I never lied to the kids, the aim is to build our own banks, businesses and world. To control our own infrastructure and resources. To empower and serve my people.
Still KOSP, because black is beautiful.
Still KOSP, because black is great.
Still KOSP, because I know the history of my people before it was rewritten and we were conquered.
Still KOSP, because I know my greatness.
Still KOSP, because one day I’ll perish, I want to leave a better world for the coming generation.
Still KOSP, because I am the change I want to see.
Still KOSP, because God chose me and I will serve my people.
Still KOSP, because heroism, death haunts me and I know my time is limited.
Still KOSP, because it matters in a world where nothing really matters.
Still KOSP, because we have been surpressed for so long and we need to rise up the ashes anew.
Still KOSP, because politics isn’t practical.
Still KOSP, because I am still black.
Still KOSP, because I am the leader of my generation.
Turning face, I want to be loved, admired, to be cheered by the fans, for them to sing my song. No more giving my attention to people who don’t deserve it. No more interacting with low-vibration people, they are dragging me down, the negative energy, it’s messing with my aura and affecting the trajectory of my progress. I am turning face, I want to be a star and an inspiration to all like the Brahma Bull. I want to be the guy who opens doors for coming generations. I want to inspire, no more excuses and a life of mediocrity, I want to grace covers of major magazines and appear on the big screen. Best in the world like CM Punk, CM Punk, CM Punk! No more giving my power to people who don’t deserve it. If I stay longer then I am paid less, so let’s decrease the hours while maximizing on the quality. I am turning face, no more Mr. Bad guy, no more low-blows and you ain’t gotta acknowledge me anymore, just a fair and honest fight and if I lose, I accept. I am turning face, I am the good guy now, YEAH, I want to be cheered by the fans, I want them to sing my song. I have integrated my shadow and motherfuckers know better than to take me on, cause I don’t back down and I deliver my receipt with conviction. I am turning face, hustle, loyalty and respect like Cena, time to appeal to the broader audience, make them believe in a hero, make them believe in dreams, cause anything is possible, you just need to keep pressing. I am turning face, I want to be a role model to millions of people, instill good values, teach good morals and ethics, to be a good person. Yes, assholes still exist but I am better equipped to deal with them, I’ll kick their ass while pandering to the audience because I am a master of showmanship now. YEAH! I am turning face, because no one could displace me at the top as a heel, I’ve been carrying the show alone and I need some connection. I am turning face and that’s the bottomline cause I said so. Having beer bashes with the fans like Stone Cold Steve Austin. Turning face cause I need to be relatable to the crowd. Turning face cause I need a different crowd. Turning face, I want to be cheered by the fans, I want them to sing my song.
At the Market Theatre to watch “The Last Country”. Different set-up to what we accustomed to, talk about inclusion and intimacy. We were secluded all together, in a square-rectanglist pattern, that was the formation of the seating arrangement, that was the stage, we were literally in the play, the performers were with us! Great work by Empatheatre! The show is empathetic, we had to listen to the woman’s struggles, pains, dreams and misfortunes. The Zimbabwean woman studying for her PhD and is met with miserable stances as she navigates the world. The woman selling on the streets without permits colliding with the police resulting in the confiscation of goods, now you can’t sell anything, you are hungry. You go at it tomorrow, same place, same style, because what’s the alternative, life goes on, a permit is R900 a year, just ask the street vendors, nothing is for free. I love the street vendors dreams, she sells bead apparel, she wants to build a house.
smart
The Last Country is an immersive and deeply moving theatre piece exploring the stories of migrant women. Through the stories of Ofrah from the DRC, MaThwala from Ndwedwe in KwaZulu-Natal, Aamiina from Somalia, and Aneni from Zimbabwe, the audience is intimately immersed into experiences of leaving home and arriving in a South African city, KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. The script carefully weaves together experiences of struggle, pain, humour, hope and resilience in ways that surface our shared humanity, and how the smallest acts of kindness can support and transform the experiences of those seeking sanctuary in our cities.
The play features an all-star cast, that includes Mpume Mthombeni, Faniswa Yisa, Andile Vilakazi and Nompilo Maphumulo, it is an experience. The actors are amazing! They are talking to us directly, eye-ball to eye-ball, you feel them, you understand their pain and struggles, home affairs and their weak system, you wake up early and even that is not a guarantee of anything. They send you back to Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe sends you back.
After the show, we had a QandA session, we explored the show, we got to reflect about the show, discuss issues, deliver commentry, the audience got involved, it was a wonderful experience. I met a girl who is a writer, got short-listed for the DALRO Can Themba Merit Award for her short story, she chose sci fi for her genre, she is beautiful. I submitted “ADULTERY” they went silent, I understand.
