Travelling Light to reach South Africa

British Council Blog Post  8th March 2012 by Thobile Zulu 

Click to go to article source

World renowned British poet, musician and facilitator, Zena Edwards in partnership with the British Council in South Africa, are bringing Zena’s Travelling Light production to Johannesburg on 15 March 2012, and Cape Town on 16 and 17 March 2012.

Travelling Light is a creative piece of poetic story-telling by Zena linking three generations of women, through a gripping autobiographical account of a touching mother/daughter relationship.

As a part of the British Council’s art programme, Zena will engage South African audiences through poetry, story-telling and, will also share knowledge and skills with aspiring South African poets.

Poets such as Mbali Vilakazi and Naima McLean, both established South African poets, will have the opportunity to engage, share and collaborate with Zena as an expansion of her knowledge sharing experience.

The show, which Zena describes as a docu-poem, recounts Zena’s moving autobiographical story and explores the paradoxes that haunt and challenge gender definition and role playing in society.

Using poetry, visuals, song, movement and blogging to interact with and challenge the audience through a time warp of evolution in womanhood, the production touches on various themes including domestic violence, love relationships, sex, race and the dreams and aspirations of a young woman through some of the most challenging eras of modern womanhood.

The event is expected to attract many-a-poet enthusiasts including local poets, musicians, journalists, creative industry leaders and members of the public.

Zena’s visit forms part of the British Council arts team’s efforts to work with the best of British creative talent to develop innovative, high-quality events and collaborations that link thousands of artists and cultural institutions around the world, drawing them into a closer relationship with the UK.

During her stay in South Africa, Zena will also spend some time in Cape Town conducting workshops and rehearsals in preparation for her Travelling Light performances in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Travelling Light is not the first project that Zena and the British Council have partnered on; she previously came to South Africa in 2010 to participate in the Verbalized project, which showcased the best of young and emerging UK and South African poets, a project in which renowned South African poet Gcina Mhlophe was involved in.

Johannesburg audiences can expect to be enthralled by Zena’s Travelling Light show on Thursday 15 March at Space.com at the Joburg theatre at 18:30. While Cape Town enthusiasts will enjoy Travelling Light on 16 and 17 March at New Africa Theatre.

Sell the Children

Sorry, how old....?

A group of people came together one week day morning. They work for an advertising company and they need to land a client so they need a-one-in-a-million pitch. They have to sell a perfume product for a company called "Love Cosmetics". Now, whatever the design team, the copy team and the casting team were ultimately thinking is that to win this pitch they needed to make the campaign for this product something the consumers (who have been targeted using focus groups and market research) will 'buy into'.

That morning they came up with this. Image and text approved. By who?

Please excuse me if you know all this but I'm thinking out loud trying to process what I see every time I look at this advert for a 'women's' fragrance.

What result were they aiming for -  did they actually have solid aims and a strategy when they thought this up - when they juxtaposed innocence and sexiness to sell a scent to 'advertise' a contemporary woman's life style. And what did they EXPECT us to 'think' when they did?

Vogue 2011

Teddy bears, mascara and lipstick... and whatever that look is in this little girls eye, the copy translates it into coy seduction. The strategy behind the construction of this whole ad  is a paradox of negligent genius.

The above ad campaign is dated around 1974. It seems the hyper-sexualization of  girls was not a dialogue engaged with much at that time. But it also make me wonder how far the culture of sexualizing young girls has come when we see media and advertising companies pushing campaigns that promote clothes and underwear for children which are mere mini versions of those for grown women. It make we wonder whether the fashion and media industries feel they have some kind of immunity, suffer from a self-instigated obliviousness or a gamblers wrecklessness to continue with this form of selling of children practice while the debates around this disturbing issue rages.

This video analyzes the disturbing  hypersexualization of young girls as young as 5 years old. Watch and make up your own mind...

"Sophie Bissonnette's documentary, 'Sexy Inc. - Our Children Under the Influence',  analyzes the hypersexualization of our environment and its noxious effects on young people. Psychologists, teachers and school nurses criticize the unhealthy culture surrounding our children, where marketing and advertising are targeting younger and younger audiences and bombarding them with sexual and sexist images. Sexy Inc. suggests various ways of countering hypersexualization and the eroticization of childhood and invites us to rally against this worrying phenomenon."

 Click image for an interesting blog on the sexualization of young girls.

Travelling Light is on the move...

