eleni  Ladas
• Thato Maraisane
• Nthabiseng Mfenyana
• Saul Nossel
• Masechaba Phakela
• Jays Van Kerckhoven
• Kieran Woolmington
• Edre van As

THE CONCERT IS SPONSORED BY GENEROUS DONATIONS FROM SAMRO & THE RUPERT FOUNDATION.    

Free parking is available at Origins Centre, West Campus or the Planetarium; the entrance is off Yale Road, East Campus, Braamfontein.

Add event to calendar

The Wits Trio plays Brahms

The Wits Trio returns for their fifth concert since the Trio’s inauguration in 2012.

It is a much anticipated event that delivers an unforgettable music experience with talented Zanta Hofmeyr (violin), Maciej Lacny (cello), and Malcolm Nay (piano).

The Trio has become well-known throughout South Africa and receives requests to perform at Durban Music Society, Theatre on the Square’s lunch time concerts, as well as at Rhodes University. The two fiery, energetic men on cello and piano form superb bookends to the dulcet tones produced by Zanta Hofmeyr on the violin…

The Wits Trio started their chamber music circuit in 2012 and are premiering Brahms at the National Arts Festival 2016 with a complete Brahms programme including Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor Op. 101, Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8, Violin Sonata No 3 in D minor, Op. 108, Cello Sonata No 1 in E minor, Op. 38, a  sonata, written as “a homage to J.S, Bach” actually titled “Sonate für Klavier und Violoncello” and Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87. The second trio (the C major) which will be performed at the Atrium, is the most symphonic of the three trios of Brahms. It has as its slow movement, one of the most ravishingly beautiful themes that Brahms ever penned. This much awaited programme is part of the annual 969 Festival that runs from 13-24 July showcasing the best shows from the National Arts Festival.

Enjoy a specially designed Italian classical meal at Picobella, Melville and catch a tuktuk to the Wits Atrium for a complete Sunday afternoon of entertainment.

Background on the Wits Trio

Zanta Hofmeyr graduated from the Juilliard School of Music in New York where she was a student of Dorothy Delay and Hyo Kang. After her New York debut in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weil recital hall), she returned to South Africa in 1985.  Zanta teaches violin in Johannesburg and at the University of Pretoria. She often acts as string coach for youth orchestras and has been on the faculty of chamber music festivals in the USA and Stellenbosch, SA. She performs regularly as soloist with symphony orchestras in South Africa and was lauded for her performances of the Britten, Beethoven and Bruch concerti. In 2016 she performed the 10 Beethoven sonatas with Bulgarian pianist Ilia Radoslavov touring SA and the US. She has several recordings with different artists and has just released a new CD of French violin sonatas.

Maciej Lacny was born in Cracow (Poland) in 1977. He graduated from the F. Chopin High School (1995) and the Cracow Conservatory of Music (2001) in Prof. Z.Lapinski’s cello class. He also obtained a pedagogical diploma from the Cracow conservatory of music.Between1995-1999 Maciej performed in many concerts around Europe with the Cracow Quartet in Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He is married to a South African flautist and living in Johannesburg. Maciej is currently co-principal cello of the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra and he has played in several recitals with acclaimed pianist, Malcolm Nay.

Malcolm Nay is widely regarded as one of the finest chamber pianists and accompanists in South Africa. After graduating with a BMus from Wits University where he studied with Pauline Nossel and Isabella Stengel, he travelled on scholarships to America, where he studied with Bela Siki. Malcolm was the recipient of numerous prizes at several international piano competitions, including the prize for the most talented South African pianist at the 1st Unisa International Piano Competition and 2nd prize at the Montevideo International Piano Competition. As a soloist, he has appeared with most of South Africa’s major orchestras and is remembered especially for performances, in Gauteng, of the Mozart concertos, which he conducted from the keyboard.

He is also sought after adjudicator at prestigious music competitions throughout the country and he continues to perform extensively at the larger festivals in South Africa. He is currently Associate Professor at WitsMusic, Wits School of Arts (WSOA).

Add event to calendar

Feathers

Iconic dance company, Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM), will be presenting its spellbinding season titled FEATHERS at the Wits 969 Festival on July 21.

Now in its thirteenth year, this year’s 969 Festival is a celebration of 20 dance, theatre and music productions that where featured on both the National Arts Festival’s (NAF) Main and Fringe stages in Grahamstown where MIDM’s FEATHERS season clinched a Standard Bank Ovation Award. The Wits 969 Festival is named after the distance in kilometres between Grahamstown and Johannesburg, and runs from 13 – 24 July. The programme also features two international productions from the UK and USA.

The FEATHERS season showcases four exhilarating dance works by MIDM’s star-choreographers and is a collection of new pieces which explore various themes of identity, masculinity, gender and cultural heritage, including Road, fight, flight, feathers, f***ers, My Black is My Black and Everlast.

MIDM Artistic Director, Mark Hawkins emphasized the importance of presenting these innovative dance works to its local-audience as 969 Festival has grown to become “the post-NAF calendar event for theatre-lovers in Gauteng”.

“The Wits 969 festival is not just an alternative for those who couldn’t make it to the NAF, but has also garnered a reputation of being an important event for arts enthusiasts in Gauteng because of the local and international talents it brings to stages in the province. This is a great platform for our new works and we are very excited to bring them to our home audience,” Hawkins said.

The season opens with a dance piece titled, Road, a poetic and poignant duet – choreographed and performed by the winner of the prestigious Kurt Jooss International Choreography award, Oscar Buthelezi (25), alongside fellow MIDM dancer and rehearsal director, Muzi Shili.

The piece is about navigating to where we want to be and defining the route that guides us there. In a recent historical double win at the Kurt Jooss Awards held in 

Germany, Buthelezi became the first South African choreographer to win the award and to clinch both the Audience Choice and the prestigious Jury’s Choice awards.

Oscar was also recently named one of Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans for 2016.

