Author: media

Blood and Snow Manifesto is Louise’s intimate account of her journey through Stage 4 Lymphoma and disability.
It embraces themes of illness, trauma, loss, disability and mortality to explore how we construct subject/self based on our own experiences/choices and how those constructions are unavoidably influenced by the world around us. How permeable are we? How strong is our immunity to this often sick/dangerous world?
Is it possible to transform through suffering and loss, what is the difference between cure and healing? How does the long winter begin to turn to spring?
This is Louise’s praise poem to the wonder of the unique aesthetic and choreography of the adapted body.  It is tribute to the extravagant beauty of inimitable form.  It opens discourse on crip p/leisure, grants the witness permission to gaze, controls and redirects the ableist narrative by challenging, “you may look, but what you see will not be what you thought you would see”.
It is a preemptive swan song, lavish grief for our mortality, an attempt to assuage our fear of death.
She also shares a wee tale of divine intervention.
Specifically invited are persons with disabilities, illness, mental health issues.

Concept, visuals, text by Louise Westerhout
Editing by Anwar McWhite

In celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Jill Richards and Waldo Alexander are delighted to present three of his Sonatas for Piano and Violin. This concert includes the joyous “Spring” sonata, the 1st Sonata in D Major, and the legendary “Kreutzer” sonata.
Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792, where he studied with Haydn and Salieri, amongst others. His reputation as a virtuoso pianist was quickly established, and he also studied the violin. He wrote his first violin sonatas, a set of three (Op. 12) in 1797-98; six more were completed by early 1803, a fairly short time span. Beethoven was to write just one more sonata in 1812.
Both the violin and piano were undergoing tremendous changes at the time. The piano’s range and sonority increased in response to a need for more power and a more sustained sound. Violins also underwent changes in construction, with higher bridges, longer necks, fingerboards and strings. These changes meant that Beethoven made steadily increasing technical and expressive demands on both instruments, resulting in a deeply satisfying musical experience for both the modern performer and the listener.

Piano – Jill Richards
Violin – Waldo Alexander

In this 360 degree Virtual Experience, viewers can glimpse scenes from Another Kind of Dying by Amy Louise Wilson, which won the 2020 Distell National Playwright Competition. The play follows the journey of Silumko, who moves from rural Eastern Cape to Johannesburg after the loss of his father. Judge Yvette Hardie called the play “transcendent and hopeful”, while Malika Ndlovu praised its treatment of “issues of substantial gravity and complexity.”
Created using volumetric capturing of a live performance, the actor’s body is captured in 3D depth and placed it into an animated virtual environment.

Written by Amy Louise Wilson
Translated by Aphiwe Livi
Performed by Aphiwe Livi
Direction by Joanna Evans
Video by Francois Knoetze
Music by Dumama + Kechou