Cape Town - Artscape will be joining in the month of Madiba’s birthday celebrations.
They will honour the iconic leader with a production titled “Mandela ‒ A More Human Face”.
The production will comprise poet Bulelwa Basse with the Township Opera Company and will take place on Saturday.
Basse said she feels quite honoured to have conceived the production itself.
“Not only as someone who is going to play an integral part within it, with my spoken word. But I think when I conceived the concept, I had the idea of presenting Madiba in a more personal context, because he has poignantly been displayed and projected as a statesman, and he’s given that level of ceremonious presence within society. Yet, Mandela was the kind of person who wanted people to approach him at a human level.”
This is why, when I was thinking about the essence of Madiba, the words which came to mind were: Mandela – a more human face. When I look at our society right now, I see a very vulnerably broken society. We’ve come out of Covid-19 times, we are currently faced with national load shedding, we are faced with other forms of social ills, and the idea of me writing this production, with weavings of the spoken word and reassuring voices of Township Opera Company, was fundamentally to bring a sense of hope to the human race,” said Basse.
The performance will share a compelling tale of the exceptional milestones of one of the greatest statesmen to lead South Africa. His life story for peace and reconciliation is told through the voices of the Township Opera Company and the spoken word of Basse, with Sandile Kamle as music director. Guests can expect “Ntyilo-Ntyilo”, “Isiswe Sabathembu” and “Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika”, to name a few of the songs performed on the night.
“Mandela – A More Human Face”, is a collaboration of Bulelwa Basse Services and Lyrical Base Project in association with Artscape.
Simone Heradien, senior manager of marketing and communications at the Artscape, said the Artscape was delighted to present this production “as part of our transformation programme of the theatre that was exclusively for a certain race 50 years ago”.
“It would have been great if Madiba was still alive to see the transformation the arts have gone through, the inclusivity the arts have gone through and also, the transformation process is to specifically host and present productions such as these that would have been banned in the previous apartheid regime. It is also to give a voice to the outside and community artists.”
Tickets can be purchased at Computicket or via Artscape Dial-a-seat 021 421 7695. Tickets: R120 (10% off for pensioners/students and scholars).
Madiba shirts and Xhosa traditional attire and accessories will be on sale to raise funds for the performing artists.