BERNEDETTE MUTHIEN ON OVA

Bernedette Muthien is a South African activist, scholar and poet, and Director of Engender, an NGO providing research and capacity building for communities in the intersectional areas of genders and sexualities, human rights, justice and peace. She began writing poetry as a schoolgirl during the 1980’s, when she also started reading poems at political mass meetings and other public spaces. To ...

It Starts with a Story – The power of reading for enjoyment

Nal'ibali (‘Here's the story’ in isiXhosa) is a national Reading for Enjoyment initiative, launched in June to promote and support a love of storytelling and reading among South African children and the people they interact with in their homes and community settings. Initiated by the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA) and Avusa Media, the initiative builds ...

LAWSON NAIDOO – From Subject to Citizen: Let the People Govern

To the extent that poverty, inequality and unemployment are rampant and the gap between the rich and poor has widened, it is clear that the constitution’s vision of an equitable society, characterised by human dignity, fairness and justice, has not been realised. Transformation is the cardinal mandate of our Constitution. Central to it is the realisation of an inclusive economy through ...

Brent Meersman – Reports before daybreak

The release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 was a watershed moment for millions of South Africans. At the end of the country's darkest decade, it brought some prospect of hope and a future. What is our memory of that period? Do we have an accurate understanding of the 10 years prior to that moment? The government was on the one hand already dismantling apartheid and abandoning its racial theories, ...

Puppetry as Alchemy: Handspring Puppet Co and the Art of Transformation

Jason Potgieter takes participants on a visual tour through the work of Handspring Puppet Company.  Referencing three productions (Warhorse, Woyzeck on the Highveld, and I Love you When You’re Breathing), the talk will explore the significance of transformation as both concept and practice within the art of puppetry.  Jason Potgieter is a writer, actor and puppet theatre practitioner with the ...

DALRO LECTURE: Pieter-Dirk Uys: Never too Naked

The Dramatic and Literary Rights Organisation of South Africa takes pleasure in sponsoring this lecture. We are all familiar with the razor-sharp lines of Evita Bezuidenhout and associates. In case you suspected that they were written by a master craftsman of the language why don't you listen to Pieter-Dirk Uys launch the autobiography of Bambi Kellerman. Never too Naked will have you laughing ...

DALRO LECTURE: Cleopatra Re-visited – Dame Janet Suzman

The Dramatic and Literary Rights Organisation of South Africa takes pleasure in sponsoring this lecture. Janet Suzman will give the inside story of her acclaimed production of Anthony and Cleopatra staged in Britain earlier this year. Her lecture's entitled Cleopatra revisited. Janet was made a Dame in the Queen's Birthday Honour's List in 2011 for her services to drama and appears by courtesy of ...

Under BRICS: A New Relationship between the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and Africa? – Prof Yun ZHONG (钟韵)

Presented by the Rhodes Business SchoolSouth Africa was invited to become a member of BRIC (hence extending the name to BRICS) at the end of 2010 and attended its 3rd Summit as a fully-fledged member in May 2011. The IMF has predicted that more than half the world's economic growth will continue to come from the BRICS countries for the foreseeable future. Professor Yun ZHONG, has a PhD in ...

The Afda Retrospective – Old Favourites

The Afda Retrospective 1994 – 2011: Re-Inventing our local cinema voiceThis is a four-package collection of the best of AFDA films 1994 – 2011, documenting and tracking our new democracy over the last 15 years. Although many of these films of received critical acclaim worldwide, more importantly they have contributed to the emergence of a unique cultural voice (post 1994) and have been ...

The Afda Retrospective – The Big Award Winners

 The Afda Retrospective 1994 – 2011: Re-Inventing our local cinema voiceThis is a four-package collection of the best of AFDA films 1994 – 2011, documenting and tracking our new democracy over the last 15 years. Although many of these films of received critical acclaim worldwide, more importantly they have contributed to the emergence of a unique cultural voice (post 1994) and ...