 Seek discomfort after Anis Mojgani's shake the dust. I am choosing between love and fear every day. I tried to write a eulogy to the coward in me but he is not dead yet. Courage isn't making a ghost of all my frightened parts revolting against my tender underbelly rioting beneath my tongue. They have protected me like a lifeline. But I have been filling my gut with light or love or joy or staying up to pass my bedtime laughing into the night or other heroics that are synonymous with God. I am always afraid but jump anyway, shake the dust when I land, turn my survival into a love song for you who looks into the mirror and cannot find yourself. You have made sadness your home, free-falling and you can't get up, shake the dust. Do not obey the gravity of your fears, seek discomfort and love regardless. I am Isovili, based in the city of Tuane, South Africa, and welcome to Pace in Tangland. Yes, welcome everybody. It's so great to have you all with us again. Good afternoon, Africa, Europe. Good evening, Australia, Asia and good morning here from New York and America. Thank you Clabisto Vili, unfortunately I can't do the click sound but that was a beautiful opening for day two. We had a wonderful first day yesterday. It was really very engaging and so excited to see all the enthusiasm from everybody. My name is Erwin Maas. I am, like I said, based in New York. I'm one of the co-founders together with my crimes in partners, Nikkei Jonah and Ricardo Peach, one of the co-founders of Pace and we welcome you all here today for our second day of Pace and Tangled. I just have a few housekeeping notes and then I'm going to give you over to the first panel of today. So to get the best experience of Pace and Tangled, there are a few different platforms. We are meeting three times each day on a platform such as this in Zoom or AirMeet, but there's also engagement through the website. Please if you haven't registered, please register and if you have registered, please check out the website because a lot of the artists' works are on the website, videos for tour ready, videos and works for work in progress. And then we also have the WhatsApp group. So I know it's very active and that might scare some people off but we do ask you to be part of that WhatsApp group at least for this week because artists will also engage via the WhatsApp group. So those are the three ways to engage. I want to thank our entire team, Mark Dobson, Isabel Locke, Summary, Lisanda, Tutte Cani, everybody that has worked so hard in these last two months to really quickly make this happen online as we could not meet in South Africa altogether in June for Pace 2020. That's about it for me right now. I would love to welcome Isabel as our moderator for today's panel. Isabel. Thank you very much, Bo Wint and good afternoon to all of you global citizens. Whilst the pandemic holds us back and we cannot assemble, it's great that Pace has enabled us to be able to assemble in this particular way on an online medium. In our webinar this afternoon, we hope to explore the Pace for Creative Disruption on the continent and we conclude this afternoon's webinar with a creative intervention by the artist Sonia Rademeyer. We'll just touch briefly on Sonia Rademeyer. She was born in Zimbabwe, studied in Netherlands and is living in South Africa but she works across the globe. Sonia collects soil from wherever she travels and she also asks people to bring soil to her from other parts of the continent. And our website says that at a very personal level soil holds the association of authenticity for her. But on a social and political level soil or land is highly charged with associations of displacement and trauma through colonization. Now the issue of land, identity and belonging is a matter that is simple to the heartbeat of all artists. And the panel this afternoon, I have four wonderful artists who will share and talk about their work. The first is Zerion Pirahanu who is from Addis Ababa, studied at the Addis Ababa University. He then pursued a graduate degree at the University of Warwick in the UK and at the University of the Arts in Belgrade in Serbia. His focus is on international performance research and his research interests are the relationship between theater and politics in Ethiopia. In his book, Ethiopian Theater Ideas of Modernity and Nation Building, he traced back the historical beginnings of Ethiopian theater and shows how the early theater was influenced and shaped by the ideas of modernity and the process of nation formation in the country. By giving social, political and artistic account on the history of the beginning of the 20th century in Ethiopia, he argues that the trend for theater should be scrutinized. We hope that that's what you'd probably be able to do this afternoon. My second panelist is Nader Stabit, an Egyptian theater director. She believes that art should offer entertainment and joy as well as open the doors of dialogue, that art should raise awareness, it should educate and play, other than just, it should educate, play and also offer enlightening roles to people. In 2011, she co-founded the performing arts company Noon Creative Enterprise. Nader's passion for the theater began when she was a child performing in a school drama production. She went on to study theater in Egypt, majoring in psychology and then to the American University in Cairo, just followed by a master's degree in creative entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom. Her work engages in often contentious and controversial issues, such as circumcision, sexual harassment, street children, dreams, participation of youth, the media, racism, migration, and the portrayal of women in the media and law. The third panelist is from Uganda, Beatrice Lamuako, who's an acclaimed novelist and was shortlisted in 2011 for the Cain Prize for Literature. Beatrice is a member of Transcend Art and Peace, an organization that supports creativity and art in working for peace. Now, apart from writing her novels, she has also written about issues affecting women, including HIV AIDS and the impact on war on women and social justice. With the grant that she received from the Age of Guggenheim Foundation, she researched land in post-conflict northern Uganda. She holds a master's degree in human rights from Makiririri University in Uganda. And finally, the fourth panelist is from South Africa, Hamish Neal. He studied at the University of Advata surrounding Johannesburg and then worked as a project manager for drama for life. He was the brainchild behind the Social Change Project, built a president that asked Bertie in questions about democracy, constitution building, active and responsible citizenship, such as how do we enhance the role of democratic leadership amongst all youth and how can we foster generations of youth to live the legacy of Nelson Mandela. For all my panelists, a central focus of their work is about interrogating the status quo and disrupting it when necessary. This afternoon's discussion, creative disruption and disobedience on the continent will explore some of their motives in their work and the creative movements, but also focus more than just focusing on their work. We also want to explore the pertinent questions about creative disruption. This creative disruption is not a new term. It was used in the early 1940s by the advertising and branding movement in this afternoon's discussion. We'd like to also explore how community and stakeholder engagement is crucial to successful creative disruption interventions. We also want to explore how we deal with advocacy and the issues of accountability when disrupting. We'd like to look at how emerging technologies and social media also serves as either a tool or as a hindrance in the movement. Now, my role in this webinar is quite easy. All I need to do is I need to just set the mood and get my panelists to argue, talk to each other and to engage you and that I hope that you as the audience will also participate in the creative disruption process by contributing to the chat box on your screen and all your questions and your comments will be fed to us and that I hope that the panel will be able to engage with your questions as well. So to kick off, I'm going to ask each of the four panelists to briefly