Amber Fox-Martin

Amber Fox-Martin is a historian, documentary filmmaker, production- and stage manager.

Biography

Amber Fox-Martin studied drama at Stellenbosch University, where she graduated cum laude in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts. She majored in stage management and theatre studies, as well as History, which she studied with intention of developing research in the field.

In 2019 she completed and honours degree in history, under the mentorship of Professor Vivian Bickford-Smith. For this she created a thesis documentary film called A Feast in Time of Plague[1], that explores the artistic responses made by state-funded theatre-makers to the apartheid state, focusing on those who worked in the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB) between 1970 and 1990. The film premiered at the 22nd Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival in August 2020.

In 2023 she was awarded her Master of Arts in History, having created a sequel documentary-thesis, Reflections in a Broken Mirror, that explores the way in which Afrikaans theatre adapted to a post-Apartheid South Africa.[2]

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Besides these academic projects, she has worked widely as a freelancer in the entertainment industry, inter alia as venue technician, sound operator, venue manager, production manager, assistant stage manager and stage manager for various productions. By 2019, she was employed by the Adam Small Theatre Complex as a stage manager and administrative assistant. Amber has worked as an ad-hoc lecturer at the Stellenbosch University Drama Department teaching sound and stage management in 2020 and 2021. Throughout 2020, Amber also worked as an intern for South African History Online, co-ordinating one of their main projects and fundraising efforts, as well as working with Professor Temple Hauptfleisch on the initial move to establishing what would become the ESAT Archives, a depository for material used in writing the online Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance.

In 2022, Amber became a director of Attakwa Productions (Pty) Ltd., a female-run production company that focuses on nurturing indigenous narratives and storytelling techniques. The theatre production, and subsequent documentary short, Bientang: bloedspoor/!nau was developed by the company.