TUNKIE FOR SICHEL

Prestigious Tunkie Award presented to theatre and dance writer Adrienne Sichel.

Adrienne Sichel, Theatre and dance writer for the Star Tonight was presented with the annual Tunkie Award at the Gauteng MEC Contemporary Choreography and Dance Awards presentation on March 8.

Sichel is a South African-born theatre journalist and critic. After graduating from the University of Natal (Speech and Drama and English), she began her journalistic career as a news reporter at The Pretoria News in 1970. In 1978 she became an entertainment writer and was appointed arts editor in 1981.

On transferring to The Star Tonight! in Johannesburg, in 1983, she coupled her passion for indigenous theatre and performance, plus the development of South African contemporary dance, with her mainstream theatre beats.

Sichel, who is employed by The Star newspaper in Johannesburg as Senior Specialist Writer: theatre and dance, on the national daily entertainment supplement Tonight, has broadened her horizons as a critic nationally, internationally and on the African continent. She is working on Body Politics – Fingerprinting South African Contemporary Dance’, a brief history on contemporary dance in South Africa.

Awards she has received in the past include: AA Life Theatre Journalist of the Year Award (1987); Special award from Market Theatre Laboratory co-founders John Kani and Barney Simon for making the public aware of community theatre (1992); Inaugural Arts and Culture Trust of the President's Theatre Journalist of the Year Award (1998); Acknowledged by the Southern African Theatre Initiative for 25 years of excellence in theatre journalism and arts activism (2003) and A living legend award from the Vukani Community Theatre, in Katlehong (2005).

In 1987, in collaboration with fellow journalist Marilyn Poole, and arts visionary Philip Stein, Sichel developed the concept of South Africa’s Dance Umbrella as a free, democratic platform for all South Africa’s dance forms. Dance Umbrella was launched in 1989 and celebrates its 21st anniversary in 2009 with an international profile.

Xolani Nettleton Dyusha, nicknamed Tunkie, was a young man from the Eastern Cape who moved to Johannesburg. He picked up the challenge presented to him in the early '90’s and worked with the team that conceptualised and subsequently launched the Nedbank Arts and Culture affinity programme, culminating in the establishment of ACT, the Arts and Culture Trust of the President, with former President Nelson Mandela as its Patron.