Week Two Workshops

July 10th:

Week Two began with the arrival of Principle Investigator Judith Rudakoff, along with Creative Researchers from Canada (Andrew Houston, Myles Warren, Belarie Zatzman) and Denmark (Nina Schriver). All gathered with South African creative researcher Mark Fleishman and Magnet Theatre personnel Mandla Mbothwe and Jennie Reznek,

and with the Artist Participants (professional actors Ntokozo Madlala, Ndoni Khanyile, Faniswa Yisa, Jazzart Dance Theatre dancer Jackie Maanyapelo, and University of Cape Town Drama students Mfundo Tshazibane, Kati Francis)

and a group of fifteen Township youth from a variety of drama clubs. The goal of this first gathering was to introduce the Common Plants project and personnel, and to view the Creative Response presentations developed by the Artist Participants with Fleishman in Week One applying and evolving The Four Elements process.

MAfter viewing the Creative Responses created by the group with facilitators Mark Fleishman and Jennie Reznek on Day One, the youth groups, Zatzman and Mbothwe moved to their workshop space to begin their process which would involve Mbothwe incorporating his interpretation of The Four Elements work into his community arts practise.

MMbothwe’s participation in Week One prepared him for this phase of the process and provided another research opportunity to see how Rudakoff’s Four Elements creative methodology would transcend not only cultural boundaries but also how it would work with both professional and youth participants.

MThe Artist Participants, Fleishman, Rudakoff and the Creative Researchers moved to their workshop space. Rudakoff began the process by offering group and individually based dramaturgical comments on the presentations, referring specifically to The Four Elements. Francis, whose work was identifed as Water Primary, was asked: What do you want to water/nurture? Do you experience drought? What is the source of your power/energy/water?

MWhat do you take from the water? Who/what fills your container with water? Yisa’s work was identified as Air Primary, as it fuelled fire, stirred up earth and moved water. Rudakoff asked Yisa: What weighs you down? What do you cover up? How do you transform one element or place into another? What is left behind? What do you take with you when you blow through a place? What is whole and what is broken after the turmoil of gale force winds? Maanyapelo’s piece was characterized as Earth Primary, and Rudakoff asked: How do you penetrate hard, unyielding earth with water? How does the earth hold the fire and the water and keep it safe? Khanyile, whose work was identified as Water Primary was asked what is lost and what is gained? What is your place in the room on the island you have built (an earth brown chair surrounded by waves of papers)? Do you move forward and how does that affect your relationship to home? Referencing the final image of a woman squeezing her bare feet into two different high heeled shoes and wobbling on them as she tries to assert herself, Rudakoff asked Khanyile: What is power and what takes away power? What restores balance?