The FEATHERS season also features fight, flight, feathers, f***ers which is a collaboration between MIDM’s 30-year-old Sunnyboy Motau and renowned British dancer/choreographer Rachel Erdos.

This work of art explores the politics, psychology and physicality of masculinity and the fight or flight principle. The work was originally commissioned by the Dance Umbrella where it was among the top five works presented at the Festival in 2015.

Fight, flight, feathers & f***ers was also staged at the Market for the Performing Arts in Africa (MASA) Festival in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoir, in March. 

Motau will also perform his new solo work titled My Black Is Black which innovatively explores the past and present issues faced and inherited by the people of colour in South Africa, and neighbouring countries. This production premiered in Harare, Zimbabwe in May where it was well-received at the HIFA Pop Up Festival. Motau is a force to be reckoned with and was also named one of Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans for 2015. He was also nominated for a prestigious Naledi Award in the Sophie Mgcina Best New Emerging Voice category last year.

Everlast is choreographed and performed by Eugene Mashiane (26) who is another MIDM rising star. Everlast is a thought-provoking artistic piece about the dehumanisation of labour through the separation of product from the producer and a forfeiting of rights of ownership to the product created.

Mashiane’s dance career began 16-years-ago in Mpumalanga and he is now among the aspiring choreographers at MIDM.

“We promise our home audience nothing less than what was presented at the NAF and I encourage all dance enthusiasts to come out in numbers to enjoy some of the best local dance talent South Africa has to offer,” Hawkins concluded.

Tickets are available online at www.webtickets.co.za. For block bookings call Catherine Pisanti on 011 7171376 or email her at catherine.pisanti@wits.ac.za.

Add event to calendar

Grace and Crossley in Concert

Acclaimed guitarists James Grace and Jonathan Crossley present an innovative and varied programme as part of the 2016 Music Concert Series.

Both musicians are accomplished soloists, maintaining full-time performing and teaching careers which regularly takes them throughout Southern Africa, Europe and the UAE. Grace and Crossley first met when they won joint-first prize at the 1997 South African National Guitar Competition.  Since that time they have featured at festivals both locally and abroad, recorded SAMA nominated albums, formed international collaborations, and in 2010 achieved a career highlight performing Rodrigo’s Concierto Madrigal for two guitars and orchestra with the JPO.

In this Sunday’s concert, the duo will perform original works for two guitars by composers including the Italian Ferdinando Carulli and Julio Cesar Oliva from Mexico, alongside arrangements of works by Manuel de Falla and Manuel Maria Ponce.

JAMES GRACE:

KANNA Award winner for Best Male Artist at the 2010 ABSA KKNK, James Grace is one of one South Africa’s leading concert artists. In recent years he has appeared with the Cape Philharmonic, the Kwa-Zulu Natal Philharmonic, the Johannesburg Festival, the Johannesburg Philharmonic and the Free State Symphony in concerti by Rodrigo, Villa – Lobos, Giuliani and Vivaldi.

This year James’s concert schedule has taken him throughout South Africa, the U.A.E and Zimbabwe. He was the soloist in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and Pieter Daniel at Kirstenbosch’s Summer Concert Series, and recently James  joined forces with Jonathan Crossley to give the South African premiere of Rodrigo’s Concierto Madrigal for two guitars with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Alessandro Crudele.

James studied at the Royal College of Music in London as a Foundation Scholar with Carlos Bonell. Upon graduating he became the first guitarist in the history of the College to receive the Tagore Gold Medal, an annual award presented to the most outstanding student.

After spending two years in Doha, in the Arabian State of Qatar where he taught guitar at an International Music Centre, James returned to South Africa and was appointed Head of Classical Guitar Studies at the University of Cape Town.

James has recently released his fifth solo album, World Café, under his own record label, Stringwise Records. His previous two releases Sevilla – Music of Spain II and Café Latino both topped the Classic Fm Top 20 South African Charts and earned James SAMA nominations for Best Popular Classical Album and Best Instrumental Album respectively.

James is in the final stages of setting up the Stringwise Young Artist’s Trust, with the aim of assisting young artists from across the country produce their own albums and offer bursaries for overseas study.

JONATHAN CROSSLEY:

Jonathan Crossley's work spans the capacities of jazz, classical and contemporary musics with skills ranging from performance to composition and technological innovation. This eclectic nature has been a feature of his life work and has yielded creative outputs across many fields.

As a guitarist he holds degrees in classical and jazz guitar and studied under international classical guitarists and the late great jazz guitarist Johnny Fourie. As a performer he has performed in four continents with local and international artists as well as multiple international performances with his own projects. These artists range from local luminaries such as James Grace and Carlo Mombelli to internationals such as Oleta Adams and Lukas Ligeti amongst many others.

The Jonathan Crossley Band released two funk albums: 'Funk for the Shaolin Monk' is available for purchase on itunes and 'Got Funk, Will Travel' on Soundcloud. The chamber jazz and classical project 'Jazz Cafe' is available through Stringwise Records and latest materials such as his work with Lukas Ligeti is available on Soundcloud for download.

His most recent work has centred around the Cyber Guitar System, developed as part of a PhD research project. This project interrogates the intersection of his own work with prosthetic electronics and systems development.

He holds a position at The University of the Witwatersrand and the position of Musical Director at His People Church Johannesburg.

PRODUCTION: Grace and Crossley in Concert
BOOKING: www.webtickets.co.za
Full price = R80.00; discount price = R55.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). Tickets are available at the door. Full price = R85.00; discount price = R60.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). 

Add event to calendar

Smallanyana Skeleton

A parody of a neo-colonial state where it's honourable membership parade their duplicity, Smallanyana Skeleton invites us to “look and laugh”.

