The Mothertongue Project
THE MOTHERTONGUE PROJECT (2000-)
Also styled The MotherTongue Project, and commonly referred to simply as Mothertongue. A women's arts collective based in Cape Town, working across professional theatre, community-based participatory theatre, and organisational and therapeutic training. Registered as a non-profit organisation*.
Contents
Founding and aims
The company was founded in 2000 by Sara Matchett and Rehane Abrahams, and grew directly out of their first collaboration, What the Water Gave Me, which prompted its formalisation as a non-profit organisation. Sara Matchett has served as artistic director throughout. The collective describes its purpose as using participatory, integrated arts methods to make work directed at personal and collective dialogue and healing, and it has consistently placed women's stories, embodied performance-making and collaborative devising at the centre of its practice. Alongside its productions it runs community programmes and corporate training, and it draws methodologically on Fitzmaurice Voicework and breathwork, in which several company members are qualified practitioners.
Current company members, besides the two founders, include Makgati Mokwena (expressive arts therapy), Nina Callaghan (organisational services) and Ntombi Makhutshi (community engagement). Artists who have worked with the collective over two decades include Andrea Dondolo, Faniswa Yisa, Warona Seane, Awino Okech, Chuma Sopotela, Mbali Kgosidintsi, Alex Halligey, Jill Levenberg, Siphumeze Khundayi, Koleka Putuma, Genna Gardini, jackï job, Lukhanyiso Skosana, Malika Ndlovu and Kali van der Merwe.
History
2000: What the Water Gave Me, written and performed by Rehane Abrahams, sound design by Julia Rosina Theron, directed by Sara Matchett - a solo piece drawing on buried histories of Cape Town, using storytelling, Indian classical dance and physical theatre. Performed at the Arena Theatre, Artscape; The Lab, Market Theatre; the Golden Arrow Studio, Baxter Theatre; and the Sufi Temple.
2001: Unkulunkulu the Sovereign One, conceptualised and created by Andrea Dondolo, Julia Rosina Theron*, Faniswa Yisa, Warona Seane, Sara Matchett and Rehane Abrahams, directed by Sara Matchett - an intsomi-style piece on the healing powers of the elements, created to open the World Courts of Women Against War for Peace at the OR Tambo Hall, Khayelitsha.
2001-2004: Beading My Soul, conceived by Andrea Dondolo, workshopped by Andrea Dondolo, Faniswa Yisa and Sara Matchett, performed by Andrea Dondolo and Faniswa Yisa, directed by Sara Matchett - a storytelling piece built around beadwork in the lives of South African women. Performed on the main programme of the National Arts Festival and at the State Theatre, the Market Theatre, the Macufe festival, the Golden Arrow Studio at the Baxter Theatre and the Calabash Festival, Mmabatho, with seasons in Geneva and Bern, Switzerland.
2003: Indawo Yamaphupha ("The Space of Dreams"), conceptualised, created and performed by Andrea Dondolo, Faniswa Yisa and Sara Matchett in collaboration with the poet Shelley Barry, directed by Caroline Calburn - the only Mothertongue production of the period not directed by Sara Matchett. Performed at the Intimate Theatre, Hiddingh Campus.
2004: Uhambo - Pieces of a Dream, conceptualised by Sara Matchett, Awino Okech, Faniswa Yisa, Warona Seane and Riana Alfreds, performed by Awino Okech, Faniswa Yisa, Warona Seane, Riana Alfreds and Asanda Phewa, poetry by Malika Ndlovu, installation art by Kali van der Merwe, directed by Sara Matchett - a site-based work performed on minibus taxis, marking ten years of democracy. Performed on the main programme of the National Arts Festival and at the Intimate Theatre, Hiddingh Campus.
2004: Crossings, created by Faith Ndukwana, Chuma Sopotela and Sara Matchett, performed by Awino Okech and Faniswa Yisa, directed by Sara Matchett - on a refugee woman's journey to Cape Town. Performed at the Playroom, Hiddingh Campus, and the Arena Theatre, Artscape.
2005: Breathing Space, created by the company, installation art by Kali van der Merwe, directed by Sara Matchett, with Jill Levenberg, Mbali Kgosidintsi, Alex Halligey and Chuma Sopotela performing alongside ten women from Darling - a promenade piece staged in three houses on either side of the town's racial divide. Performed at the Voorkamerfest, Darling.
2006: We Dream Therefore We Are, created by the company, directed by Sara Matchett, with Jill Levenberg and Phakama Pyoos performing alongside women from Darling communities - developed over six weeks of workshops on the participants' hopes for the town. Performed in Darling.
2009-2010: Washa Mollo, conceptualised and created by Makgati Mokwena, Sara Matchett, Mary Manzole and Kiswigu Mpyanga, myth written by Makgati Mokwena, directed by Sara Matchett - a collaboration between four southern African women on loss, grief and healing. Performed at the Nunnery, University of the Witwatersrand; the Bagamoyo Arts Festival, Tanzania; The Lab, Market Theatre; the National Arts Festival; and the Out the Box Festival, Cape Town.