Congratulations Neil Coppen and Empatheatre for a great show and a deserved standing ovation.
At the Market Theatre to watch the highly acclaimed play “Mantsopa” by Dr. Jerry Mofokeng wa Makhetha. The scenery was so cool, the majority of people had on their traditional attire, they donned blankets wrapped around their shoulders. You could feel the spirit of the Basotho people. The dialogue between people was also in Sesotho, the demographic was well represented. This is such a great show! So original and authentically African. I love the Market Theatre because it tells our stories. Last thing I said after the bow was “wow”, it was the general consensus, it induces goosebumps.
Mantsopa, whose grave lies at Modderpoort in the eastern Free State, was born in 1793 and died in 1908. A survivor of famine and subsequent cannibalism, she grew to become a trusted advisor to King Moshoeshoe I, correctly predicting victorious battle outcomes for Basotho against colonial settlers and speaking truth to power with unshaking honesty. She was a prophet, a seer with incredible foresight to predict the future accurately. This foresight led people into thinking that she was a witch with extraterrestrial powers! She lived to be a 111 years old, living across three centuries.
The story follows fictitious great granddaughter Tholoana who has inherited the gift of song. Rejecting her calling, she gets an opportunity to work at club in the city as a singer. She runs from herself. Tholoana’s attitude towards this calling and gift is one of derision. She doesn’t want the gift, she doesn’t want the fame, she’d rather be a psychologist, studying other people’s minds instead. In the city, things don’t go according to script. Despite her best efforts, she is rejected. Her suitor from her village in Lesotho who is smitten by her comes along and attempts to put her in alignment with who she really is – the great granddaughter of Mantsopa and the chosen one. Following her rejection, he succeeds and Tholoana embraces her calling, her destiny. The story features music and dance. The live band curate the story through unique instruments that produce sound effects that mimic nature, birds, rain, the band are a constant fixture of the show. They provide depth and feeling to the show. The performers were outstanding, performing with feeling and conviction. They inhabited the characters they were playing. They were relatable and the interactions between the characters was naturalistic and free-flowing. The set is just gorgeous! I loved the poetry. I loved everything.
On the square for the opening of a dolls house pt. 2. Full house, the place is buzzing and excitement is in the air. Nothing is better than a filled up theatre on the square, the energy is contagious. It’s close knit, intimate and warm. The laughs rebound and echo in the auditorium, you can hear every sound, every gasp, every comment from the audience and the view is in your face, up close and personal, no matter which seat you take. Every seat is a great seat, even the seats close to the pillars.
The show is a great one, it captivated the audience throughout. It’s humorous and explores subjects on self-identity, marriage, traditional gender roles, love and freedom. Nora Helmer comes back after 15 years to the family she abandoned in search of herself. Not much has changed except that the children have grown. The helper (Anne Marie) stepped up in her absence and raised them, neglecting her own life and children in the process. It’s not like she had a choice, she’s not from money, she had to do whatever she could to survive. Nora became a successful author in that period, writing books that serves mainly the female demographic. She questions the institution of marriage and monogamy. Is it worth it? Does it make sense? Why is one partner enough for a lifetime? Surely, I am not the person you married because I’ve changed, you have changed. I am reduced to a role and expectations and I am not myself anymore. I don’t even know who I am anymore, I am subsumed by your domineering character. When relationships start out, it’s all fresh, it’s new, it’s exciting, we go out of our way to woe the other person, we role play, we do things that we will never do again to gain access into that person’s life and once we do, we relax, we become complacent, we stop trying so hard, the relationship stales up and we lose ourselves.
It is this type of writing that gets Nora in trouble with the law. It is this type of writing that empowers her female readers to leave their families. She also finds out that she is still married with her husband, she initially thought she was divorced but her husband didn’t post the paperwork. She wants a divorce but her husband Torvald won’t give it to her. She involves her daughter, hoping that she can convince her father. Eventually he relents and gives it to her but she doesn’t want it anymore.
This is a awesome play, it had the audience laughing out loud, there were also ironic stares from the cast to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, at times it was as if they were talking to us directly. Some uncomfortable laughs from the audience because of the realism of the content. There was range and different states in the performances. The performers had chemistry and overall flow – they were outstanding! The costumes were retro, they gave a 1800 – 1900 vibe. The story is perfectly paced and the scenes clear. The set, writing and lighting – all great!
