MAXEKE : THIS WORK IS NOT FOR YOURSELVES
university of the western cape centre for humanities research . district six homecoming centre star theatre . 2023
This puppetry and object theatre production brings to life the worlds and words of Charlotte Maxeke, the intellectual, activist, and artist known as the "Mother of the Liberation Struggle" in South Africa. Maxeke was the first black South African woman to earn a university degree in the sciences, which she received from Wilberforce University in the USA in 1903. Her extraordinary global experiences, including her time as a member of the African Jubilee Choir touring Europe and North America in the late 1890s, create a rich backdrop for her remarkable life. Maxeke became a leading intellectual of the Black Atlantic, an early advocate for women’s rights in South Africa, and a significant modernist thinker at the dawn of the 20th century, shaping the ideas of many early leaders in South Africa’s freedom movement.
CREATIVE TEAM
script : Buhle Ngaba
direction : Itumeleng wa Lehulere
puppetry direction & costume design : Aja Marneweck
musical direction : Neo Muyanga
set & lighting design : Patrick Curtis
projection design : Kirsti Cumming
production videography : Rui Assibuji, Zuko Sikhafungana & Malik Ntone Edjabe
REVIEWS
Vital, beautiful and meaningful theatre. .... A set comprising of sliding screens, imaginative and evocative visual images, and moveable drums for seats and puppets is clever and utilitarian. The lighting and music all add perfectly to the drama, but it is the performers who lift this story and make it beautiful and riveting.
Megan Choritz, Weekend Special
Kinetic objects and puppetry combine with set and lighting design by Patrick Curtis and Kirsti Cumming’s multimedia projections to drive the visual world of the production, which cuts between past and present, destabilising the idea of a coherent biographical narrative.
IOL