MMadlala’s presentation was identified as Air Primary, as she stood on the edge of her suitcase, poised as on a springboard, ready to leap into the unknown. The recurring images of train tracks, phone lines, connecting flights, lead Rudakoff to ask Madlala: what constitutes the difference between motion backwards and forwards? Madlala’s positioning of herself as between traditional family home and the individual life one creates in the city brought the discussion to the issue of choice: Is choice necessary or is it possible to intersect apparently exclusive journeys? Ideas? Languages? (instigated by Madlala’s reference to Cape Town in the line “Cape Town makes you forget which language you speak”). Tshazibane’s piece was identified as Earth Primary and Rudakoff asked him: What contains fire? Who puts the fire out (Earth? Air?) What happens to power when fire goes out? What are the different ways of making and sustaining fire? How do you contain/hold fire without burning up?
MThese comments instigated immediate discussion and also inspired long range impact on the work, which could be seen in the revisions, edits, and evolution of the Creative Response pieces when they were presented again, at the end of Week Two. Though the pieces were essentially the same, and were being videotaped for the website as an archival document, there were distinctions from the initial offerings that, though sometimes subtle, showed evolution and the effects of the second week of exploration and investigation.
For example, while speaking text about a generation of women who were/are silent and referencing his mother (“There is a generation of women who do not speak. My mother is one of those.”), Mfundo Tshazibane initially performed the gesture of a male holding the icon of a woman, a small statuette, in his upturned palm. When presented at the end of the work week, Tshazibane altered the gesture accompanying the text by slowly and precisely making a fist, then balancing the statuette carefully on the top of the fist and finally lifting his arm above his head as he spoke. This newly generated physical vocabulary underscored the text in a far more meaningful way, offering a range of images that first evoked male anger (fist as weapon), then power (the classic black power salute of an outstretched arm with fist clenched), and finally honour (the elevation of the statuette above the man’s head as he looked up at it).
MThemes and images that were significant in that they recurred in multiple pieces were the role and importance of the Mother figure, absence, European/Western culture as distinct from and often imposing on/limiting to traditional African culture.
MIn the initial Creative Response presentations, Yisa and Khanyile employed western dress (especially footwear) to signify the clash of cultures and the confusion induced by living in a landscape that syncretizes the contemporary and the traditional without offering any real way to navigate the challenges inherent. The Westernization of Cape Town was an issue that also found its way into all the Creative Response pieces. Power and responsibility reflected in the gender imbalance was another prevalent theme, and in her piece Maanyapelo embodied the younger generation of black African women who have reclaimed pride, strength and identity as women within the society. Locating home was perhaps the strongest theme in the Creative Response pieces, and Francis addressed this from her perspective, having lived in many countries before settling in South Africa several years ago.
MA general discussion followed the specific notes from Rudakoff. During the discussion, themes, both metaphorical and actual, of Common Plants were addressed. These included Fleishman’s observation that in many areas of both North America and Africa, plants generally have a dormant season (whether it is a result of drought/heat or winter cold) and that if the roots are sustained, plants survive and will regenerate; a comment that landscape changes voice by creating a place that by its physical nature may affect our identity and our understanding of and relationship to home; language was cited as a type of landscape and it was acknowledged that language carries environment by virtue of such locators as image and sound; Myles Warren offered the notion of ancestors as link between contemporary inhabitants of locations that might be distant yet still connected through unseen or unacknowledged roots and further discussion ensued related to diasporic communities. The Artist Participants along with Magnet Theatre member and movement coach Jennie Reznek, articulated some of the ideas that had been researched and investigated in Week One for the benefit of those newly arrived, including the Xhosa understanding of the concept of “home”, which comes from the father’s tradition. They raised the issue of absent fathers within this tradition in contemporary South Africa, and explained that children often live in their mother’s house, but not their father’s home.

MDistinction was clearly drawn between “house” and “home”. Myles Warren added to the discussion the observation that this would seem to indicate that the father is the gatekeeper of community and a signifier of its culture, while the mother is the caregiver and responsible for ensuring the survival of community culture. This notion of absence and presence was to become a core issue throughout the weeklong workshop.
MFollowing the discussion, the Artist Participants were introduced by Rudakoff and Fleishman to the Common Plants website in the University of Cape Town Media Lab, and they were given time to enter the discussion on the Common Ground Forum.

MAlso present were co-investigator Andrew Houston and collaborator Nina Schriver, observing on Day One both as part of their acclimatization after the lengthy journey, and in order to learn more about the specific cultural practises and beliefs that make up the varied heritage of the Artist Participants so they would be able to fulfill their respective functions: Houston to sound map aspects of quotidien Cape Town in order to explore how cultural codes are embedded in the sounds of an environment and Schriver to contribute to the mapping of physical vocabularies and movement patterns by combining her knowledge of physiotherapy and contact improvisation as a means of studying authentic movement.
MAfter the initial presentations, Belarie Zatzman and facilitator Mandla Mbothwe moved, with the fifteen Township youth participants, to their workshop space. Zatzman observed Mbothwe applying The Four Elements and the themes of Common Plants integrated from his participation in Fleishman’s workshop in Week One into his own evolution and application of the work within his community arts practise. The process and the result of this work will be discussed below.