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Its Monday 5th March and I'm "packing" for Holland and Cape Town where I'll be sharing the next phase of development of Travelling Light.   Packing!!! I have to say its not my favourite task on my to do list, but that is the irony - I'm learning to Travel Light.

Quote from the show - "Helpful tip - if you pack for a holiday, your first pack is like a writers first draft. Go back, take out a third of the 'stuff', minimum! Then you'll be about right."

As it'll be International Womens Day on the Friday 8th March, I'll be exploring womanhood manifested in poetic writing and performance along with Zulile Blinker, another powerful Sister writer and performer, and Sis DJ Wonder (also a dynamic and sensuous writer and poet) .  I'm expecting an incredible weekend of vibes and feminine creativity.

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"What the guide told me", a poem - Haiti revisited

12th January day of the Haiti earthquake, 2 years on. Last month, I hosted and performed for two charity events, One By One For Haiti  and Haiti: Year Zero +2. Both events aim to remind us that the after affects of the disaster are still deeply resonating amongst the din of so many other news reports.

I found my attention turned to the women and the young girls who are living at high risk in the 'makeshift' camps, which should be places where all survivors can come together in mutual support of each other after a catastrophic event. In contrast, there has been an increase in their vulnerability. There  have been reports of up to "250 rapes in the first 150 days". Source: Women for Peace - Rape Crisis for Haiti: report.

It is never easy to talk about rape. Just the sound of the word alone is hard-hitting, chilling, anger-making. No one talks about it lightly. Though I've heard a few jokes round it that have made me guffaw purely because of the sheer brazen-ness of them. But in reality we've seen an increase globally in reported rape of both women AND men, an occurance so rarely talked about because of the shame.  But the true shame is in the value judgment placed of one over the other when the act itself is as dehumanising for humanity all round.  For whatever reason, attitudes toward sexual aggression is even more disturbing in its normalization towards women in the light of it being shocking and taboo for men.

 Also, it is under circumstances of crisis when the abhorrence of a crime against another human being such as rape becomes magnified, because we must consider how rigid attitudes

Even though its just a taste...

...its ok. The year is young.

So finding this now video by Kali Films is enough to add to the galvanized and inspired spirit I am feeling for the next phases of creating and completing Travelling Light.

Alice has been a childhood inspiration for me, The temple of My Familiar being my favourite book of hers. The strength of her voice and the faith of those in it, consistently re-ignites a humble fire in me to continue to put one foot in front of the other in times of uncertainty while navigating the tricky road as artist, writer and activist.

Watch this blog space. I feel it will be prolific this year....

"As Property Protests" - poem read live on The Book Show Sky Arts 1

After Gary Speed - Young Men, Suicide and Feminism

"Suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 35 in the UK, and seventy five percent of all suicides in the UK are male."
Not saying this for shock value, but I knew 4 men under the age of 40 who took their lives this year. One of whom was a very very close friend.  And since the sports man Gary Speed passed last week, there has been a outpouring addressing the state of minds of men who suffer from depression. An article came to my attention from the CALM campaign - Campaign Against Living Miserably.

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The reason I was drawn to this article is because of its reference to roles men and women have to endure, imposed upon them by "society", whatever that is these days. But whatever it is, it is taking lives as more and more men find it hard to be the square jawed, strong silent types that are apparently what they are (still)?!) expected to be.

Jane Powell, Chief Exec of CALM,  raises the issue of the role of feminism and male depression in a very condensed and  simplistic way but enough to rouse your interest in in the CALM website, the campaign and enough  to make me want to unpack why a global patriarchal system is failing its subjects, aside from propagating much unrest all over the planet that is  linked to profit driven and uber-individualistic idioms. Or maybe the three are closely connected: as men are expected to still bring home proverbial bacon and other  miscellaneous shiny things, they become a tad resentful of women and their "constant noise" (not my words) for equality, and women still expect men to open doors for them.

In the meantime, we all suffer traumas and distressing experiences that we need to talk about, that we need advice on how to cope with.  Then with expansion of  urbanisation and globalisation, the intensity of technology and the  white noise of the information age leave us with  little or next to no time  for introspective, reflective  thought, as the demand for our attention is constant and persistent. Some find ourselves in a habit of filling a need to be awake 24/7 in case we miss the next hot topic or an opportunity to buy the upgrade of a 'shiny thing'.  When we do stand still a moment, the noise can be deafening. Find something - a ritual, an addiction, SOMETHING - to squash it: alcohol, drugs, sex, partying... how many of us have been appalled by the behaviour of the young people we see on the BBC's "The Worlds Most Strictest Parent?"