Wits Theatre and Wits School of Arts/Division of Theatre and Performance (TAP) present

Smallanyana Skeleton

Written by Samantha De Jager, Sam Kentridge, Lehlohonolo Mmeti, Sarah Nansubuga, Danielle Oosthuizen, Caitlyn Spring and Joe Young (facilitated by Kgafela oa Magogodi)

Directed by Kgafela oa Magogodi

Smallanyana Skeleton is set in the Republic of the People, where ‘the people ba popile’. This national myth is challenged by Handy Andy, a germophobic cleaner in a parliament ridden with lewdness and the dubious characters that walk its corridors.” A parody of a neo-colonial state where it's honourable membership parade their duplicity, Smallanyana Skeleton invites us to “look and laugh” as Fela Kuti would say. This laughter permeates a story that negotiates the weighty matters of our day with a clever agility.

About the director:

Kgafela oa Magogodi, poet, playwright and stage director is a lecturer in the Wits School of Arts where he teaches in the areas of creative writing and performing arts. Magogodi is also the bandleader and composer for a spoken-word and music outfit, Kgafela le Marabele. Some of his most recent theatrical endeavors include: director and co-writer of Song of Nongoma, a jazz musical which will show case in October at the State Theatre and music director and co-writer for Book of Rebellations (2014, Soweto Theatre; 2015, Artscape).. He headed the script development for Noord which won the Adelaide Tambo award for Human Right at National Arts Festival in 2015. Magogodi’s work in the theatre took shape over a decade of experimental workshops on professional stages and within arts institutions, directing student casts at Wits University Drama School, New York University as well as Market Theatre Laboratory.Through poetry writing and performance workshops Magogodi has coached budding stage artists to express themselves to great effect, mixing character, storytelling, interpretive dance and political text. His work as mentor came to a highlight with Dom Gumede in Crepuscule (Market Theatre in July 2015) who was the winner of Best Director, Naledi Awards 2016. Magogodi is currently enrolled for a part-time PhD study with the School of Creative Writing.

Safe parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

VENUE: Wits Amphitheatre, East Campus, Braamfontein
SEASON:  Tuesday 23 – Saturday 27 August 2016
23 – 26 August @ 19h30; 27 August @ 15h00 & 19h30.
Wednesday 24 August @ 19h30 = WitsTix
RUNNING TIME: Seventy five minutes no interval.
BOOKING: www.webtickets.co.za                                                

ONLINE                    
Full price                                                      R 45.00                        
Discount for students and pensioners         R 30.00
WitsTix                                                         R 10.00                                              

DOOR
Full price                                                     R 50.00
Discount for students and pensioners         R 40.00
WitsTix                                                         R 15.00

Add event to calendar

KonKoriti

Dancer and choreographer South African born Vincent S.K Mantsoe brings his new solo work KonKoriti home to Johannesburg.

After premiering with sold out houses and standing ovations, dancer and choreographer South African born Vincent S.K Mantsoe brings his new solo work KonKoriti home to Johannesburg, with a one night only performance at The Wits Theatre on 8 September 2016 at 8:00pm.

Like much of this award-winning choreographer’s work, KonKoriti has a spiritual core, made tangible in physical expression. It is a return to Mantsoe’ original solo format, with him at the helm of the choreography, costuming and light design. The music is by Kayhan Kalhor with The Brooklyn Rider and The Master Drummers of Burundi. KonKoriti is described as; ‘a state of being’ a tireless pursuit, for self-righteousness. , inspired by the physicality, spirituality, power, pride of a “person”.

Mantsoe premiered the work in Germany in June this year, and the African premiere is programmed for JOMBA! 2016 after which in collaboration with The Wits Theatre, and with support from Institut Francais South Africa (IFAS), Mantsoe concludes his South African visit with this special performance of KonKoriti.

“It is with great honour and excitement that I will be performing here. The Wits Theatre has been my stage professionally since I started dancing. First presenting my work during the FNB Dance Umbrella, then winning most of my awards there and premiering my work together with Moving into Dance. Beautiful, exciting, memories. So I am looking forward to presenting my new work at Wits,” said Mantsoe.

Based in France, Mantsoe is acclaimed for his unique choreographic style, which has evolved on his early Afro-fusion dance training under the mentorship Sylvia “Magogo” Glasser and Moving into Dance and draws on African, Contemporary and Asian movements. His work is strongly focused on preserving cultures, particularly his own South African culture, in the 21st century. He has been commissioned to perform around the world, garnered multiple dance awards, and has been involved in residencies and collaborations in Australia, Canada, the USA, Denmark, Japan, Germany, South Korea, France and South Africa.

“I was honoured that Vincent wanted to perform his new solo show at the Wits Theatre. He is a dancer and choreographer who I have enormous respect for and staging his work at the theatre is an affirmation of the theatre being a place of innovation and excellence, “said Gita Pather: Director of Wits Theatre.

Tickets are R 200:00 and can be purchased through www.webtickets.co.za or R230:00 at the door.

Add event to calendar

De Profundis

De Profundis promises music lovers a unique experience by virtue of the compositions Joanna Wicherek has chosen for this concert.

She has played in South Africa before and is a Polish native, a country that apart from the great Chopin, has produced a number of composers who achieved world-wide fame both in the 20and 21st th century including Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), Witold Lutosławski (1913-94), Krzysztof Penderecki (1933- ) and Henryk Górecki (1933-2010). The programme is a mix of Polish and American music.

Frederic Chopin‘s famous Scherzo in b minor will provide the concert’s dramatic prelude. The work was composed and published in 1837 and dedicated to Countess Adèle Fürstenstein, a favorite student of Chopin’s. It will be followed by Epiphora for piano and tape, written by Polish composer Pawel Mykietyn. It is phrased as a metaphysical question about the role of a pianist -virtuoso, interrupted by a deep electro-acoustic substance, initiated by an atom bomb explosion. With the presence of subtle quotes from Bach and Chopin, Epiphora is a sensual and intellectual exploration of a new musical space.

The culmination of the programme, De Profundis by Frederic Rzewski, promises an unforgettable concert experience. Described by the composer as “melodramatic oratorio” for speaking pianist, De Profundis is a startlingly original work which uses an Oscar Wilde text written during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol and requires the pianist to recite, sing, hum, whistle, use a Harpo horn, and hit his own body and the piano while playing a score of considerable variety and drama.