spell out just in the introduction what is the political, the economic and the social environment in which you operate and what is it that you wish to disrupt and to what end. So I'm going to repeat that again is that can each of the panelists briefly spell out what is the political, the economical and the social environment in which you operate and what is it that you wish to disrupt and to what end. So it's over to the panel and they'll take that one by one. Shall I start off with you Beatrice? Don't forget your microphones as you go on to unmute yourself. Okay. I do have my, I think Isabel will share my presentation. Sure. Okay, your presentation first. Okay, thank you very much Isabel. My presentation will focus mainly on issues and how things are ongoing in Uganda. And of course, it's not, I'm not giving every detail to everything, but this is just a discussion to, so that you can get an idea of what is happening in Uganda. Isabel, I can have the next one. Okay, for us, Ugandan's are basically artists by nature. Different people are doing different forms of art, fashion, poetry, with baskets, we compose songs, we create stories and do all these different forms of art. Whereas in Uganda, we have the constitution allows for freedom of expression and of course it guarantees the right to engage in peaceful activities and influence policies through civic actions. The government, the same government has also passed a series of repressive laws that has expanded a number of governments regulatory bodies which have mandates to oversee control and monitor. And so with the same plan where we're allowed to express, the same plan is also controlling what we say and what we do. Also, it's very important for you to note that we've had the same presidency since 1986. And so that means that we have a government that wants to stay in place. And all the disruptive arts that are available are going to be suppressed, especially if they feel that it's going to affect what they're saying. So there are a number of artists or writers that have done incredibly a number of things to, and of course we have seen how they are handled. So the first one I'll mention is Dr. Stella Nyanze. She's a feminist and a writer and she uses radical woodness to voice our unhappiness with the current regime. Of course, she was in jail for a year for a point that she posted on Facebook. And while she was in prison, she also wrote a number of poems. And we also have her collection of short story, I mean, collection of poetry, which is No Roses From My Mouth. And at the moment she's running for a compelling member of parliament and I hope that she will be able to win and so that she keeps highlighting some of the issues that affect our society. So just I got an extract of one of the points that she has written so that you can actually see how she's disrupting the status quo in Uganda. And to this point, she wrote to the president of Uganda and here it goes, you're worried. They say it was your birthday yesterday. How morbidly grave a day. I wish that a series cast genitals had pushed out a monstrosly greenish blueish steel bath. You should have died at bath. You dirty, delinquent dictator. You should have died at bath. You were in Kaguta in the 70s. And you can already see that writing to a president who has been in power for 30-something years, I stopped counting, you will know that definitely he's not going to sit quietly as you say things like that. And that's why she had to spend some time in prison for her writing. And she continues to speak and write. And there are many of her points that I could have read and you just see what kind of person she is. Okay. And the second one is Bobby Wine, whose real name is Robert Ciavullani. He's a musician turned politician. Of course, he has been arrested as many times. He has been injured a number of times. At one point he had to seek medical treatment in the US and there are always Trump charges against him. And of course, we know he gained his popularity through his music. And according to media, of course, he has been, his concerts now have been canceled as many times as 125 times. And that's a lot for a musician. That means, of course, there's a system that is trying to suppress your economic income. He's also running for president in our upcoming election, early next year. So, yeah, it's a rough situation here. The other artist, Kagei Ngobi, he's a performance poet who also calls himself a protest poet. He's very vocal on issues that are affecting us. And he's very aware that sometimes when he performs, he's not sure if, you know, he's going to walk out of stage alive or anything. So he's well aware of what could happen. And some of his poetry has already been banned from being performed at the National Theater. And it's also strange in a way because he's always performing at the National Theater when he has the opportunity. And so some of these poems, they've told him, do not, whatever happens. But he has also a company that has been able to, you know, include young poets and also, you know, give them the courage to also continue to do whatever they can do. So I will just read a bit of Kagei's poem, which he has written. The title is in 2065. The president will be the president. Sorry, the president will be the president we have today. And in a wheelchair, he will give the nation address. Only his son, then a film martial will read on his behalf. He will talk on his behalf. He will rule on his behalf. In 2065, nothing will have changed that much except I will be over surveyed. And for now he's in his parties. So we can imagine. Okay. And also we have a number of writers, organization or arts organizations that are doing things that are disrupting the status quo that probably are being done for the first time. So we have Ugandan Pen through the project, Hanna's Think Rare Voices trained prisoners to write whatever stories that they could. And their work has been published in an anthology which is called As Is Too Dead Before the World. We all know we have very negative attitude whoever has been to prison or, and we don't think they have a lot of sense. But here in Uganda for the first time we have prisoners who are telling their stories. And then we have also FemRite. FemRite is a women organization that has trained so many women and provided support for them to write and voice whatever issues that they have. And FemRite has published more than 40 books and the women have received national and international recognition for their contribution. Of course, FemRite was just founded recently in 1996 but before that there was hardly any publication by women in Uganda. And so this has changed the literacy forever for us. So I conclude by saying that as artists we will continue to create no matter the circumstances, whether there are aggressive laws, whether we've had the same president forever, whether, you know, and use whatever we have to make sure that we say what we say. And of course, whether we are threatened, whether we are doing the things that we should do, whether we say obvious things and are still arrested for them. Because I recently, a comedian group was arrested for doing a skit for nepotism in Uganda. And for us, it's very clear that, you know, it's an obvious thing. So why arrest people for saying it? And then it's also very important that we recognize and honor the bravery and selflessness of some of the writers who is to make it to power so that they're able to are disrupt and say whatever they do. So I say more power to artists. Thank you so much for listening to me. I'll call him out there. Thank you very much, Beatrice. I think one of the key things that you raise is that whilst a country may have a constitution and may guarantee freedom of expression, that freedom of expression and so forth is often curtailed by regulations and policies which are often not consistent with the values of a constitution. And that gives rise to the kind of artist's movements that then begin to challenge the state. And I think there's one thing that you talk about in the end, which is about the recognition that those artists receive. And I think this is something we'd like to come back later on in the discussion. It is the kind of recognition that artists who engage in the creative