The turbulence caused by conflicting emotions when maintaining an 'I can handle it'  exterior,  means the  burden of silence builds and compresses within hearts and minds. It shadows the spirit, undermines the psyche and the wounds  seep and begin to manifest themselves as misery, lethargy, pessimism, an anger that you cannot put your finger on and finally,  for some, a hopeless desperation that appears to leave no other option except ending the torment by taking steps to stop the beating of the ailing heart. I can only come to wonder where we are headed in the  ever raging gender equality dispute. Janet Powell says:

"We should indeed take a long, hard look at society and question some assumptions. Women now have full permission to be just who they want to be.  We can be a stay at home mum or a city banker, with or without a family...."

"If you flip that picture, and ask if men can do all of those things – in the way that women can – then the answer is no...."

And when the pressures get too much: "To lose control mentally and emotionally can/must/should only be done in a proper manly way."  

What is that?  - "a proper manly way"?

Ultimately, the whole globe is in transition as we come to a zenith in the need for  self-awareness, or else get swallowed up in the myriad of  identities forced up on us by mainstream media and intrusive bolshie ad campaigns telling you will never be happy unless... and when you don't meet that unobtainable  standard of femininity or masculinity - designed to be unattainable so you keep buying - you are left with guilt, inadequacy and a struggling self-esteem.
It is the peak of the 500 year capitalist campaign and there is only one way it can go from here.

For one day, one WHOLE day, I challenge you ,while you go about you everyday business, to consciously look around and see how and what types of images of masculinity and femininity are pushed in our faces at every corner, bus stop, tv ad, sitcom, in our language and even in your own home.
And while there are plenty who die at the hands of profit-driven-gotta-have-it greed in the guise of a"democracy" hailing liberal personal freedom and individualism through wars abroad, at home there are many who silently suffer from isolation caused by the pressure of insidiously forced gender roles.  In the age of the metro-sexual male and predatory Cougars, we can no longer push aside how gender socialization and sexual colonization, as crazy as it may sound, is  killing people.

Click the link and check out CALM and what Jane Powell has to say about "Suicide, an Issue for Feminists". http://www.thecalmzone.net/2011/04/a-call-to-feminists/

Here is another article from 2008 where Jane is quoted before the creation of the CALM campaign. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7219232.stm

Help Lines worth checking out:

Depression and Suicide in Men

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/menshealth/facts/depressionsuicide.htm 

Support Line

http://www.supportline.org.uk/problems/suicide.php

MIND

http://www.mind.org.uk/help/people_groups_and_communities/mens_mental_health

Just in case you needed reminding...

Click for more Imani Uzuri

JEAN BINTA BREEZE READS LIVE a tribute to 5 generations of women

Jean touches the core of earthy Womanhood when she reads poems like these in this way.

FEMFEST - a Festival of Women Playwrights – an interview with Hope McIntyre of Sarasvati Productions

I interviewed Hope McIntyre, the Artistic Director of Sarasvati Productions and the driving force behind Femfest. Where other festivals with women at their focus have died out in Canada, the drive and determination of Sarasvati and all its volunteers, has  Femfest striding in its ninth year.

Click to go to Sarasvati's FemFest 

Website for 2011

Hope is herself a playwright, hence her passion and is at present developing a new theatre piece called "Jail Baby".  Hope Kindly sent the opening monologue:

Spotlight on Jasmine, about 8 months pregnant. 
As she speaks she changes into Remand Centre issue clothes.

JASMINE:      They say you can’t remember that far back – back to being born. Maybe I don’t remember, but if I close my eyes, I can feel the concrete against my slippery little body. I feel metal. I have nightmares of sliding out into a world of bars and cold and noise and suffocation. It’s like something I can’t escape. Born to be in prison. Born a prisoner. Sounds like a bad country song. Even worse, I became known as the toilet bowl baby. Now there’s a good song title. If only someone had taught me to play guitar, I could be traveling the world telling my sorry tale. I’d record an album in Memphis and they’d make a movie about me. (now fully dressed in prison garb, she looks down at herself) I’m just fulfilling my destiny. This is what my mom was wearing when I was born. I’m my mom 18 years later.

I asked Hope what were her future plans for Jail Baby:
"In terms of the plans, we are doing rewrites this year and working towards a full production and publication in May 2013. Our goal is to produce it for the general public but then also take it on