The programme is as follows:

• Frederic Chopin (1810 - 1849) - Scherzo Bb minor Op. 31 No.2 (1837)
• Paweł Mykietyn (1971) - Epiphora for piano and tape (1996)
• Frederic Rzewski (1938) - De Profundis for speaking pianist (1994)
• Safe parking is available at Origins Centre, Braamfontein West Campus

Safe parking is available at Origins Centre, Braamfontein West Campus

Cost
Full price = R80.00; discount price = R55.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). Tickets are available at the door. Full price = R85.00; discount price = R60.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). 

ABOUT THE MUSICIAN:

Joanna Wicherek is an accomplished classical pianist performs internationally with many renowned artists. In 2014 she was awarded with a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival, South Africa. Her extensive repertoire has an emphasis on contemporary music. She also has a profound understanding of ‘historically informed performance’ and specialist knowledge of historical keyboard instruments.

Wicherek professionally collaborates with Poland’s most important composers i.e. Paweł Mykietyn, Paweł Szymański and Sławomir Kupczak. She performed Szymański’s music on the soundtrack to the film Violated Letters (2010). Kupczak dedicated his latest work Widziałem Cię to Joanna and her musical partner, Michał Sławecki.

In 2003, Wicherek recorded a CD with the early music ensemble Proavitus, contributing harpsichord and singing parts.

Wicherek has been awarded prizes at the Competition of the 20th and 21st Centuries for Young Performers, Warsaw and the International Competition of Contemporary Chamber Music, Krakow. Joanna is a Young Artist of the prestigious Accademia Villa Bossi in Italy. Since 2014 she has lived in South Africa where she is active as a performer, accompanist and a piano pedagogue.

Add event to calendar

Thari

"Thari" focuses on three families, connected and disconnected by a lack of water.Will they break open the dark cloud or will it continue to withhold the answer?

Wits Theatre and Wits School of Arts/Division of Theatre and Performance (TAP) in partnership with the Market Theatre, Newtown present: THARI
Devised by Prince Lamla and the cast; directed by Prince Lamla

"Thari entsho” is a saying for the black nation. Kwamavovo village has been covered with a dark cloud, cursed with a dry landscape and burdened by the killing of a man. Its people are asking, crying and longing for salvation. "Thari" focuses on three families, connected and disconnected by a lack of water. Will they break open the dark cloud or will it continue to withhold the answers they so deeply thirst for?

This is the second production between Wits Theatre and the Market Theatre Foundation which is based on cementing relationships between key institutions of learning and professional theatre environments. Brokered between the Director of Wits Theatre Gita Pather and James Ngcobo, the Artistic Director of The Market Theatre, this strategic partnership has resulted in ongoing collaborations between the students of the Market Theatre Laboratory and the Wits School of Arts.

About the director:
Prince Lamla is an award-winning theatre director, actor trainer, and educator. He was the Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for Theatre in 2013 and was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in the same year. He teaches in the area of performance and theatre-making, and has previously taught at AFDA Johannesburg where his contribution to actor training focused on ensemble work.

Prince trained at the Market Theatre Laboratory and has attended a course in Sweden at Stadsteater titled, Exploration of Text and Interpretation. Theatre development is a key focus for Lamla indicated by the work he has undertaken for organisations like Grahamstown Foundation Arts Education, Market Theatre’s Community Theatre Development program, Gauteng Organisation of Community Theatre, Twist Durban and Rare Arts Productions in conjunction with Bakwena Consortium in North West.

He has directed many plays, most notably, Coal Yard, Woza Albert! and Asinamali. His acclaimed production of Woza Albert! went on to have a six-month season at the Market Theatre followed by touring performances to the Midlands at Michaelhouse, the Swaziland International Festival of the Arts, and a month-long season at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. He has also directed a number of student productions at Sibikwa Arts Centre and AFDA Johannesburg, and has worked as a directing assistant in South Africa, Austria and England.

Parking is available Newtown Mall
Season:  Wednesday 31 August – Sunday 04 September 2016

• 31 August (Opening) @ 20h15
• 01 September @ 13h15 & 20h15
• 02 September @ 13h15 (WitsTix) & 20h15
• 03 September @ 20h15
• 04 September @ 15h15

Running time: Seventy five minutes no interval.
Booking: www.webtickets.co.za

Tickets are available online at R60, at the door at R65. Students and pensioners pay R45 online and R50 at the door. The Friday performance (2 September) @ 13h15 is a WitsTix performance and will cost R10 online and R 15.00 at the door.

Add event to calendar

Between Sisters

Between Sisters is a ritualistic exploration of two sisters and their relationship with their madam.

The Drama for Life Sex Actually Festival is a cross-community HIV and Aids arts education, activist and therapeutic intervention. The festival is curated in a way that allows arts practitioners and audience members to holistically engage with the subject, to interrogate the complexities surrounding themes of sex, sexuality, relationships, culture, gender and sexual reproductive health; within human rights and social justice discourse. Drama for Life, based at University of the Witwatersrand, is an arts centre for global social transformation and healing.

Between Sisters is a ritualistic exploration of two sisters and their relationship with their madam. Inspired by Xoliswa Dilata’s thesis on the relationship between black madams and their black employees, the play brings focus to the masks we wear in daily life; the roles we play that define us without capturing our true selves.

The two sisters engage in role-playing, acts for transgressions by planning the murder of their boss. They take turns portraying both sides of the power divide – helper and boss. In assuming the different roles, they express their own love/hate relationship and the not-so-subtle humiliations involved in domestic labour.

Refiloe Lepere spoke about why she has created this play: “As a director I am drawn to the play because in South Africa the relationship of the helper and employer is always a complex one. It has become even more intricate in post-apartheid South Africa, as it still carries the stench of the segregated and classist past. The play offers a new way of looking at the helpers in our world, as ingenious and ambitious women. It questions the idea of what is an authentic performance of self. It also moves us to re-imagine our expectations on the representation of domestic workers in our lives.”