July 11th:

Rudakoff began the day by facilitating a discussion with Artist Participants focussed on the narratives and images in their presented Creative Responses from the day before in anticipation of the afternoon work. Schriver subsequently facilitated a ninety minute intensive physical workshop employing contact improvisation and focussing on balance and weight. The exercises reprised the work Schriver undertook with Artist Participants in Iqaluit.

MThe Artist Participants were then engaged in an exploration of meaning in performance of auto-generated material based on personal resources by Rudakoff. It was generally acknowledged that exposing inner worlds, revealing or explaining codes in the imagery and physical vocabulary of their presented pieces was difficult and even frightening. Rudakoff offered the observation that no explanation of the codes was necessary as the goal of the pieces, at this stage of the process, was to lead participants to ask more questions rather than to clarify meaning. As well, she articulated the clarity of the images and themes in the pieces that precluded the need for detailed explanation.
MAs part of the exploration process and the integration of The Four Elements as well as the themes of the Common Plants project that were emerging through the experiential filter of each artist participant. Once more, a discussion arose that focussed both metaphorically and specifically on mothers. Rudakoff acknowledged and the participants agreed that their work throughout the previous week and into this set of workshops included, in some shape or form, reference in a core way to the figure of The Mother: as present, as absent, as powerful, as powerless.
MAs part of the discussion, Tshazibane reminded the group that during the Apartheid Era, most womens’ houses were not complete as their men were either working far away in other areas of the country, or they were imprisoned. The women were thus asked repeatedly to fill empty spaces. He acknowledged that it was unusual for a man to be talking about notions of “home”. Other Artist Participants further discussed the role of the mother as container for the home (to hold it together, to preserve it) and even as carrier of the home.
MRudakoff then set a task for the next day: each artist participant was to craft a ritual that either released the pain or honoured the joy of their engagement with and relationship to their mother. Again, elements were to be evoked/included. As well, Rudakoff provided a set of principles to be included or interpreted in the shaping of the ritual, such as “time”, “food”, “tools”, “sound”. Rudakoff then asked the Artist Participants, in a closed session, to employ the “There are stories about…” Image Flash exercise to begin to generate text about/for the Mother ritual. She introduced the Lomogram image cards and each participant was asked to choose a Lomogram at random and use it as an image springboard. The writing, to the surprise of the Artist Participants, continued for the rest of the afternoon, as each of them found the provocative combination of idea and lomogram images provided both incentive and inspiration. The other Creative Researchers used the time to sound map, to observe the area around the workshop space and to walk through and investigate a variety of distinct areas with Fleishman as their guide.

July 12th:

The day began with Houston facilitating a discussion of the responsibilities and nature of site specific work. He introduced the notion of bringing private issues to a public space and in so doing, the challenge of making the space personal.
MThis was followed by the presentation of the Mother rituals. Each Artist Participant offered a remarkably evolved, deeply affective individual piece that addressed the issues that had been discussed the previous day and raised new questions about the nature of home and the way in which individuals engage with home. As with the initial Creative Response presentations, languages included spoken text (in Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Afrikaans, English with fragments of other languages), physical vocabulary as well as non verbal sound.
MRudakoff then initiated a discussion of ritual as a transformative act versus ceremony which is a set of fixed activities. Schriver raised the ancillary issue of the private versus the personal and the role of the witness in this type of performance or presentation. Schriver then concluded the morning with another contact improvisation workshop, this time incorporating Rudakoff’s Lomogram images as a provocation to create a story in movement. Most of the artist participants incorporated the narrative and theme of their Mother ritual in this physical exploration.

MThe artist participants had, with Fleishman, invited the Canadian and Danish Creative Researchers to visit their homes, or the place they were able to locate as home in or near Cape Town. This cultural exchange excursion was scheduled for the next day and would take the entire group from Table Mountain, the Bo Kaap and District Six to the neighbourhoods of Mowbray, Rondebosch, Gugulethu, Khayelitsha and Nyanga East.