disruption movement receive, but not necessarily from their own state but or the agencies in their state, but rather very often where those sources of recognition come that then support the kind of work. And we'll talk about this when we talk about the issue of our stakeholder engagement. I'm going to move to Zerion Bihari to take us into your country in Ethiopia and the role of artists there. Thank you very much. I just will talk about a little bit survey of how the artists used interruptions or new methods in challenging, especially the political atmosphere in Ethiopia. Starting from the first performance, the first theater which was introduced in 1913 by a man called Teclaura Teclamarem who was in Europe and then came back to Ethiopia. And so in one of the days, he was invited to see a performance. So I'm gonna talk about the forms of theaters. So he went to see theater, which he said is no theater. So he said there was a dance, there was a music which was an indigenous kind of performance. He said, this is no theater. So if you want to do a theater, you should do it in European form. So he started to write the first play and then which was considered to be the first kind of modern play in Ethiopian theater history. So he introduced the play in one way to show how theater is done in the other way to challenge the political status of the time. And so the first day after when it was staged for the first time, it was banned. So the queen at the moment, if she was a queen Zoditu, she banned the play because she thought that it's a criticism against her government, against her monarchy. So she banned it. So, and then in the 1960, in the 1974, when the revolution happened against the emperor, I have to say, there started to become a new kind of theater styles. For example, there was a new form of theater that promotes socialist kind of performances. And then to instruct and support the government to go toward socialism. So for 17 years, Ethiopia was led by a military government, which claims to be a socialist one. So the plays that were produced, the music that was produced at the moment were supportive of this kind of political regime. So the forms were also changed from being more realistic to kind of break stands kind of performances with participatory elements. So there was some playwrights, a few playwrights who tried to challenge this status quo and then tried to write against the forms and against the government political structure. But unfortunately, some of them were during that the moment where persecuted some have been imprisoned. And then in 1991, there was a gain and as a change of government. So the one that we have right now. So during this time, as Beatriz was saying, we had an official constitutional right to say whatever we want through the arts, through theater, through music, through literature or visual art. But practically it's not allowed. So for example, if one playwright or director wants to direct the plays and it stages for the National Theater, which is against the government policies or the government method of governing the country, it is very improbable for the director to stage at the National or any kind of theater for that matter. So there were also some directors and playwrights who tried to challenge again these forms of writing plays and then try to find alternative ways of staging performances. For example, two playwrights, Manezo Alandashev and then one is Maaza who tried to show their performances outside of the theater houses so that they can get some kind of audience reception and then get rid of the government control system. But it was not that much successful. So one of the challenge here is that despite the pressure from the government to stage performances, which can be critical against the government, there is also a challenge of staging performances in conventional kind of theater. For example, people still wants to see or the theater houses still wants to stage plays that are kind of European in their form, in their content. So there are some few playwrights to try to even incorporate kind of the rich resources of indigenous performance forms as a challenge for this kind of theaters and then try to stage performances. I also have tried to do experimental kind of theaters in a sub-university and also for the National Theater despite their low attendance and then despite their low acceptance from the theaters. Thank you very much for that. I think you touch on key issues for us that we all experience in most parts of the globe. That is people who do the kind of contingent disruptive work would often have struggling audiences, particularly in national theaters or those particular state-run theaters. But the key, another question that you also raise there is the question of bannings of artists and the banning of work, particularly in countries where there are constitutions on the one hand, the talk of freedom of expression that end up with bannings. Let's move to Nader and then we come back to, we go to Hermitian, then we get into dialogue with each other. So Nader, if you can paint the picture for us in your country, please. Hello. Well, Egypt will structurally officially follows a more Soviet model where arts are a service to the people. So on one hand there are kind of theater, they call them houses or palaces. They're basically buildings all over the country. They're unfortunately mostly closed or non-functional and they follow, they are all parts of the ministry of culture. So there are kind of these two separate systems for the arts that run in parallel in Egypt, one that comes from the ministry of culture that's supported by the ministry, where artists and cultural operators are ministry employees. And then there's a whole other independent sector that relies on working with European counterparts, the counterparts in the West to support the creation of performances. And they are independent of that whole ministry structure. And at various points, these kind of two parallel systems have ignored the existence of each other, but have also shown that they don't like each other and have also tried to work with each other at various times. So that's kind of one view of what's happening. Recently, however, though, there have been a lot of banning of things like foreign funding. So the Egyptian government is making it very hard for independent entities from NGOs all the way to small theater collectives and arts groups to kind of find funding outside of the kind of the formalized, the formula, like the more government run stuff, which they're not really eligible to use much of the time. So that has kind of closed down a lot of spaces, independent spaces and also institutions as well as made it hard for smaller, younger groups to kind of come up and actually practice their art forms. So within that structure lives a new creative enterprise. For instance, I will use my own company as an example of how these systems work or could work together and how the disruption of it is a lot part of the identity of the work I personally do and the work of a few other people also. So Nune Creative Enterprise is an enterprise, it's a company, so it's not, it is neither officially part of the ministry even though we do, we are able to work because we are a registered company and we are originally more from the independent scene and sector, but we are formalized structure because we are a company. So that allows us to kind of navigate both somewhat independent worlds without really being part of one fully but able to engage both. And a lot of the time because of this interesting space we hold, we are able to bring in both parties to work together and also choose which format to kind of create work. So it also allows us this agility in bringing in creating projects and working and it also kind of opens up the space we can use in the works we create and present. We're also, I guess we follow, so the system we use is also a disruption of, I would say classical performing arts formats. So we work a lot in communities where we really rely on the community to invite us in. So a lot of the time we present works outside people's homes where it's an invitation from a community or a person in the community as opposed to an entity or an organization. That said, we also work with