In workshopping the play, the director incorporated the voices, experiences and stories of contemporary domestic workers in South Africa. These stories and experiences are used to give depth to the maids’ rebellion. The play takes us on a journey of the women in our lives: our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, our friends, ourselves. Refiloe Lepere’s stated objective is the hope that a narrative will emerge that navigates the intersecting fault-lines of the personal in labour relations and how power is assumed and performed.

About the Director

Refiloe Lepere writer, director; is a dramaturge at the SA State Theatre. She is also a lecturer at Drama for Life, University of Witwatersrand. Refiloe received her MA from New York University. Recently she was named as one of Mzansi’s 100 Influencers (The Young Independents). Her PhD looks at the efficacy of Performance as a Research method that can be used to document the oral histories of domestic workers in South Africa.

 In her work as a journalist, director, and playwright, she weaves history, statistics and personal narrative to address issues of social (in) justice, intersectional identities and black people. Refiloe travels across the country performing, presenting, and facilitating workshops on writing radio dramas, political theatre, and addressing race and diversity. 

Safe parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

SEASON:  Wednesday 7 – Saturday 10 September 2016

07 – 09 September @ 19h30; 10 September @ 15h00 & 19h30.

Thursday 08 September @ 13h15 = WitsTix

RUNNING TIME: 80 minutes no interval.

BOOKING: www.webtickets.co.za                                                                     

ONLINE                      

Full price                                                       R 45.00                        
Discount for students and pensioners               R 30.00
WitsTix                                                          R 10.00                                          

DOOR

Full price                                                     R 50.00
Discount for students and pensioners             R 40.00
WitsTix                                                        R 15.00  

Add event to calendar

The Dean’s Concert

A programme of Western classical music, jazz and popular music.

A number of years ago, the Dean of Humanities with foresight felt that there was an absolute necessity to raise money for financially disadvantaged first-year music students at Wits University. A concert was the obvious vehicle as a fundraiser and what better than for the first-year students to perform in the concert and then have a small panel of lecturers judge their performances and award prizes in designated amounts of cash to the three winners? Further, in acknowledgement of the initiator of the idea, the concert would be called The Dean’s Concert.

The tradition has been maintained - and expanding on the lunch-hour concept, The Dean’s Concert, which takes place in the Atrium on Tuesday 13 September @ 19:30, will highlight some of the First Year and Foundation music student performers.

Students will compete for monetary prizes, sponsored by the present Dean of Humanities, Prof Ruksana Osman. The programme will include western classical, jazz, and popular music.

Entrance is FREE and seats are allocated on a first come first serve basis – do not miss the opportunity to imbibe some of the country’s hottest budding talent, specially selected by the Division of Music’s practical staff.

Add event to calendar

Mountain Language [and] Pinter Sketches

Known as one of Harold Pinter’s political plays, Mountain Language, by arguably is one of the 20th century’s greatest playwrights.

Known as one of Harold Pinter’s political plays, Mountain Language, by arguably one of the 20^th century’s greatest playwrights, takes place in an unnamed prison, country and time. Pinter is said to have written it after visiting Kurdistan but denied that the play was about the Kurdish struggle. He wanted it to be considered in a more universal aspect of gross human rights infringements and the struggle it portrays is one being waged across the globe today.

The director Tina Johnson is working with a young cast of student actors from Wits University's Theatre and Performance Division as well as ex-Market Theatre laboratory students to create an evening of Pinter. Mountain Language forms the first part, a short play set in a nowhere land, perhaps a desert where these “mountain people’ are persecuted by a dictatorial regime as they exploit the natural resources belonging to this fictional tribe. It is a theme we are all familiar with and the play speaks strongly to the abuse of powers by totalitarian systems where the law is abused, used to tyrannize and subjugate and where justice has no place.

Harald Pinter’s greatness lay in his use of language and his plays force us to question language, meaning, life and our very reality that is filtered through our use of words. In Mountain Language, the element of the repression of a people’s language is an overarching theme implying the loss of expression, one’s very culture and freedom. The play is told in sparse language, in four short and brutal scenes. 

The Pinter Sketches provides a welcome relief that is a celebration of language. In eleven short scenes, the repetitions, banality and clichés that characterise our daily linguistic interactions, is highlighted. It forces us to interrogate meaning, recognize how incoherent we can be and take an insane delight in the words we use, the many ways we hide our real meaning to conceal or assault, as well as to express. Its style is a skit, a ‘vaudeville’ of words, where Pinter holds up a mirror to the funny and eccentric ways we relate to one another. 

This programme celebrates language and the genius of Pinter: his capturing of language, its rhythms in all its brilliance, cruelty and absurdity. As a multi-lingual society, Tina Johnson said: “South Africans ‘get’ Pinter, they know the vagaries and the brilliance of languages- this is a multi-lingual society, the slang used here is as vital as can be, and they understand what he has done with the English language and how he has used the rhythms and cadences of the east side of London to create a masterful comment on who we are as people in this world.”

Tina has worked in South Africa for many years, directing at such theatres as the Market Theatre, the Baxter and the Playhouse. She has also taught acting at every corner and ‘dorp’ of the country, as well as worked at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Originally from USA, where she studied theatre at California institute of the Arts, she has worked in the US, India, Europe and, most gratefully, in South Africa.

Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

VENUE: Wits Downstairs Theatre, East Campus, Braamfontein
SEASON:  Tuesday 20 – Saturday 24 September 2016
20 – 23 September @ 19h30; 24 September @ 15h30 and 19h30
Tuesday 20 September @ 19h30 (WitsTix)

RUNNING TIME: Seventy five minutes no interval.
BOOKING: www.webtickets.co.za                                                                     

ONLINE                      
Full price                                                       R 45.00                        
Discount for students and pensioners         R 30.00
WitsTix                                                         R 10.00                          

DOOR
Full price                                                     R 50.00
Discount for students and pensioners         R 40.00
WitsTix                                                        R 15.00  

Add event to calendar

The Andre Petersen Quartet

Award- winning jazz pianist, Andre Petersen is sure to set the Great Hall alight on 27 September with his incredible quartet.

