Womb of Fire 2018
Title
Womb of Fire 2018
Department
Theatre
Genre
Theatre
Production Type
Research Based Production
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Research Lecturer
Description
Winners of three awards at the 2018 Stellenbosch University Woordfees in the categories for Best Play, Best Director and Best Performer, winners of two 2019 Fleur du Cap awards in the categories for Best Performance in a Revue, Cabaret or One-person Show, and Best Sound Design, Original Music Composition or Original Score, and winner of the 2018 UCT Creative Works Award, Womb of Fire has gained acclaim since its premier at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2017. Thereafter it performed at: the ICA’s 2017 3rd Space Symposium; the University of Johannesburg Con Cowan Theatre (2017); the International Theatre Festival of Kerala, India (2018); Woordfees Festival, Stellenbosch (2018); the Baxter Theatre (2018); Pan African Creative Exchange (PACE), Bloemfontein (2018); and the Afrovibes Festival, The Netherlands (2018).
Womb of Fire was conceptualised by Sara Matchett and Rehane Abrahams, co-founders of The Mothertongue Project, a women’s arts collective with a 23-year history of engaging integrated arts methodologies to activate personal and social transformation. In 2000, Rehane and Sara created works like What the Water Gave Me (the production that birthed The Mothertongue Project). Set against an episode from the Indian epic, The Mahabharata, the play interweaves personal narrative and contemporary realities with the lives of two women from the founding years of the Cape Colony to interrogate the Womb of Fire that birthed South Africa. The play follows Grote Katrijn van Pulicat’s (1681-1683) journey across India to Batavia and then to Cape Town as the first female bandit slave; it then explores the briefly brutal life of Zara (1648-1671), a Khoekhoen servant woman who was violently punished posthumously by the VOC for the crime of suicide. Womb of Fire looks at the power of the performing female body to challenge the pornography of Empire, in the process decolonising and retrieving itself. The play reaches back and forward across time to reassemble the dismembered body, allowing it to speak.
This production has seen multiple tours to: the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (2017); the ICA’s 2017 3rd Space Symposium; the University of Johannesburg Con Cowan Theatre (2017); the International Theatre Festival of Kerala, India (2018); Woordfees Festival, Stellenbosch (2018); the Baxter Theatre (2018); Pan African Creative Exchange (PACE), Bloemfontein (2018); The South African Women's Arts Festival (2018)and the Afrovibes Festival, The Netherlands (2018).
Womb of Fire was conceptualised by Sara Matchett and Rehane Abrahams, co-founders of The Mothertongue Project, a women’s arts collective with a 23-year history of engaging integrated arts methodologies to activate personal and social transformation. In 2000, Rehane and Sara created works like What the Water Gave Me (the production that birthed The Mothertongue Project). Set against an episode from the Indian epic, The Mahabharata, the play interweaves personal narrative and contemporary realities with the lives of two women from the founding years of the Cape Colony to interrogate the Womb of Fire that birthed South Africa. The play follows Grote Katrijn van Pulicat’s (1681-1683) journey across India to Batavia and then to Cape Town as the first female bandit slave; it then explores the briefly brutal life of Zara (1648-1671), a Khoekhoen servant woman who was violently punished posthumously by the VOC for the crime of suicide. Womb of Fire looks at the power of the performing female body to challenge the pornography of Empire, in the process decolonising and retrieving itself. The play reaches back and forward across time to reassemble the dismembered body, allowing it to speak.
This production has seen multiple tours to: the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (2017); the ICA’s 2017 3rd Space Symposium; the University of Johannesburg Con Cowan Theatre (2017); the International Theatre Festival of Kerala, India (2018); Woordfees Festival, Stellenbosch (2018); the Baxter Theatre (2018); Pan African Creative Exchange (PACE), Bloemfontein (2018); The South African Women's Arts Festival (2018)and the Afrovibes Festival, The Netherlands (2018).
Language
English
Script Type
Devised
Year Created
2018
Opening Date
18 April 2018
Closing Date
5 May 2018
Duration
01:00:00
Age Restriction
pg 13
Performance Venue
Geographic Location of Performance
Cape Town
Producer
Mothertongue Theatre Project
Director
Text By
Rehane Abrahams
Cast
Rehane Abrahams
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Musical/ Sound Composer
Lukhanyiso Skosana
Musical Director
Lukhanyiso Skosana
Musician
Lukhanyiso Skosana
Lighting Designer
Costume Designer
Digital Designer
Production Manager
Stage Manager
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