Bianca Amato plays Nora Zane Meas is Torvald Charlotte Butler is Anne Marie Simone Neethling is Emmy
Congratulations Barbara Rubin and the whole team for a great show and a deserved standing ovation!
I am tired of feeding other men’s habits, week in, week out, I am the one buying beer. These motherfuckers, bloodsuckers, they are sucking me dry, like mosquitos, buzzing, irritating, never contributing anything to the group. How can you come to people with nothing? You wanna drink other men? I am tired of thinking for people who don’t think for me. They never buy me beer but I buy for them every time, round after round. I don’t need this, I have a girlfriend. They are using me, masquerading as my friends, using me to further their gains, they think I don’t see. I am cool guy but I can’t be helping niggas all the time, what do they do for me? My compassion is my weakness, I need to get my house in order, I can’t be saving other people. 24 Corona is not enough, less than an hour and nothing, I only had two beers, they are working against time, where did the other 22 go? They not using beer as an agent to enhance the experience, instead they using it as a storage tank, gulping the beer not thinking it runs out, now who needs to buy another 24? So I’ll get spite beer, something that will deter them, repel them like Peaceful sleep, fucking mosquitoes, a drink that will shrivel their faces like sour grapes. Spite beer is the only solution, I will retain more units of beer while saving up on buying more. Spite beer, now to want beer is to want the spite beer! Spite beer because I need to control my paradigm. Spite beer because I don’t need anymore friends. Spite beer because it’s more progressive.
Opening of “The good White” at the Market Theatre. I love the Market Theatre, the place was vibrant and buzzing. Even posed for a couple of pictures – press time.
A different perspective to the #feesmustfall and #rhodesmustfall movements. The story follows Professor Simon Whitehead, a senior ranking official of the University, his Zimbabwean colleague who plans to launch his book on Decolonization and his colored wife who also holds a high position at the University. It is set in a world of unrest and desolation, a world where the youth feel betrayed by the current system and the leaders that preceded it. Nelson Mandela preached “rainbownism”, he didn’t change anything, the systems of apartheid are still in place. Apartheid still roams but in a different form, with new and fancy terminologies. While real people still suffer, inequality rife and students can’t afford schooling. Everything is blamed on the white man; the patriarchy, apartheid, inequality, racism, no access to education – all him! It is a world that unsympathetic to the white man, it is even played for comic relief and features as a running gag, you’ll hear Simon saying “the white man has no feelings, everything is his fault” as a way to defuse the tension. It is a world that keeps kicking Professor Simon Whitehead in the head. He is in a cold, loveless and detached relationship with a woman who cheats on him with his Zimbabwean colleague. For the woman, the relationship is purely transactional, white man married to a colored woman, diversity, it’s good for PR. She won’t even say “I love you”, instead she says “do you need me to love you”? Eventually, they separate.
This is a brilliant play, the writing by Mike van Graan is the hero and the acting just world-class. The show has a lot, the characters have personality and the script wit. Shonisani Masutha is powerful, I loved her poetry and the emotion in her words. She plays a character from the township whose parents are deseased. She is angry and in protest – she demands change! Renate Stuurman plays the wife, she is harsh and insensitive at times, very antagonistic, could be because of her past, apartheid, her family was moved from Wynberg to the Cape Flats. Vusi Kunene plays the Zimbabwean colleague, his book launch is hilarious, it was chaos, there was protesting and the township girl undressed in front of everyone. Russel Savadier is Professor Simon Whitehead – I just felt sorry for the white man.
The scenes and the lighting are seamless and just flow. Totally loved the set, it is subtle, minimalistic and compact with three stages all in all, one to the left, one to the right and one in the middle that has retractable seats that can be pushed back inside. Hovering above the middle stage are signs that demand:
Decolonize education Free quality education
feesmustfall
Education is not a privilege Senzeni Na Fees with what money Asinamali Free education is possible
Congratulations Greg Homann and the whole team for a great show and a deserved standing ovation.
If only schools taught physics like the “Hidden giants” lecture. An out the box lecture with live original score by composer Yasheen Modi who plays the piano and violinist Siobhan Lloyd-Jones. The sound is immersive and the visuals by Darius Botha cinematic and bold. That lecture is so cool, it is an experience, it has life, it has feeling, it’s the type of show that makes you fall in love with science. Science for me at school was never that cool, if it were, I’d have a PhD in Physics. That’s how good I feel about Physics and the Universe right now!
