Matsemela Manaka

(1957-1999) Writer, director, actor, poet and cultural theorist. Attended Soweto's Madibane High School during the mid-'70s and later taught there. Founded the Soyikwa African Theatre company at the Funda Drama Centre in Diepkloof in 1978. A poetic playwright, whose work deals with the emotional and psychological effects of political oppression. His plays include Egoli (performed 1979, published 1980), Vuka (Edinburgh Festival in 1982, Market Theate, 1986), Pula (1986, won the **** Award), Imbumba (1983), Children of Asazi (1984), Goree Goree and Blues Africa Café*? (1989) and Ekhaya: Museum over Soweto (1992). The latter play and his eloquent and articulate articles were all part of his efforts to have the African contribution to the arts understood and recognized, and his involvement with setting up a museum for the history of Soweto***. Tragically he died in a car accident in 1999.

Black Consciousness shaped his critical eye-in the I970s students repeatedly sang one refrain, "Black man, you are on your own." This was the message Soyikwa wanted to get across in Pula. The great wave of Black Consciousness carried Manaka into his venture without having had any theatrical training. He grew up in the Alexandra township of Johannesburg. Between I97o-81 he was the editor of Staffrider, a black art and literary magazine. In 1977 he created The Horn with the Soyikwa theatre company, in 1978 came eGoli, in 1980 he performed his one-man show Blues Afiika in Germany. Pula was performed from I981-84. Domba, the Last Dance was performed in Johannesburg in 1986. Manaka taught acting and directing at Soweto's Funda Centre. Manaka uses theatre as a political platform. In the improvisational work that is part of the preparation process, Manaka drew from those written works of Stanislavski and Grotowski that he could find in local libraries. He had never had the chance to do practical work in their methods, but he used Stanislavski's ideas about making actors aware of their physical, psychological, and daily environments and saw a similarity between his own working conditions and Grotowski's "poor theatre." In February 1986 Manaka told me that Grotowski's influence goes far beyond the implicit economics of poor theatre. Like Grotowski's performers, members of Manaka's company show their most personal selves as well as express their own moral values in their art. Manaka's theatre-like all true protest theatre-cannot be associated with or funded by the state. His works have been banned because they express a revolutionary tone full of sharp criticism of the government's policies [Wakashe, 1986]

Sources

De Beer, 1995, Wakashe, 1986a, Gosher, 1988; Steadman, 19**, Hauptfleisch and Streadman, 1994, Kruger, 1999, Tucker, 1997, et al

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