THREADS

(Photo by John Hogg: Lebo Mashile and her dancers)

Celebrity poet Lebo Mashile stars in this widely acclaimed dance drama tomorrow and Saturday.

The 15th South African Women’s Arts Festival in Durban reaches a climax this weekend with three performances of Threads, Moving Into Dance's award-winning dance drama, starring acclaimed poet, actress and TV presenter, Lebo Mashile, and seven dancers.

A spellbinding piece that integrates poetry, dance, and design with a performance space criss-crossed by strings and rope and images of weaving or threading, Threads speaks of the way we negotiate the real and the imagined, the past and the present.

The production deals with relationships and cultural and artistic identity. It does this communicating across boundaries of class, culture, gender, and age group. This cross-cultural and cross-generational artistic collaboration between legendary choreographer and cultural activist Sylvia 'Magogo' Glasser and Lego Mashile, one of South Africa's most celebrated literary voices, can be thought of as a verbal dance or a physical poem.

Mashile created new poems for this collaboration, which was staged at the State Theatre in 2009, and three appear in her publication Flying Above the Sky. The Moving Into Dance Mophatong production is performed by Lebo Mashile, Muzi Shili, Faith Maseko, Thabo Rapoo, Thulane Chauke, Thandi Tshabalala, Itumeleng Hlapane and Thembakile Setiabi.

Presented by The Playhouse Company, Threads will have performances in the Playhouse Drama tomorrow (August 12), at 19h30 and August 13 at 14h30. Tickets R50 booked through Computicket on 083 915 8000 or Playhouse Box Office on 031 369 9540.

Moving Into Dance is supported by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, National Arts Council and Rand Merchant Bank