MRudakoff then introduced the concept of The Ashley Plays and challenged the Artist Participants, each in their home, to perform an Ashley Play as part of a cycle. The cultural tourism aspect of the day notwithstanding, the performances was intended to transform the series of visits into a cycle of site specific pieces. Francis raised the objection that working as the group had been, for a week and a half, on personally generated and presented material made it very difficult to shift to creation of an external character and narrative. Rudakoff explained that there is an inherent danger in creating auto-generated, self-referential material and that it is vital to be able to maintain the link to the inner resources while transferring the creative impulse to a theatrical investigation which communicates to others.

MMoving inwards to continue exploring individual voice and cultural identity had to happen at the same time as dramatic evolution of a character, a world of the play and a narrative, even if the narrative was non-linear. As with engagement in a landscape (I affect my landscape just as my landscape affects me), interaction is at the centre of this principle, and so Rudakoff also reminded the group to ask these dramaturgical questions of each presentation (ritual, creative response, Ashley Play or any other presentation for an audience): why am I telling this, to whom am I telling this, and why here and now?
MThe day ended with the Artist Participants shaping an Ashley Profile: Ashley is 26 years old, has a spiritual belief system but doesn’t belong to an organized religion, has no pets, is not in a committed relationship, was born in Johannesberg, achieved “matric” (graduated from high school), has been in jail but only once, has travelled overseas, likes to run, likes South African soap operas, speaks three languages, needs to have a tooth cavity filled, likes the colour red though wears black more often, has a scar that cannot be seen, is habitually late, is afraid of heights, doesn’t like the sun, hates Americans (USA), has not been tested for HIV recently. It was also agreed that the time/date/place of the cycle would be 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on July 13th, 2006 in Cape Town and surrounding Townships. As with other editions of this play-making exercise elsewhere in the world, the Artist Participants were asked to subtitle the cycle and the title became, The Ashley Plays: Where is Ashley’s Home?

July 13th:

The group met at the workshop space. In order to include Zatzman and Mbothwe in the day’s proceedings, the group travelled to a series of locations in and around Cape Town with Fleishman as a guide until the end of the day’s Youth Workshop at 1 o’clock.
The Ashley Plays: Where is Ashley’s Home? began at an outdoor location on Table Mountain where Francis, originally from Great Britain, located her home in Cape Town.

MFrancis initial creative response presentation as well as her Mother ritual had drawn on her experience of being part of an itinerant family and her Ashley play evoked a similar sense of searching for roots and being cut off.

MThe presentations then moved to the apartment of Khanyile, originally from Johannesburg (her grandmother’s home, and thereby her traditional home, is Moii River), where the Ashley play focussed on sense of danger and being invaded and the need to present a strong response in order to survive. The next play was at Madlala’s apartment,

where hope and possibility of home and happiness were suggested though not ascertained. Following, we moved to the University of Cape Town’s, Forest Hill student residences, to Tshazibane’s apartment,

where the Ashley play addressed danger inherent in being a young black male in a society that still conforms to generalized fear and assumption of guilt. Next, the group travelled to Maanyapelo’s mother’s home in Gugulethu where in addition to her Ashley play that focussed on long distance communication and the need to preserve root systems to survive, her mother, Hilda spoke to the group of her experiences as a resident of District Six who was forcibly removed to the townships.

MAs a violent thunder and lightning storm escalated in volume and force, the penultimate visit was to the home in KhayelitshaYisa shares with her cousin, where her Ashley play focussed on communication and preservation of relationships as well. Her Ashley play culminated in a phone call to her mother in England.