Dr. Luca Pontiggia serves at the lecturer for the show. He simplifies the Universe for the common man. He makes it fun and strips away all the fear factor. It’s not intimidating, the visuals on the screen paint a picture, they tell a story. We learned so much about the nature of the Universe, it’s inception, how old it is and how it expanded. We learned about Isaac Newton and the gravitational force. We learned about Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity. We learned about Black holes, spacetime and the singularity. Black holes are dead stars that are dense who pull in everything in their orbit and Supanovas are exploding stars! The lecture is divided into 3 acts: The object, the minds and the image.
Act 1 explores the cycle of stars and violent forces that give birth to black holes. Act 2 explores the great thinkers like Newton and Einstein who conceived of these mathematical formulas that enabled a better understanding of our Universe. Act 3 is proof, Einstein’s theory of relativity is just that – theory. We need tangible evidence of a black hole, E.H (Event Horizon), Accretion Disc, Photon Sphere and the Singularity. Unbelievably, we get proof, we have a picture, Albert Einstein was right. We get this proof with the of help from lasers, telescopes stationed strategically all over the world, a dedicated team and supercomputers. This picture is everything, it’s a scientific leap, proof of the Universe and existence, something to build on in our understanding of string-theory and perhaps the big bang itself.
This is such a cool lecture, something you can watch over and over again. Pity it has a limited run at Joburg Theatre, everyone should see it – it has a lot of enthusiasm, the theatre was filled to the brim, literally every seat was occupied. The teaching is world-class and the music – out of this world! You don’t want it to end, you just want to learn and learn and learn. They made Physics and the Universe really cool.
Earlier in the year I was feeling bummed out. Progress was there but money was on a snails pace. My mother was on my case and I couldn’t do anything about it because I was still living at her place. Like your peers are ahead and you aren’t even running the race. What she didn’t see is that I was still building a base. I am doing this alone, I have no connections. You are mistaken, you need to do your corrections. I am driving straight to the top and I have the directions. Making babies is easy all I need is an errection. My so call friends think they are better than me. Thinking because they bought beer they birthed me. So I got water and stayed in the social environment. I exist besides you not because of you. Money was at the root of my problems and so I was depressed. My friend came up to me and wanted to know why I was so depressed. It wasn’t something I could explain or something I wanted to talk about. She left it at that and went out to buy some beer. When she returned, she asked me if I wanted to squeeze her boobs and I replied in the affirmative. Then we drank beer and listened to some music. It was a clean job, I was good as new and all it took was just boobs, beer and piano. She’s a phenomenal girl.
There is nothing better than a show at the Cirk. Janice Honeyman, panto, Beauty and the Beast – even better! I was excited for this show and it didn’t disappoint. It was grand, daring, dangerous and bold. From the moment you walked in, there was a circusy feeling. The mood was light, zany and fun. This was enforced through the colorful, upbeat and clown music. The set evoked the feeling of the circus with red and white curtains on either side and on top. Right in the middle was a painting of the performers performing in the circus. It’s a colorful atmosphere as exhibited with red noses and the eccentric costumes.
Nothing better than a show at the Cirk. The aerialists and acrobats are simply unbelievable! Devilishly dangerous, your heart is always in your mouth but you can’t look away because it’s breath-takingly beautiful. It’s jaw-dropping stuff, so graceful and done with a contagious smile that radiates. The acrobats were spinning in the air like tops, never got dizzy too, except for the evil ringmaster, he got dizzy and fell to his death. I have beef with the evil ringmaster, started off when he threatened to send my favorite character (the donkey) to the knackers for glue. After that I figured, he is not a pleasant fellow. The sound of his whip reverberates in the auditorium, it is menacing, threatening and a slaves worst nightmare. I love that the strongest man in the world was lifting weights over a 100000 kg, the audience were rooting for him to bend open the bars of the cage that Melodia Luna was trapped in and he did it, he saved the day! Everyone in the theater cheered.
Hoops, silks and ropes, the acrobats were swinging and flying all over the room. The best bodies in the world, with muscles in the right areas, defined, athletic and just olympic. It’s amazing how elastic and flexible they are – they do it in the air. God’s glory, mastery, hard word, dedication, for that moment, you slayed it! On the ground, there’s vocalists and dancers performing simultaneously. The vocalists have range and personality, they command your attention, they are the show! The show was interactive, as the audience, we got to do the Mexican wave led by the performers on the stage. They also asked questions and asked us to play and participate along. Perfect day at the theatre.
Directed by: Janice Honeyman Original score: Wessel Odendaal Set & lighting design: Wilhelm Disbergen
Starring Daniel Buckland as Malo, Claudia Moruzzi as Melodia Luna and Yahto Kraft as the evil ringmaster.
Congratulations Janice Honeyman and the whole team for a great show and a deserved standing ovation.
antakalipa 