Wits Theatre and Wits School of Arts/Division of Music present The Andre Petersen Quartet

Award- winning jazz pianist, and recently appointed Wits lecturer, Andre Petersen is sure to set the Great Hall alight on 27 September with his incredible quartet featuring recent Berklee College of Music graduate and now New York -based, Kesivan Naidoo (drums), Sisonke Xonti (saxophone) and Romy Brauteseth (bass).

The concert will feature mostly original material from Petersen's two recently released albums, the Norwegian/South African collaboration, "The Storm Inside" featuring Feya Faku, and the acclaimed two-piano album with New York based, classical pianist, Kathleen Tagg, "Where Worlds Collide". It is an eclectic programme of original material with influences of Cape Ghoema, classical, post-Bop and many more, delivering a uniquely Pan-African sound - a concert not to be missed!

“...a compelling writer and lateral-thinking pianist...contemplative...playing both inside and outside the box, his delicate lines like gentle raindrops...”  All about Jazz

“Potentially the most interesting South African pianist!”   Mail and Guardian


“...it’s a joy to notice Petersen’s roots and his formidable piano playing!’  Nettavisen (Norway) 

Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

PRODUCTION: The Andre Petersen Quartet
VENUE: Wits Great Hall, Braamfontein East Campus.
SEASON:  Tuesday 27 September 2016 @ 19h30
RUNNING TIME: Seventy minutes no interval.
BOOKING: webtickets.co.za
Full price = R80.00; discount price = R55.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). Tickets are available at the door. Full price = R85.00; discount price = R60.00 (students, pensioners and Wits staff). 

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS:

Andre Petersen (PIANO) is undoubtedly one of South Africa’s most sought after pianists and educators. He is the recipient of numerous classical music and jazz music awards including first prize in the Old Mutual Jazz Encounters Competition, first prize in the SAMRO Overseas Piano Scholarship Competition, the Oppenheimer Overseas Scholarship, and the Vuya Foundation Scholarship Award. Participating at the prestigious Parisian 2011 Concours de Piano-jazz Martial Solal Competition as the only African pianist to be selected from 68 international pianists, Andre received a Special Mention Award. His recording and performance credits include working with Grammy nominee, US vibraphonist Stefon Harris, Reggie Washington, Dave Liebman, Marcus Strickland, Dave Young, Morten Halle, Jazz Jamaica (UK) featuring Soweto Kinch, Denys Baptiste, members of the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra and the Norwegian Avant Garde band Soyr. Petersen has also worked with some of South Africa's leading musicians, including, Winston Mankunku, Makaya Mtshoko, Feya Faku, Robbie Jansen, Judith Sephuma, Jimmy Dludlu and many others.Also due for release this year (2016) his second album with award winning Norwegian saxphonist Morten Halle, featuring special guest Feya Faku.

Andre is currently on the faculty of the Wits School of The Arts/Division of Music, University of Witwatersrand.                      

Kesivan Naidoo (DRUMS)
Kesivan is an award winning drummer and composer. He began studying the drums at the tender age of 10. After high school he attended the University of Cape Town and completed a B.Mus Honors in Jazz studies. Kesivan has a diverse musical vocabulary that he has formed across the globe with different groups that highlight the different styles ranging from Modern South African Jazz (Tribe, Kesivan and the Lights), Electronic (Closet Snare), World Music (Babu) as well as Contemporary Classical (Beat Bag Bohemia). Kesivan has performed with some of the world’s finest musicians including:
Dave Liebman, Danilo Perez, Tarus Marteen , Joe Lovano, John Patiticci Maria Schneider, Miriam Makeba, Bheki Mseleku, Zim Ngqawana, Feya Faku, Rene McLean, Jimmy Dludlu, Judith Sepumba, Hotep Galeta, Steve Newman Carlo Mombelli and Winston MankunkuHe is a Zildjian Artist, endorsing both Cymbals and Sticks as well as New Clear Blasts (Blas-sticks under his own special name Kezonators). Kesivan now lives in New York City.

Sisonke Xonti (SAXOPHONE) started playing music at the age of ten but it was only when he turned thirteen that he fell in love with the saxophone and continued playing classical saxophone until he received a UNISA Grade 8 Distinction (2006).His introduction to jazz came at the age of sixteen (2004) when he joined the Cape Town based band, The Little Giants, led by George Werner and the late Ezra Ngcukana. That same year, he was selected to be a part of the School’s Big Band at the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival in Grahamstown. And later (2007) was also selected for the National Youth Band for the first time under the leadership of Dr. Andrew Lilley. He has since played with an array of highly acclaimed musicians, namely Jimmy Dludlu, Victor Ntoni, Lira, Hugh Masekela, Judith Sephuma, Dj Christos, DJ Vinny DA Vinci, Herbie Tsoaeli, Feya Faku, Freshlyground, Neo Muyanga, Bheki Khoza, Barney Wailer from Bob Marley and the Wailers, Mike Campbell and the UCT Big Band, Abdullah Ibrahim and The Cape Town Jazz Orchestra, CODA, Andre Petersen, Kyle Shepherd, Bokani Dyer, Marcus Wyatt, Goodluck, Lwanda Gogwana, The International Youth Jazz Band, Simphiwe Dana, Andile Yenana and also as band leader in his own jazz project.