2009-2010: Tseleng: The Baggage of Bags, written and performed by Mbali Kgosidintsi, workshopped by Mbali Kgosidintsi and Sara Matchett, directed by Sara Matchett - a solo piece on travel, memory and the idea of home. Performed at The Lab, Market Theatre; the National Arts Festival; the Nunnery, University of the Witwatersrand, for the 969 Festival; the Out the Box Festival, Cape Town; and the State Theatre, Pretoria.
2012: Breath-Bones-Ancestors, written and performed by Sara Matchett, directed by Namatshego Khutsoane - a twenty-minute autobiographical piece developed with Sue Kiel, exploring breath as a means of generating performance material. Performed at the Freedom and Focus Conference, Vancouver, Canada.
2013: Ngangelizwe, written and performed by Siphumeze Khundayi, directed by Sara Matchett - a solo piece on culture, sexuality and the construction of a woman's identity, using Xhosa storytelling, projected media, movement and song. Performed at the Artscape Women's Festival.
2014-2019: Walk, curated by Sara Matchett, Genna Gardini and Koleka Putuma, conceptualised and performed by Koleka Putuma, Genna Gardini, Siphumeze Khundayi, Rosa Postlethwaite, Sara Matchett, Rehane Abrahams, Stembiso Sibanda, Lukhanyiso Skosana, Nolufefe Nthutnshe, jackï job and Vathiswa Nodlaliya - a series of performed installations on gender violence, made in response to the rape and murder of Anene Booysen and modelled, with her permission, on the Indian theatre artist Maya Krishna Rao's The Walk. Performed at the Women's Playwrighting Festival, Hiddingh Hall; the Sex Actually Festival, Drama for Life, University of the Witwatersrand; the Institute for Creative Arts Live Art Festival, Cape Town City Hall; the main programme of the National Arts Festival; and the International Theatre Festival of Kerala, India.
2017-2019: Womb of Fire, conceptualised by Rehane Abrahams and Sara Matchett, written and performed by Rehane Abrahams, directed by Sara Matchett - a solo piece in which Rehane Abrahams plays three women, drawing on the Mahabharata and on the lives of two women of the early Cape Colony, Krotoa's contemporary Zara and the convict Grote Catrijn van Paliacatta. Performed on the main programme of the National Arts Festival; at PACE Exchange, Bloemfontein; the Institute for Creative Arts Third Space Symposium, University of Cape Town Hiddingh Campus; the Baxter Theatre; the South African Women's Arts Festival at the Playhouse, Durban; the Woordfees, Stellenbosch; the International Theatre Festival of Kerala and the School of Drama, Thrissur, India; and the Afrovibes Festival, Amsterdam.
2020-2021: Brandbaar, the Afrikaans version of Womb of Fire, translated by Jason Jacobs and Rehane Abrahams, directed by Sara Matchett, set and costumes by Craig Leo, lighting by Craig Leo and Sara Matchett, music by Lukhanyiso Skosana, stage management by Blythe Stuart Linger, performed by Rehane Abrahams and Lukhanyiso Skosana - with dialogue also in Dutch and Nama. Performed at the Toyota US Woordfees 2020, in the Adam Small Laboratorium, 11-15 March; at the Suidoosterfees 2021; and at the KKNK online festival 2021.
Community engagement programmes
Alongside its stage work the collective has run participatory theatre and training programmes, usually in partnership with development or advocacy organisations.
2005-2006: Rite of Being, supported by HIVOS and run with the Kenyan organisation KEFEADO, on rituals of young womanhood in Manenberg, with a parallel Kenyan project on female genital mutilation.
2005-2006: Badilisha, supported by the City of Cape Town, weekly drama sessions on integration and xenophobia at the Bonne Esperance shelter for refugee women and children, Philippi.
2006-2007: Laphum'ilanga, supported by UNIFEM and later Action Aid, on the intersections of violence against women and HIV/AIDS in Khayelitsha; presented at the XVI International AIDS Conference, Toronto.
2009-2010: Sold Inside, with the International Organization for Migration, training 80 participants in four provinces in participatory theatre methods on human trafficking.
2011: storytelling sessions and a retreat with SWEAT (the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce), and Embodied Narratives, developed with Gender DynamiX.
2012-: the Langeberg Youth Arts Project, an arts, leadership and entrepreneurship programme for unemployed young people aged 18 to 30, which in 2017 established the Langeberg Youth Theatre Company with five full-time company members.
Organisational services
The collective offers two corporate and leadership training programmes, Vocal Presence and Leadership Presence, grounded in the voice, breathwork and embodiment practices used in its performance-making.
Awards
2010: Tseleng: The Baggage of Bags was nominated for a Silver Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival.
2018: Womb of Fire won three Woordtrofee awards at the Woordfees, for Best Play, Best Director and Best Performer.
2019: Womb of Fire won two Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, for Best Performance in a Revue, Cabaret or One Person Show and for Best Sound Design, Original Music Composition or Original Score.
Sources
Matchett, Sara and Halligey, Alex (eds). 2021. Collaborative Conversations: Celebrating Twenty-One Years of The Mothertongue Project. Cape Town: Modjaji Books.
Toyota US Woordfees 2020 festival programme, pp. 114-115.
'The Mothertongue Project - Walk: South Africa (2014-2019)', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Spring 2021 (cover feature).
The Mothertongue Project website: https://www.mothertongue.co.za
The Mothertongue Project YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCViNfgSrQdokShK2yFuGSYw
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