Lalela uLwandle

Lalela uLwandle ("Listen to the Sea") is a research based piece of environmental theatre, implemented as part of a research and engagement project along the KwaZulu-Natal coastline in 2019.

Developed by a team led by Dylan McGarry and Taryn Pereira at the Environmental Learning Research Centre, Rhodes University, with Neil Coppen and Mpume Mthombeni from Empatheatre, and Kira Erwin at the Urban Futures Centre, Durban University of Technology, Lalela uLwandle forms part of the One Ocean Hub, a global action research network led by Strathclyde University and funded by the UKRI Global Challenge Research Fund.

The play that emerged from the research process draws on the stories of three people who recount how the ocean is linked to, among other things, livelihoods, medicine and healing, scientific study and its role as a site for spiritual connections with ancestors. The play then deals with acts of past and present power and exclusion in South Africa. It performs the painful experiences of forced removals under apartheid, which robbed many of a life on the coast. It explores how extractive mining on land and sea, and industrial fishing, continue to create forms of oppression and exclusion, and explores the tensions between environmental justice and environmental conservation.

In 2019 the play toured six small towns on the KwaZulu-Natal coast, with a final week’s run in Durban. The audeinces consisted of the general public and invited guests from government, civil society, small-scale fisher associations, marine science and conservation. Performances were followed by a facilitated discussion with audience members.