Samanthole Arts Foundation

The Market Theatre stages a modern classic play entitled ‘Sizwe Banzi is Dead’. The new-generational embodiment of Sizwe Banzi is Dead, starred by contemporary South African actors Athandwa Kani (John Kani’s son) as (Styles and Bantu) and Mncedisi   Baldwin Shabangu as (Sizwe Banzi and Robert Zwelinzima) hits the Market Theatre stage after almost four decades. The production which was pioneered through collaboration between the white South African playwright Athol Fugard and the black actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona in the 70s is one of the great South African classics in the theatre landscape locally and internationally. Sizwe Banzi is a chronicle of the dehumanizing treatment of South Africa’s black population under apartheid. The play starts in a small photography studio called Styles Photography studio and follows a comic story of a man who is willing to keep himself alive but his name dead in the manner of speaking. His quest to survive without his real passbook tells a

  “I AM AN AFRICAN - I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains, the rivers, the deserts, the trees the flowers, the seas and the ever changing seasons that define the face of our native land”. These words by former president Thabo Mbeki reverberates in the theatre play entitled KETEKANG – loosely translated from Sepedi/Setswana, which means celebration. The ‘I’m An African’   speech he delivered on the 8 th of May 1996 in Cape Town gives substance to the play and contrasts the dawn of democracy with the celebrations that happened almost two decades ago. The production features Aubrey Poo, Nokukhanya Dlamini and assortment of talented musicians, choreographers and poets that give the twenty years of democracy celebration a bang. Nokukhanya Dlamini, Aubrey Poo, Caroline Borole, Dionne Song, Lebo Toko, Lesedi Job, Sonia Radebe, Vuyelwa Maluleke and Zimkitha Kumbaca ©Ruphin Coudyzer A fusion of music and thea