schools and institutions but it allows us that agility to move across the spaces which has allowed us to present works in greater numbers in unexpected places. A lot of our audiences are first time theater goers in very remote areas around Egypt where there isn't the president. They've not seen any theater or participated in a workshop of this kind before. So a lot of the time it's their first experience and therefore a lot of artists that we work with have to kind of get used to that people will not adhere to sitting in rows. They might walk around in the middle. Women might breastfeed and all that is okay. Young kids might come in and look for their parents. Someone might eat something. I mean, sometimes it's outdoors and cars might pass. And sometimes it's indoors in a theater structure that's ticketed in the city. And it really kind of has allowed us this whole breadth of movement and working with different people. And I think the variety in our partners and the people, communities, organizations we are able to work with kind of allows us to stay functioning and to not really bother anybody too much. And therefore we are allowed to continuously exist in this space. And then the other side of what we do would be kind of disruption through the topics we use and the artistic formats we use. Where we are able to create works that are very light that can move around, that aren't very design intensive as well as create works that are more classically kind of in the Western view theatrical performances that take place on a theater with an audience and have bigger sets and more elaborate design in them. But also our topics, a lot of the time are come from the communities we go to. We've had a quite successful partnership to create a performance on female gentle mutilation that has been performed in over 500 places, viewings around Egypt and it's a slapstick comedy. So in itself the choice to talk about a very loaded topic through using comedy and slapstick is a disruption of how female gentle mutilation as topic has been expressed or talked about through the development world for the past 50 years in Egypt where it's a very kind of solemn serious top down conversation, but never kind of in the use of comedy we are able to get people to laugh with us and then kind of it allows everybody to kind of ease into the topic and it creates a space where people can learn together and discuss together and there isn't a top down. I know what you need to do and this is what needs to happen and there isn't that whole drama of people are dying and this is really bad. It kind of frees the space from these two systems or modalities that are more development oriented for instance and allows communities to really come together and discuss this topic with curiosity and kind of more joyful angle to why is it that we do this to begin with and what does it really do and how do we really want this or could we think of something else we want and that curiosity is not necessarily present in the other formats. I won't talk about all our projects but this is just an example that I would like to use. We've also managed to work in mental health institutions. We do things in corporate settings and in that I kind of also disrupts the clear lines that the world has boxed. A lot of the time especially performing arts companies kind of cater to one very select audience. So we only work with mental health or we only work on female gender issues or whatever. We only work with children. We work with everybody and I think that's kind of helped free us of quite a lot of and disrupt the models that exist for what performing arts companies can, could, should or to do in the work they do. On the back, I mean on the downside it also confuses people. This variety, but so far we've been happy to live with it and for us at the core we're performing arts companies. So the topics, we're happy for the topics to change and for the formats and for the, we can do puppets this time and next time we'll do more physical theater or more classical theater or more interactive and that allows us also the creative space to stay engaged and to stay curious and focused and inspired. Super, no, no, let's take it till there and I'll come back to you in a short while. I think what you're saying to us in the nutshell is that even in a country where theater is considered to be a service to the people it's often not funded by a state when the, you don't speak the master's voice and that you often end up finding sources of funding from outside of your country and one of the things that we continually deal with on this continent is the amount of funding that we get for the work that we do in the arts particularly from the West. And that does talk to kind of stakeholder relationships but it also talks around the kind of relationships that we have and also to some extent around agendas. I think one of the things that you raise with us is quite interesting is that the way in which you work where you don't necessarily fall within or lock yourselves in within the conventions of the norms of conventional theater in some way. But I think key thing that you picked up was that although you deal with very serious issues of circumcision, gender violence, the brutality and whatever else is that you never lose the element of laughter in the activism. And I think that's something we're gonna pick up again in this conversation because very often when we think of trying to disrupt and trying to create this kind of work that works in the field of advocacy we seldom consider the element of laughter. But let's go to Hamish and we come back to that in the dialogue that we begin to have with each other. Hamish, we come to you and we pick up on the land of Mr. Zuma. Indeed, well, it isn't in many ways. That's both horrifying and encouraging. Greetings to everyone who's on the call and my fellow panelists. Thank you to Pace for organizing this. Well, the South African context, I think is one that's very complex and just listening to fellow presenters and Ismail also your opening, I decided just to shift slightly my attack in terms of responding to this question. And I think trying to speak to the sort of political, social and economic context that we operate in, it goes without saying that South Africa still is pretty much one of the most unequal countries in the world economically. And that is so replicated in the work that is done in our country. And to a large extent, even within our region, I think South Africa being the sort of like focus both economically and politically in the region ripples through in many different ways. But I won't go into that too much. But I think I'll choose to start there, this sort of deep inequality that we have that is not just economic, but also socially in terms of gender and access, it permeates and is present in all aspects of our society. And therefore our art space is both very much shaped and energize and agentized by that reality. So in one sense, you can say that we thankfully have a ministry of now sports, arts and culture as there's been a lot of political sort of turmoil ongoing and ministries have been amalgamated. And one of the results has been that we've now been incorporated with sports and that has had its own sort of ramifications. And but from this ministerial status, you then have various sort of parastatal elements and wings that then sort of administer the sort of agenda of the state as it were around the sort of arts and culture sector. And again, I won't go into all of that detail, but essentially one thing that is key to note is that there is in theory very clear structures, very clear budget lines that are meant to be driving into and supporting the arts practices in South Africa. I think very recently and it is well known and well documented our struggle politically with corruption. And I think unfortunately our sector is not outside of that criticism. We are sort of wrapped up in that as well. So I think that that's one place to start at. And then sort of going quite directly towards drama for life and how we've been working in relationship to that and how in a way we sort of try and intersect and cut across all the various elements and presences within our very complex art and culture sector. So you know historically, we