MAll of the Ashley plays referred to home, mothers, safety, danger. All used either a telephone (land line or cell phone), an intercom system or spoke to a person who was not physically present (either dead or gone). One of the features of this Ashley Cycle was that participants visited homes in comfortable suburban locations, as well as urban sites in more established areas of the Townships where homes were furnished with all the accoutrements one would ascribe to the middle class (electronic equipment, hardwood flooring, comfortable furniture, granite countertops and solid wood cabinetry, for example).
MAs part of Houston’s soundmapping, and to balance the group’s introduction to the excessive wealth of Cape Town’s beautiful seaside communities, Mbothwe took him for an evening tour through the area of Nyanga East which contains both houses with less accoutrements and comforts than those of our colleagues, and also to the sections of the Township where the row upon row of shanties and hovels provide a grim picture of the economic disparity in Cape Town.

MThe group ended the Ashley Cycle with a feast at Mbothwe’s parents home in Nyanga East where the entire group, after moving through the six Ashley plays (and partaking of a wide variety of foods and delicacies prepared by each participant), celebrated with Mbothwe’s family at a meal which we all contributed to in some way.

MThe house has been, over the decades, renovated by Mbothwe’s father, and the walls are solid enough to challenge any phone company installer, or, in fact, any gunshots. (The house is located within view of Crossroads, the area where in 1985 and 1986, the apartheid government encouraged and incited clashes between factions in which the conservative ‘witdoeke’ (white scarves) vigilantes attacked township youth supporting the United Democratic Front (UDF) aligned to the African National Congress (ANC). As well, close to 100,000 residents were forcibly removed from their homes in Crossroads and its immediate neighbouring communities as part of the governments relocation plan.)

MAs the evening came to a close, each Artist Participant was then invited by Rudakoff to bring questions the next day for the “guests”, the Creative Researchers.

July 14th:

The day began with questions for the Creative Researchers. These ranged from a general question for the group (“what is home to you?”) to specifically targeted questions (Rudakoff was asked to explain the genesis of The Four Elements and the Lomograms). As well the Artist Participants asked the group to discuss what had shifted for each of us in our internal landscape during the week in Cape Town and what we had learned from the workshop. Some of the answer to the question of shifting internal landscape included Rudakoff’s response that she further understood the distinction between source and resource, Houston’s response that he experienced a constant awareness of who we are, Schriver’s response that the space contains danger and that one must understsand how one feels included in the space to feel a sense of safety. Tshazibane then asked each participant what fruit they saw themselves as and the group responded with explanations (for example Houston selected a blueberry as it grows wild, sustains animals). Francis asked what was for each of us the strangest visual image observed during the week (Warren’s response of “fences” brought Jennie Reznek’s comment that in Cape Town, houses do not speak to the street…)

MThe afternoon was dedicated to viewing the project created during the week of workshops with Mbothwe, Zatzman and the Township youth participants.

MThese were five performances, instigated by discussion of the question “What is home?” and including Four Elements work. The pieces were performed throughout the building and were, according to Fleishman, very different from the work usually generated by these workshops.

MIn particular, Fleishman, in his comments to the group, noted that none of the pieces focussed on violence, murder, rape, and that there were neither guns nor deaths in any of the work. The overall theme was that if we speak of home, of self, of identity then there is hope. The youth groups were invited to offer their comments and these ranged from empassioned statements on the importance of knowing that their stories were interesting enough to tell, to explorations of how to apply what they had learned from Four Elements in their personal interactions as well as in their drama club work.

MThe Artist Participants and the Creative Researchers then returned to their workshop space and had a closing discussion where the next stages of the work were discussed and the participants offered their ideas, encouragement and committed to ongoing participation on the Common Ground Forum. Zatzman closed the session with her moving “There are stories about…” chronicling her experiences during the week.

July 15th:

Fleishman directed archival filming of the Week One creative responses with Rudakoff and Warren in attendence. There was then a final closing ceremony and the group dispersed, with the agreement that the website and the Common Ground Forum would function as the group “home” until the next set of workshops.

Week One | Week Two | Youth Workshops