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KAZA KAMBA PAN AFRICAN THEATRE FESTIVAL 3

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WHEN AFRICA SPEAKS, THE WORLD MUST LISTEN Kaza Kamba, Cinema, Palestine, Sudan and a Day at the Market Theatre There are days when you go to the theatre simply to watch something. And then there are days when the theatre watches you. It looks back at you. It asks you questions. It disturbs you. It educates you. It confronts the comfortable little assumptions you have carried around in your head and forces you to examine them beneath the harsh light of history. On Saturday, 22 August 2026, I arrived at the Market Theatre for the Kaza Kamba Pan African Theatre Festival, a festival curated by Bobby Rodwell and Lesego Rampolokeng, and I quickly realised that I was not merely attending a cultural festival. I was entering a conversation with Africa. A conversation conducted through theatre, cinema, literature, history, politics, fashion, food, memory, resistance and the restless imagination of a continent that refuses to be reduced to the stories others have historically told abo...
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Swan Lake

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When the Swans Took Flight: Cape Ballet Africa’s Swan Lake There are performances you watch. There are performances you experience. And then there are performances that seem to suspend reality altogether — performances in which the theatre ceases to be a building, the stage ceases to be a stage, and the human body becomes something almost otherworldly. At the Teatro at Montecasino, I watched Swan Lake . Presented by Cape Ballet Africa and Global Star Events , this was not simply an evening of ballet. It was an encounter with beauty in its most disciplined form. Beauty sharpened by technique. Beauty strengthened by repetition. Beauty made possible by bodies pushed to the limits of human control. And what I witnessed was extraordinary. Finesse. Technique. Strength. Poise. Synchronicity. Mastery. They were everywhere. In every arabesque. Every relevé. Every tendu. Every suspended moment before a dancer descended from the air. Every perfectly timed port de bras. Every corps de ...
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SARAJEVO

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SARAJEVO: WHEN THEATRE STOPS FEELING LIKE THEATRE A haunting descent into love, war, betrayal, sexual violence and the unbearable intimacy of witnessing There are plays you watch. There are plays you experience. And then there are plays that make you question the morality of sitting in a theatre seat at all. SARAJEVO belongs to the last category. I walked into Theatre on the Square in Sandton knowing that I was going to see an award-winning play. I knew the reputation. I knew the Naledi Awards had crowned it four times. I knew it had been celebrated for its writing, direction and performances. I did not know that I would leave feeling as though I had witnessed something I was never supposed to see. There is a warning waiting for you before you enter the auditorium: “WARNING: THE PLAY DEPICTS THEMES OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE, EXPLICIT LANGUAGE AND THEMES OF AN ADULT NATURE.” Believe it. The warning is not decorative theatre etiquette. It is a door. Behind that door are...
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