Romy Brauteseth (BASS).
Born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1989, Brauteseth was surrounded by a musical family and played piano and guitar at an early age. She learnt to play electric bass and read music and played in the Victoria Park High School Big Band. She was chosen for the National Schools Big Band in 2005 and the National Youth Band in 2010. After matriculating, she studied graphic design at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University whilst continuing a freelance music career in various bands, collaborations and theatre shows.Brauteseth moved to Cape Town and found her musical match in the upright bass, which she started playing in 2011. She has become one of SA’s most sought after young bass players and has played with top artists including Melanie Scholtz, Kesivan Naidoo, Mark Fransman, Marcus Wyatt, Feya Faku, Andre Petersen, Nduduzo Makathini, Dan Shout, Reza Khota, Lee Thomson, Gorm Helfjord, Kevin Gibson, Andrew Lilley, Alvin Dyers, Bokani Dyer and Kyle Shepherd at gigs, Bokani Dyer Trio and festivals across the country, and increasingly internationally.

Add event to calendar

Postponed-Burn

Wits Theatre is proud to present Burn after its two sold out performances at the 969 Festival in July.

NOTE: It is with great regret that the Wits Theatre is forced to postpone the performances of BURN scheduled for this week (14-16 October) at Wits Theatre, East Campus Braamfontein.

Burn is cancelled until further notice .Please note that if you have purchased tickets from Webtickets, they will refund you directly on request. We regret the inconvenience incurred.

Back by popular demand, the production is presented in association with Match Box Collective in collaboration with Liquid Fusion. This full length dance theatre duet explores the tense relationship between Earth and Man, and how the two hold each other to ransom. Burn is strong, powerful and explosive, testing the limits of the human body.

The unknown future rolls towards us. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Could we wake up one day to find the world on fire? Maybe we will not see it coming and not be able to stop it.

Fire exists as a duality of life and death, it nurtures and threatens. Inspired in part by ‘Fire on the Mountain’ by Arthur Golding, fire represents a tool that separates humankind from the animals and represents both savagery and hope.

Choreographed and directed by Matchbox Theatre Collective’s Bailey Snyman and performed by Liquid Fusion’s Mark Tatham and Daniel Geddes, BURN chronicles man’s relationship with Mother Earth. BURN is an epic tale told through dance about man’s discovery of the world he inhabits and the consequences of his unprecedented failure to preserve this relationship.

BURN walks the tenuous line between past, present and future of our collective history with fire and results in an explosive conclusion that comments on the visible effects of our inability to preserve our precious resources.

Fresh from performances in Iceland, Norway, Greece the show went on to a run in Grahamstown where the it won a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival, 2016. BURN exhilarates with relentless choreography as two men navigate the creation myth, the art of war and the desolation of post-apocalyptic destruction.

BURN’s original soundtrack composed by Geddes and edited by Snyman is a haunting exploration of fire and an emotional tribute to this planet we call home.

Music, bodies and choreography collude in a life that becomes a race with the fire. 

BURN premiered during an artistic residency at The Freezer Theatre in Iceland in March 2016, before moving on to performances in Norway and Greece. It continued with a run at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in July where it won a prestigious Standard Bank Ovation Award in July 2016.

Humanity is the Earth’s most intimate friend.

Links to reviews, further details, and multimedia for Burn below:

Video links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TjXoKlk5gY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpojykucusM

Newspaper Review: http://cuemedia.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Full-Edition-8-for-WEB.pdf (The article is on Page 17, Touched by a Flame by Jessica White)

Photographs:
http://icue.ru.ac.za/index.php/CuePix-2016/FRINGE/DANCE/Burn
http://www.liquidfusionsa.com/burn-gallery

About the Show: http://www.liquidfusionsa.com/burn

Free parking is available in Senate House; the entrance is on Jorissen Street, Braamfontein

VENUE: Wits Downstairs Theatre, Braamfontein East Campus
SEASON:  14, 15 & 16 October 2016
RUNNING TIME: Forty five minutes; no interval.
SEASON:  Friday 14, Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 October 2016
14 October @ 20h00; 15 October @ 20h00 & 16 October @ 15h00

BOOKING: www.webtickets.co.za                                                 
ONLINE                      

Full price                                                 R 80.00                        
Discount for students and pensioners         R 70.00
Blockbookings                                          R 60.00                          

DOOR

Full price                                                 R 85.00
Discount for students and pensioners         R 75.00

Age restriction: PG

Add event to calendar

So Solo 2016

So Solo, the festival of one-person plays at WITS, is back with an inspiring third season of thought-provoking theatre. Book your tickets today!

So Solo, the festival of one-person plays at WITS has a line-up of note this year and will provide thought-provoking theatre between the 23 November and 4 December at Wits Theatre in Braamfontein.

The hugely anticipated So Solo kicks off with an inspiring 3^rd season promising the same excellent standard of theatre performances, which audiences have been witness to since the festival debuted in 2014

This year 11 talented performers will take to the stage creating a programme characterised by a great diversity of form and expression. “The programme this year encapsulates the varied artistic impulses that characterise South African theatre and performance. So Solo magnifies the significance of storytelling and while different forms and techniques are used, the result is a festival that celebrates our shared and very unique reality.”

Johannesburg audiences can look forward to watching everything from comedy to drama at the festival, which will begin with So Solo’s officially commissioned play for 2016, Gqisha! The Chant that Calls. This socio-political play by Khayelihle “Dom” Gumede and Raezeen Wentworth reflects on the war dance of so many of South Africans striving for a better future. The piece is performed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and will have 10 performances during So Solo. . Gita Pather, Director of Wits Theatre and So Solo said:  “Dom Gumede and Raezeen Wentworth are Wits graduates with very different strengths and talents. Both have proven their worth in the professional arena and. I was intrigued by the possibilities they would present as a commissioned duo. Commissioning a new play is all about the creative team and they have chosen to work with Nhlanhla who is a formidable talent on his own.

The So Solo plays will be performed in the WITS theatre venues.

Book online at www.webtickets.co.za or purchase your tickets from box office.

NOTE:

Wits Theatre, due to unforeseen circumstances, has had to cancel the production First Lady, directed by Khutjo Green, and scheduled to perform on 3 & 4 December in the Wits Amphitheatre as part of So Solo, the festival of one-person plays 2016.

