Theatre appoints festival director

The Market Theatre Foundation has appointed MoMo Matsunyane as the new director of the Zwakala Festival that will take place from 4 February 2023.

The festival is the most established and well-respected theatre festival in Gauteng. The revamped model of the festival has a much clearer mission and vision, which is to develop, nurture and promote new writing talent, a platform for connecting communities and to support new writers and directors to connect with larger audiences.

Matsunyane has been a professional actor since 2004. She obtained an honours degree in Dramatic Arts from Wits University in 2012, majoring in performance as well as film and television.

She has performed in numerous plays, films and television shows and has been nominated and won several awards. Those include Best Actress in a Leading Role (Have You Seen Zandile?); Naledi Theatre Awards 2014), Best Supporting Actress (Ankobia); SA Theatre Magazine Awards 2017), Best Ensemble (Animal Farm); Naledi Theatre Awards 2015), Best Supporting Role (Tsotsi the Musical); Fleur Du Cap Awards 2018), among many others.

UJ gallery unveils art collection

Visitors to the gallery can view this unique collection of art that resonates with biographical, educational, social, economic and political meanings coba in that he improved their way of thinking about life in general. “He held strong views on social and political matters. He was an unflinching Marxist and made no apologies for that. In those days, the mid-thirties, when life appeared less worldly he gave us the shock of our lives when he bluntly flung this at us, that he did not believe in the existence of God.”

Johannesburg - The University of Johannesburg has opened the Nimrod Ndebele - Gerard Sekoto Collection at the UJ Art Gallery, a long-term showcase on loan from the university’s chancellor, Professor Njabulo Ndebele.

Visitors to the gallery can view this unique collection of art that resonates with biographical, educational, social, economic and political meanings, which are encoded within them and also resonate beyond them.

In 2016/17 she co-directed multi-award Naledi winning play Tau which enjoyed a highly successful run at the Market Theatre.

“I hope to give an opportunity to plays and performers who will thrive in an opportunity like this. It is one thing to want to be on a stage like the Market Theatre’s, but it is another to be hungry for it. I also wish to have a variety of plays that represent a multitude of voices, particularly those from communities people consider marginalised, forgotten or unworthy,” she said.

The Zwakala Festival continues to remain one of South Africa’s most dynamic theatre festivals aimed specifically at communitybased theatre-makers.

It was established three years after the Market Theatre Laboratory was founded in 1989 by Barney Simon and John Kani, with funding from the Rockerfeller Foundation.

The festival is sponsored by the Department of Sports Arts and Culture incubation programme.