Sacrificial Lamb
Prompted by the withdrawal of the play "By My Grave", which was scheduled to debut at the Cape Town Fringe in September Last year, Sacrificial Lamb addresses the South African theatre industry's well-preserved dirty laundry; the use of black female bodies as a site for violence. It exposes the “culture” of rape and sexual harassment created and maintained by black men in power in the theatre and academic institutions.
An actress resurrects the ghosts of the classroom, the skeletons of the rehearsal, the demons of cast parties and the Tokoloshes of one-on-one “production meetings” with prolific theatre directors and co-stars who promise stardom and swear to deliver-by their grave...
Director, Koleka Putuma:Performance Poet, Facilitator and Theatre Practitioner Koleka Putuma graduated with a BA in Theatre & Performance at UCT. Her work has travelled to Scotland, New York and around South Africa. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4, BBC focus on Africa, Badilisha Poetry X-Change and TedX Cape Town Women.
In 2014 she was nominated to represent the Western Cape at the Slam For Your Life competition at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, where she was crowned South Africa’s First National Slam Champion. In 2015 she was nominated for the Rosalie van der Gucht Prize for New Directors at the annual Fleur Du Cap Theatre Awards.
She is a resident poet of the collective Lingua Franca and Co-Founder of theatre companies: Velvet Spine and The Papercut Collective
Performer, Ukhona Mlandu:
Ukhona Mlandu is a consultant, writer, actress and expert on the cultural and creative industries in South Africa, with a prolific career in theatre and arts management. Mlandu conceptualised and oversaw the the design brief of a cutting edge and innovative resource centre for the arts at the Artscape theatre. Whilst Managing the Artscape Resource Centre (2009-2015) Mlandu also conceptualised, managed and mentored organisations in an incubator project which seeks to influence sustainable interventions towards healthier organisational culture in South Africa.
She has worked as a consultant at the Western Cape Regional Coordinator Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA), Sisayanga Cape Town Theatre Company, SCORE, and Arterial Network in partnership with European Union Train- the - Trainer Facilitation training on Cultural Leadership. In addition, she has served and chaired boards of arts organisations, such as fth:k, South Africa's first Deaf and Hearing Integrated Theatre Company and the Ubuntu Teen Film Festival.
Mlandu was selected to take part in the Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts' Devos Institute of Arts Management Summer Fellowship in Strategic Arts Management (2010-2012) and was nominated as a 2012 Emerging Leader Fellow by the International Society for Performing Arts (ISPA). And selected to take part of the UNESCO African Pool of Experts on the Convention of the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
She was selected as One of 4 Audience Development Fellows for the British Council Connect ZA and Business Arts South Africa’s Connecting Creative Markets programme.