TWIST NEWS – MAY 2010

TWIST to launch two new projects to coincide with NAF.

TWIST is about to launch into its next two exciting projects that coincide with the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

The Novel-Script Project is a writers’ workshop that runs from June 15 to 25. This exciting writer’s development project incorporates nine writers (six from South Africa and three from Holland) who will be creating scenes based on or inspired by Zakes Mda’s novel Black Diamond. These scenes will be directed by selected theatre directors (from Holland and South Africa) and enacted by ten South African actors who will be doing staged readings of the work.

Throughout the process of the workshop, the writers will be mentored by acclaimed playwright and poet, Kobus Moolman, who will help them shift and shape their work and see new possibilities for their own writing. This workshop will host an open-day on June 25, where the writers’ scenes will be presented at the Recreation Centre in Albany Road in Grahamstown from 10h00 until 15h00. All are welcome and entrance is free!

This project is run in partnership with Siberia, PANSA and the NAF.

The other Grahamstown project is an NAF initiative, known as the Remix-Lab, which brings together young theatre groups from around the county in an intensive 10-day workshop of skills building. From June 24 to July 4, these groups will be part of workshops in performance skills, marketing, arts-management and a range of other areas that allow them to enhance and develop their skills and to find ways to make their work, and their organisations, better and more successful.

This is a great opportunity for the six KZN groups to meet others working in similar circumstances, to learn more about professionalising themselves, and to show off their own work. The groups will be performing daily at 10h00 at the Recreation Centre, and all are welcome.

Denise Lukkenaer, a third year student in Theatre & Education at the School of the Arts in Utrecht, Holland, has joined the Twist project as an intern for three months. She has been working with the six community theatre groups, working on the website and communication systems, and generally exploring Durban! Denise will be working on both projects in Grahamstown as well as setting TWIST up with Facebook.

In other news, both Umsindo and Just Don’t – two of the community theatre groups that TWIST has been working with – recently featured in the Playhouse Theatre Community Theatre Festival in Durban. Both groups played to sold-out houses and great applause.