Wits Theatre apologises for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Please note that tickets already purchased may be refunded at http://www.webtickets.co.za

Add event to calendar

Gqisha! The Chant that Calls

The Wits So Solo festival opens with the war chant of a dynamic trio of artists

In a year wracked by turbulence and reckoning, three young, diversely talented artists bring their war chant to stage at this year’s So Solo festival running at Wits Theatre, Braamfontein from 23 November to 4 December.

Gqisha! The Chant that Calls is officially the So Solo commissioned play for 2016. Created by Wits graduates Dom Gumede and Raezeen Wentworth and performed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Gqisha! entwines the stirring weight of personal history with the fraught narrative of intergenerational dispossession and the literal and non-literal reactions to that history.

Gqisha! refers to the Zulu war chant used in the preparation for battle or the gathering of energy for the task ahead, and the production considers this both literally and figuratively. The narrative is drawn from Mahlangu’s personal history traced back to his grandfather, and his family’s past. On a deeper level the play reflects the country’s socio-political landscape and the war dance so many people are going through in the pursuit of a better, more inclusive South Africa.

As co-creators, Gumede and Wentworth bring uniquely different talents to the process. Both have had experience writing, directing and performing in a number of different creative spaces.

A storyteller by nature, Gumede is passionate about social and community upliftment initiatives and community based theatre-making. He has worked in theatre, television, film, academia and fine arts and has served at different times as a producer, broadcast media executive and creative director. He has two Naledi Awards to his name including Best Director of a play for his production of Crepuscule. As a director his credits include; Broken Chant performed by Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner Sonia Radebe and Co-choreographed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and wrote Milk and Honey which he co-directed with James Ngcobo. He is currently the inaugural theatre curator of William Kentridge’s art centre: The Less Good Idea due to launch in March 2017.

Wentworth completed her Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand during which time, she devised and directed both text based and physical theatre. Wentworth performed in productions directed by, Mwenya Kabwe, Bailey Snyman, Louisa Levy and Jane Crewe. She wrote and directed ‘Ntwa ya Dipaka’ and co-directed the devised work ‘In/Sight’ which was performed at the Grahamstown National Arts festival. She performed in the one woman show Synapses choreographed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Sonia Radebe, staged in double-bill with Broken Chant at the South African State Theatre. Wentworth has also worked as a researcher and script writer, for two seasons, on the television talk show Rise.

The multi-talented Mahlangu has his performance beginnings in dance, and is a graduate of Moving into Dance Mophatong. His talent crosses genre and form and he has made great strides in the performing arts industry as a choreographer, actor, singer, poet, dancer and composer. He has been commissioned to work with numerous multi-award winning artists, and his work has been seen all over Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Europe. He currently works as a director for his company Song and Dance Works.

Gqisha! The Chant that Calls will open the So Solo festival on 23 November 2016 and will have ten performances during the festival.

• 23 November @ 19h30
• 24 November @ 19h30
• 25 November @ 19h15
• 26 November @ 14h30 & 18h30
• 27 November @ 18h30
• 01 December @ 19h30
• 02 December @ 19h30
• 03 December @ 15h30 & 18h30

The So Solo plays will be performed in the Wits Theatre Complex. 

Book online at www.webtickets.co.za or purchase your tickets from box office.

Facebook: So Solo
Twitter: WitsTheatre1 #sosolo2016

Images credit: Mariola Biela 

Add event to calendar

Traditional Instruments Concert

Three giants of indigenous African music are set to stage a memorable free concert at the Wits Theatre.

Multi-award-winning South African musician Dizu Plaatjies, Senegalese Kora maestro Noumoucounda Cissokho and prolific Durban musician Bavikile “MaBhengu” Ngema, will showcase traditional African instruments at the event dubbed “Traditional Instruments Concert”. The concert is part of the Music In Africa Foundation’s Instrument Building And Repair Project, which aims to foster the professionalisation of instrument making and repair in Africa, especially in relation to indigenous instruments. Performances will be preceded by a short panel discussion on traditional music and instruments.

Cape Town-based Dizu Plaatjies is one of the most prolific South African musicians who specialise in traditional African instruments. Over the past three decades he has toured extensively across the globe, winning 

numerous awards and fans. Dizu is also the founder of the internationally celebrated marimba group, Amampondo, with which he worked for 15 years, releasing seven successful albums.

Noumoucounda is a stage master in the line of griots in Senegal. He has played all over the world and collaborated with some of the biggest musicians, including Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour, Ky-Mani Marley, and more recently Stromae on the hit album, Racine carrée. Noumoucounda comes from a family of talented artists. His father, Banna Cissoko, was a famous kora player and one of the pillars of Senegal's national orchestra. A master of the stage, Noumoucounda fuses Senegal’s traditional music with modern styles such as reggae and rap.

Bavikile Ngema has made a name for herself as a composer and performer. She specializes on Nguni musical bows (the umakhweyana and umqangala). She also plays harmonica and jaws-harp. Learning to play by watching and imitating her sisters, Bavikile’s uniquely extended umakhweyana playing technique elicits a fourth fundamental note from the single-stringed instrument. Her acute rhythmic, melodic and contrapuntal sensibility lends a palpable, youthful vibrancy to her original compositions and interpretations of traditional Nguni repertoires.

The Music In Africa Foundation’s Instrument Building And Repair workshop will take place in Johannesburg from 18 – 26 November. The aim of the workshop is to train participants to build and repair musical instruments, as well as to monetise the craft. 22 participants from South Africa will exchange with four instrument makers from Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana and the Central African Republic, under the guidance of four trainers; Luigi Marucchi, Mpho Molikeng, Christian Carver and Bavikile Ngema.

The project is funded by the National Lottery Commission (NLC). Partners include SAMRO Foundation, Wits School of Arts, Goethe-Institut and Siemens Stiftung.

Traditional Instruments Concert
Date: Friday 25 November 2016
Venue: Wits Theatre
Time: 19h30
RSVP: projects@musicinafrica.net by 24 November

Add event to calendar