have a very rich culture and it's rich by virtue of its presence globally, its celebration globally, but that is about sort of protest theater movement and protest action, which still I would argue today very much sort of flavors and underpins a lot of South Africa's artistic work, whether it references it directly or simply that that aesthetic is still referenced and used quite widely. I think also quite interestingly the sort of economic availability or unavailability means that a lot of the sort of protest theater aesthetic is present today simply because it was art that was easy to make, quite mobile, quite dynamic. And even it's style is still somewhat referenced and used quite quite popularly in many spaces across South Africa. I think though what is also quite interesting in a space that drama for life sits in is this relationship between the sort of university spaces and research and the sort of various arts movements and programs that we have going on across South Africa and on Johannesburg and Cape Town in particular have some very interesting relationships and connections with sort of university spaces and the creative research space and then community arts programs or even arts activist programs. Just to mention one name that jumps to mind but Alex Sutherland for example who's now based in Cape Town is one such researcher and practitioner through the Tsitsimani Center for Activist Education is one group for example that stands out as a space where this intersection is used in quite a constructive way. And we see a sort of breaking down of the institution as it were the very historical and traditional notion of the institution and then how that knowledge and space intersects with community activism and arts work. But that's just one, there's many, many others. I think it's also worth mentioning a few other practitioners like Mamela Nyamsa, Kolekka Putuma and Dumbiso and Samanga who is based at Drama for Life at the moment and Zanela Maholi who are some of the other activists who are doing incredible work. And just to close, I think at Drama for Life what we've been really focusing on is a large part of what the fellow colleagues have mentioned have been doing historically what has been happening. And then in a contemporary sense trying to break down these structures that are present to in many cases drive this inequality but also silo the work that is happening so that there isn't a beautiful flow and exchange of knowledge and access but a restriction of that. Thank you very much. I'm going to ask you before I just, I know you've raised a number of issues and we'll talk about that but for the delegates who are not South African you've made references to Mamela Nyamsa and you've made reference to one or two others. Could I just ask that in a very brief sentence you just articulate what they do so that they don't just remain names in this discussion but that we have some understanding and some reference to the work that they do. Fantastic. Well, Mamela Nyamsa is a dancer and activist in a home, right? And she has been doing for many, many, many years successful and potent activist work using her dance. Most recently she's taken our state theater based in Pretoria to task around gender-based inequality at work and various other issues. And then Koleka Putuma is a performance poet and activist also based in Cape Town who's been doing incredible work around gender-based violence and gender equity in South Africa. Thank you very much. I just want to remind the delegates in this room that we do have a chat room and you also have the Facebook discussions. So please feel free to participate in this discussion. You can come in, you can add, we've seen a number of comments coming up but you can also throw questions which the panelists will take an answer. I'm going to move to another part around you. This is the use of emerging technologies and social media. And I refer to this particularly because at the time when we all cannot gather and we all cannot work the way that we're doing so, we cannot work in the normal way but the way we're doing is at the moment through technology through. So whilst you cannot engage with your audiences and your constituencies, how are each of you using technology in your work as you go along? Nadisha, we start off with you. I mean, it really depends on who our audiences are for technology. We have learned that going into remote villages with a lot of technology, it doesn't really work because a lot of the time there isn't even electricity. But even within that, we have tried to kind of create our own little gadgets and things that can kind of inspire some creativity. But that said, we do for things that are more in the city, we have done a few things with technology. We've been attempting to also with all the lockdown stuff. There have been a few online platforms for ticket sales and viewing of performances. I cannot say how successful or unsuccessful they are, but we have a few shows that are kind of on there. And I guess at the end of the month, I kind of find out if we made any money, I don't know. We've also been toying with creating shows specifically to be consumed with a mix of technology and social distancing where phone calls or letters or Zoom are kind of all mixed together. And we shall start, we're hoping, we've already started testing some, but we haven't actually presented it as a show yet. But yeah, that's our next. I think it's interesting that you talked earlier about having the kind of direct access and direct engagement with your communities. And now with a different way of communication, in some way, the digital divide is enormous and not everyone can have access to you in the way that they may have had. But I'm gonna go back to Hamish because I know with his particular group, Drama for Life, they've used technology incredibly well, particularly in your build a president campaign. You wanna talk about that briefly? Yes, definitely. So Build a President was actually a campaign we started right before the sort of Zoomer era as it were politically came in. And with all the energy and concern around that, we were just sort of trying to simply use at that moment was really sort of starting of a selfie culture, the meme culture, really starting to take hold in society. And so noting as we have done historically that access to certain spaces and places has always been restricted. We said, well, social media is a great place to get this conversation going. I mean, there was so much happening on television and on radio, but it was always experts who were given the sort of pound seats to speak back to it. So we would go to places, even with our students because we are based at university and have post grad students and told them, take out your phone, ask somebody the simple question. What would it take or what qualities would you put in to build a president? And whatever answers they gave, they wrote down on a piece of paper, held it up and that became their form of activism. That's been running continuously ever since. It has also got us in quite a lot of trouble being followed by many critical organizations since then but a simple use of the written word and image online for years now has been running and it's still sustained quite well. Great, getting into trouble is great, but I think getting into trouble also comes along with issues of accountability. So I'm gonna go to Zerri Hoon. Zerri Hoon, I'm gonna ask you the question around, it's great to do all this kind of advocacy that we do, but what is the accountability that we have when we cause trouble, when we disrupt? Well, it depends I think because in one way, the accountability comes in one way in the forms of the performance that we do, the forms that we disrupt from the mainstream kind of performance. In that case, I think we'll have very bad reviews obviously and also lack of expenses to perform, but thematically if we are going to, for example, here, if we are going to challenge the status quo, especially the political status quo, it's obvious that you're not going to show. If it's simple, your performance will be bad. If it is far more than that, you're going to break it. That's obvious, but isn't that good? I mean, it is also for me, for example, having that kind of challenges somehow