The Keeper of the Kumm

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. 
There is no time for despair, 

no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. 
We speak, we write, we do language. 
That is how civilisations heal. 
Toni Morrison.

Sylvia Vollenhoven has been hard at work helping us to heal. I saw her plays My Word, Redesigning Buckingham Palace and Cold Case at the Baxter a while ago. The former went on to London’s West End, garnering four stars from The Times of London.  

I was excited to see The Keeper of the Kumm, which had played to critical claim at the 2016 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. The Keeper of the Kumm is a multi-media project comprising the play (a dance drama), a novel and a documentary film. Kumm is a story told in the extinct /Xam language which is represented on our coat of arms*.

The play, starring Quanita Adams, Elton Landrew and Dawn Langdown, with original music by Hilton Schilder,  tells the story of Betjie Petersen, a hardened apartheid-era journalist who grapples with her identity. She reluctantly responds to a calling from her ancestor, //Kabbo, a 19th century rain-maker who went on a quest to the Cape to find people who would record the stories of his people.

The deeply autobiographical story crosses boundaries of time and place, and delves into religion, mental illness, tradition and the spiritual. Betjie finds healing for herself when she accepts her calling. 

In one scene which resonated with me, //Kabbo urges her to write the stories of the “prison of Colouredness”. Sylvia’s calling will no doubt help many to find healing. I look forward to experiencing the other aspects of this project. 

For more on The Keeper of the Kumm:

http://www.thejournalist.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Keeper-of-the-Kumm-Aug-2014.pdf

*South Africa's motto, written on the SA coat of arms is a /Xam phrase: !ke e: /xarra //ke, literally meaning: diverse people unite.  

A Man of Character

I met Henning Mankell two years ago at an author's dinner. I had heard him speak the previous day in a talk entitled, A Man of Character.  I sat, enthralled, as he shared his experiences in Mozambique as the director of a community theatre and his involvement with various humanitarian causes. This is why I want to write, I thought. He spoke about greed which, he reflected, seemed to have become a virtue, about poverty - an unnatural state forced on people, and illiteracy - he thought we should be ashamed that we hadn't dealt with this problem yet.

Mankell spent half the year in Sweden and the other in Mozambique since the 1980s. He joked that he lived with one foot in the snow and the other in the sand. "Africa has taught me to be a better European," he said.

He was well-known for his crime fiction books which sold millions of copies and were translated into 40 languages. He explored the human condition through the protagonists in his novels; the mirror of crime tells of the contradictions in society. "Whatever I write, the reality is much worse," he said.

"We are a story-telling and a story-listening people," said Mankell at the dinner. "It is our capacity to talk and eventually to listen, that will save mankind." He told the story of two old African men sitting on a bench outside his theatre. They were talking about a mutual friend who died in the middle of telling a story. "That's not the way to die, without finishing your story," one of the men remarked.

Mankell died last week.  He has left many stories unfinished. 

Picture of author: Wikipedia Commons

For more on the author visit  http://henningmankell.com/

Cold Case: Revisiting our History

The stage is set to tell the story of  Dulcie September 

One of the motivations for me going back to university was to equip myself with the skills to tell the stories of growing up in District Six and on the Cape Flats. Not only my stories, but the stories of many who cannot tell their own. We’re a deeply divided society, a country still trying to recover from an oppressive past. We cannot sweep it all under the carpet and expect to move on. There will always be a bump there to trip us up, to nag at us to pull it straight.

People need to be acknowledged. Maybe nothing will undo the hurt but at least it’s not being ignored, we’re not being told to get over it and move on. We need to listen to each other with respect, be slow to judge. We need to know that someone saw our pain and understands; only then can we move forward.

I am encouraged by the two shows I saw recently at the Baxter Theatre – Cold Case: Revisiting Dulcie September, which premiered at the National Arts Festival in 2014 and My Word! Redesigning Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace: District Six is, of course, the name of the novel by teacher and author Richard Rive, published in 1986. The tragedy of forced removals in District Six has been well-recorded. Less well-known is the story of anti-apartheid activist and ANC representative, Dulcie September who was assassinated in Paris in 1988.

The Baxter Theatre’s intimate Golden Arrow Studio provided the perfect backdrop to the personal stories of a childhood with an abusive father, a budding activist and a committed freedom fighter. Denise Newman is an accomplished story-teller who moved many members of the audience to tears, made us laugh at reminiscences of growing up in places like Athlone (where September was from). She held our attention for more than an hour, all eyes riveted on her one-person show … surrounded by the cardboard boxes which represent the cold case of what remains of the woman. 27 years later her killer has not been found. Theories abound, the mystery remains unsolved…

The biased history which we were forced to learn during apartheid needs to be balanced by stories such as these, giving value to our own experiences. The tens of thousands of people who attended her funeral, the street, square and boulevard named after her in Paris, make us proud of our struggle.

When I met Newman afterwards I couldn’t help enveloping her in a hug, I felt that I knew her, or at least the woman she had brought to life on the small stage. The run at the Baxter ended last night but look out for a couple of shows in August at the Artscape Theatre, to celebrate Woman’s Day.

Cold Case has won the Standard Bank Ovation Award and the Adelaide Tambo Award for Celebrating Human Rights through the Arts.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/richard-rive

http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dulcie-evonne-september

World Storytelling Day

World Storytelling Day logo designed by Swedish storyteller, Mats Rhenman

20 March is World Storytelling Day. It originated in Sweden in 1990 and has become a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling, taking place on the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. The idea is to get as many people as possible from around the world to tell stories through the day and night. 

The theme for this year is "Fortune and Fate". Appropriately, I will be in class tomorrow, sharing stories about bulls and bullfights. 

My friend, Marlene Winberg, is travelling to the Kalahari Desert where she will be facilitating a two-day event with  indigenous people from all over the region. Visit her  website: marlenewinberg.com 

Let the stories begin!