makes the performance or the kind of art we're making more visible to the others. For example, in the entertainment music industry, there is this famous singer called Teddy Afro who tried to challenge the status quo with his music. So he became famous when his meekers were banned from television and radios and then got a lot of acceptance. Now he's one of the top musicians in the country. So in one way, it's also a blessing in challenges. So I think the challenges that we're facing by challenging the status quo is, in one way, it's very important for the development, even for the arts. Personally, it's going to be very challenging. Personally, it's sometimes going to be very far. The repercussions of doing challenging the status quo, but in the form is it actually adds something to the existing mainstream performance art or whether it's in theater or in music, because we have seen so many experimental performances in the last couple of years who tried to use alternative spaces and alternative kind of creating performances, even though they didn't get as much as they wanted audiences or receptions, but still they are becoming very influential in discussing new forms, in challenging the status quo. So I see it in that perspective rather than the challenge that came along with challenging the status quo. Super, thank you very much. I think you raise a key question there, which leads us into something that's raised by one of the delegates here as well. And that is the question of audiences. I'm going to go to Beatrice and ask the question, Beatrice, are audiences ready for the disruption and the disobedience? Does it not make them feel uncomfortable when they're sitting and sometimes watching things that they're not necessarily used to or which is not within their conventional experience of theater? So over to you, Beatrice. Thank you for that question. One thing that has come to mind has been I remember there was a show in Uganda about the effect of war in northern Uganda. And so this playwright had written about a rap scene and as the audience watched the rap scene, people laughed. And so the question was, were they laughing to deal with the, you know, how uncomfortable they were or was it really a comic in itself? And I think that the audience, of course, plays a big role in the arts and their reaction or how they deal with things is very important. And for us, of course, we are meant to believe that Ugandans don't read. And so if you write a book, there are chances that they probably won't read it. But we know that people read and they will definitely read a book that they find of interest. And even in Uganda, I've noted recently, a novelist was arrested for writing a book called The Greedy Barbarian. And of course, that means that the regime probably interpreted that the were talking about them and with the symbol of barbarians. And now that has created a lot of interest in the book and everyone wants to read and find out why was this writer arrested. And I guess the issue, when you burn something, when you restrict something, the audience gets interested and they want to know and they want to know. And maybe instead of silencing something, then it's highlighted, which was important, that all the artwork is highlighted. So that it sounds, it's purpose. Super, thank you very much. So it's getting, it's building your audience, taking them on a journey with you as well. The laughter helps a great deal. Let's get to that question that we raised earlier and that's the question around funding. Because we spoke earlier that very often the funding we're getting for the kind of work that we do is often not the funding from home and that very often this funding is coming in from the West. Is that funding coming in with particular genders? How do we begin to nurture funding relationships within our own communities? The communities for whom we disrupt, for whom we want change, the kind of social change. And so how do we begin to find those relationships within those communities to begin to sustain our work? And then we lead this to the kind of sustainable change that we wanna see as a result of our disruption. Let's go to you, Zeriyun. Yeah, I think that's a big challenge now. And that's a big question, how to be, how to sustain this type of performances. That's really one of the key question that we are raising right now, even here. Because as you know, we don't have critical support from the government concerning the arts, even without disrupting the status quo. You don't get enough funding from the government for the artists. And we have a government that considers the arts as a second or third part of the strategic plan of development or something like that. So one of the challenges is the funding. I think for us, for example, we're trying to create kind of alternative funding partners. For example, it's a good luck for us here in Addis because we have so many international energy overseas, the African Indians here. So we look for potentials, potential partners to do our thing. I know that's also problematic if you want to do your own, you're thematic if you want to do your own performance form. So if there is a fund, there is something that comes along with it. So you have to align these two things together. And the other thing is here the internment industries kind of struggling to grow. So there is a good amount of exchange, exchange of currencies here. So having alternative stage to do your performance sometimes might be a very, very good opportunity. Sometimes I said, as I did before, not. So you look for this good opportunity of getting some kind of income from showing your performances. But I would say that's the key challenge of doing performances that can disrupt the status quo. So we have just a few more minutes before I hand back to Irwin. So I'm going to take this as the last round of questions with each of the panelists. Maybe you could all respond to the very same question. You started off with the status quo in your country and what you're trying to disrupt and so forth. I'd like you to answer the question. What is the kind of sustainable change that you would like to see as a result of what you're doing? What is the outcome that you would love to see that is sustainable? Let's go to you, Hamish, and then we move around. Start from home and let's move out. Thank you, Ismael. I think for us at Drama for Life, it centers around what we've done with our academic program. And what we focus on there is to not be the ones creating the art, but to share the tools that ourselves, the staff members and the guest artists we have that come through our program with future artists so that it's not held by a small group, but it proliferates through a cross society into spaces that many of us would never be because our student body comes from so many sections and places in the country. And I think that's always been our sustainable key is not to be the ones holding the information, being the sole experts, but to share that knowledge and really get people empowered in their own right to make art without the support of the government and other funding streams. Great, Nadal, it's here from you. I think for us, it's to kind of really, I mean, it's quite similar to kind of prove through what we do that you can find a way to make it happen and that no topic is particularly too untouchable, but that it's more about how you choose to tackle certain topics and express them that allows others to get excited about it, to support it, whether it's for the audience or for money or for support, whatever kind of support, but for artists to really kind of feel that they can if they choose to and that there are ways of thinking of things outside or the little boxes we live in that allow us to happen. Super, Beatrice? For us in Uganda, I realized that one of the things is that artists censor themselves a lot. We know the red lines and we don't cross them. It's only very few artists who cross the red line because they're brave and yes. And I want to see a situation where artists can create whatever they want to create without censoring themselves. And then our government spent most of the time finding ways in which to tax the artists to get money from the artists without supporting the artists in any way. And so I want, if it's possible, we get support from our government because they want money from us, give us support so that we can excel and then you can get some money from us. Super, Zerun? Yeah, my opinion is most similar with Beatrice. I'm having an open space where you can do whatever you want, not in a sense of an actual kind of whatever you want, but in an artistically open space. So I don't think the others would be a big problem. The funding and other people, I don't think would be a problem. The problem is having a very good space where you can express and all in the forms itself, any form you want. So if that's a real thing, I think there will be a lot of changes. Great, thank you very much. What I'm going to take away from here is just five little points. That is in creating the kind of work that we do that we should not try to hold, pass two, two, two, tightly onto what we do, but that we should be working towards empowering society by sharing the tools that we have. We need to excite people. We need to work with our censorship, but we need to lobby for funding and that we should move to creating any kind of form and that our audiences are crucial in the kind of work that we do and how we engage them. With that, I'm going to hand you back to Owen Maas. Thank you very much. Thanks to the panel. Thanks to you as delegates. Thanks to the questions that came up as well. Thank you. Thank you, Ismael. Thank you, Ismael and thank you, panelists. What a wonderful panel, really, really so thought-provoking and it just again gives me always this idea, particularly in this case, when we were talking about government, that I'm so convinced that more artists should be in government, which of course we kind of don't want to because we want to make art, but the world would look different if artists were running it. So with that said, we are actually let an artist run this session. This is something that we do after every panel. We realize that a lot of these platforms now is for everybody to sit at home behind the screen. And so we really hope that our artists also inspire you to get up and move a little bit or do some stuff. And for this day, we have really excited to, I want to share Sonja Rademeier to give our creative intervention for the end of this session. So Sonja, please take it away. There we go. Great, you can all hear me. I hope the audience is ready for a disruptive session. What I'm going to ask each one of you to do is go to your profile pic at the top. You'll see there are three little, there's a blue square, three little dots. And then just scroll down to pin video and hit pin video. And then you should be able to see your own profile on screen. So if you can all do that quickly, fantastic. Okay, everybody got the image on screen. So I am going to ask each one of you to move. If you have a laptop, if you're working on a tablet or even a phone, if you can take that device and move it to the most disruptive space in your house. The loudest, the noisiest, the kids around you, the dogs, if that's outside or inside. If you can't, it's absolutely fine. Then you'll be staying where you are, just open the windows up to the doors. So let it not be that kind of quiet space where we've all been sitting. Okay, so if you can move around while you go to select your space before you go, depending where you are. If you choose the kitchen, try and use paper tallying. If you're going to be using, if you're going to be sitting in the lounge, use a magazine, paper. If you're in the toilet, use toilet paper. But you're going to need a piece of paper. You're going to need a pen, like a marker pen would be perfect. But an ordinary pen is also fine. I see some people moving around already, fantastic. And then just something to peg. Yes, you could just use this little, whatever can hold the paper to the actual screen. Okay, and your cellular device. So I'm seeing a whole lot of people moving around already. Hopefully we can show that on screen. Perfect, lots of movement happening around there. And we're going to just do an intervention like a mish with a piece of paper. Change the world. Okay, I'm going to ask you to fold the paper this way around, lengthwise, and not that way around. Just for your screen, it's easier. Okay, and what you can do is, we're going to work with two sides. I have a very asymmetrical face, so it's very easy for me. But we're going to work with two sides of your face. I'm going to hold it here, but you can actually put the paper on the screen, on your screen face, and just draw. You're going to pretend that's the delegate side of us. And what is the delegate side of us? As professional people, we don't have to draw. You can just make marks. I'm a mark maker. And who is that professional person? What kind of face is that professional person? It can be any mark. Okay, I think I'll have kind of a big ear for this. And that's what we're going to be doing. Mark, make that professional person, the delegate here at pace. Okay, I'm seeing wonderful drawings coming to life here. Great. Perfect. Okay, now, how are we doing? Everybody done? Now we're actually going to do the other side. Okay, and this is the side that we're not showing. That hidden side. Maybe you're feeling frustrated because you actually have to do this intervention. Or maybe you are feeling sad because you're at home and we would have wanted to be together in one space. Okay, and what is that? Who is that? And what is that? Okay, so I could maybe be feeling quite sad that I'm not with all of you, although we are together I'm not where I really want to be. Good, great. And now if you open it up, we have two faces obviously or two sides to us. And what I'm going to ask you to do is the disruptor face, okay? So not the delegate face. And what I'm going to ask you to do is either take a screenshot of this holding the paper in front of your face or you can actually take your cellular device and take a picture, an image of that. A screenshot and send that to the WhatsApp group. And what will happen once we receive it on the WhatsApp group is that we are going to be collating them and creating a black and white filter that we'll put over it. And these will become our new profile pics for paced delegates, okay? So it's going to be very disruptive and disobedient but that's also the other side of who we are. And to take it a step further than that we are actually to disrupt the image a little bit further. My wonderful co-collaborator at PACE and on multiple projects, Francoe Prince-Lew is going to create a sound escape from these drawings. And he will be posting on the chat, he's going to be posting a bullet list just some small steps which you can actually do. You send this in to a certain website and it will create a sound and then he will create a sound piece of this. So a lot of changes to our identity and who we really are or the multiple people we could actually be and hidden under the ordinary and the professional look. I'd love for everybody just to hold up. If I can just see some of your drawings. Oh, fantastic. That's incredible. Great. I've seen some beautiful color for all of them. Oh, Erica, here's your drawing. I see it, lovely. Fantastic. Okay, Francoe, can you actually type in the... Have we got it here already? Oh, you'll be putting it in on WhatsApp. Okay. How have you actually found this to be? You can unmute yourself and it'll be interesting to hear what your view point is. Sonja, so I've posted on the chat for everyone a few bullets. So if you go to the website which is linked over there you can enter your name in the description and use it as I've written there. Then you can choose a few tempos and what you're supposed to do is you take the image that Sonja has now created with us and then you hold this image over a grid and what you will do on this website, over your screen you'll hold the image and then you will by clicking recreate your image on this grid with little dots and then in an instant you will be able to listen to the sound of your drawing. Now this sounds, you can copy the link and also put it on the WhatsApp group and I will collect all of those sounds and create a pastiche collective collaborative sound piece with that which I will post later today. So I encourage you all to follow these steps that I've posted to further enrich Sonja's lovely drawing intervention. Fantastic. Great, thanks, Franco. Thanks very much for that and we look forward to hearing that and seeing your profile pics on WhatsApp and we'll be sending it back to you from the WhatsApp group and if you can post them up as your profile pics as the disruption of us on the African continent. Thank you, thanks very much. Wonderful, thank you so much, Sonja and Franco. Really a great way to get us all engaged and to create art right now as we are sitting in our homes and this way also get connected altogether with each other. Really lovely, thank you so much. I look forward to seeing all of the photos in our WhatsApp group. So please send them to the WhatsApp group. Before we end this session, just a few last housekeeping notes. Let me just get my paper here together so that we are all on the same page. A few things to mention. Please check out, if you haven't already, before our next session, go to the website, log into the website and check out the work in progress videos or works that are there. Due to the fact that we have so many artists in these sessions, we can't in the actual live Zoom session show all the work because it would take forever. So that's why we decided to upload this work already beforehand on the site. So people have always a chance and it will stay there. So even if you miss it now, you can look at it afterwards. You can look at all the works that are on the site. But I encourage you to have a look right now in our little break before the next session for work in progress, because that's where you will meet our eight work in progress artists that will talk about their work that they've put on the website. Don't forget to meet us in the lounge each day. It is vastly becoming our popular favorite hangout place, I feel. Yesterday, we also tried our speed dating tool there that was very successful, which partners you or matches you with one person and then for three minutes you get to talk to them and then it throws you back in the orbit and it match you with another person. It's just a little icebreaker to meet people that you otherwise would maybe never meet and have a short conversation with them. But in the lounge also, you have tables where you can sit at a table virtually and see the people that are at that table and you can have a conversation there. So definitely check that out. It's not on Zoom, it's on AirMeet. On Friday night, we will have our coffee clutch there. The coffee clutch basically means that each table will have a topic and you can join the table of that topic. So people that are interested in a specific topic, we have 10 tables available. We already have several topics at the table. There's a leadership topic, there's a theater for young audiences topic. So there are already some topics, but if people really feel like, hey, I would wanna host a table around this topic, please let Mark know. Our Pace project manager know, hey, he's been in touch with the emails all the time, every day you get an email from him. So please let him know because then we can add that topic on the table. It does mean that you have to show up on Friday at the lounge because you would be hosting that table. On Saturday, the final lounge is where you get to meet our tour-ready artists. Each artist will be at a table. So if you by that time, hopefully you've seen all the tour-ready works that are also uploaded on the website, and then you can join the table of the artists that you really, really are dying to meet or want to talk to. So that's on Saturday. Also, we have Spotlights. Spotlights are projects that are happening alongside Pace. These are partner projects, people that we've partnered with. They are not part of the official Pace program, but they happen to have events going on right now as well. So for example, tonight there's a Zoom session, tonight meaning tonight's South Africa time. There's a Zoom session of a really interesting collaboration in the UK about a project that is about the African continent. I'm just quickly going down the list. We get a lot of questions from people about how to connect to others. Can we connect with each other, like email addresses, stuff like that? We will make sure that after Pace is done, give us a few weeks, it might be a week or two, that we will all send you a list with all the delegates that registered for Pace. So you will get all the contact details, but right now you could already go again to the website and there is a tab that says you have to log in though, because it's only available for registered artists or registered delegates. There is a tab that says connect to other delegates and that's where everybody is, that is registered is there. So you can connect to people there, you can see their email address, you can, if they have submitted their email address, but you can see basically who they are. So again, on the website, there's a lot of information. Tomorrow we also have workshops. I'm already gonna mention that right now. I'll mention it again in the lounge tonight as well, or later as well. Tomorrow our afternoon session has workshops. Please check on the website what workshops are offered because some of these workshops are happening at the same time. So you have different Zoom links for different workshops and then you can choose to join a workshop tomorrow. They are bound to be very exciting and very active, which I think is great after us all sitting a lot also. Then last but not least, our next session is up in exactly half an hour. In 30 minutes, we will meet back, but not on Zoom. We will meet back on AirMeet. Our afternoon session is on AirMeet this afternoon. You should have all received the links, first of all for the whole week, but also each day our administration is sending out the links for each day. This afternoon our AirMeet session will be facilitated by Fumi Adeweli and our speakers will be the work in progress artists as well as our producers lab people. Check out the work on the side. Like I said, just a quick internal note. The speakers, the artists that are speaking this afternoon and the producers lab people, please use your private speaker link to go into AirMeet. Everybody else, all of us can use the general link, but anybody that has to be on stage speaking, you've been sent a private specifically for you speaker link. So this is only to the artists that are the work in progress artists today and the producers lab people. So please use that link, not the general link because then you won't be able to get on stage. That's it for me. Thank you so much to our panel. Thank you, Sonja, for a fantastic creative intervention. Really exciting work, everybody. Thank you all for being with us and we really look forward to see you all back this afternoon for our work in progress presentations. Stretch your legs, get your legs. And we are back live after some technical difficulties. So whoever is joining us on Facebook, hello back. It's a little later than we planned. Unfortunately, we ran into some technical difficulties which of course can always happen in these online platforms. But welcome back. We will run the session a little bit longer. So our AirMeet lounge later on might start a little later, but I would like now to give the words and welcome Fumi Adewale who will facilitate our work in progress session. Fumi, take it away. Good afternoon. Thanks for coming back after that little struggle with AirMeet, but the afternoon continues. We have eight exciting artists booked for this work in progress session. We're going to keep the talks very short and the artists will speak for a few minutes, about five minutes, and then I will ask a question or two. If you have questions, please put them in the chat. If you have comments, please put them in the chat and I'll read out as much as I can. If I can't read them out, the chat's going to be made available so people will be able to share. But the aim of this session really is for you to know the artist, get an idea about the work, go online, the videos are on the website, under the Work in Progress link. So please go there, engage with the work, reach out to the artist, the artist might read out, reach out to you, put comments in the chat, hang in the lounge, please speak to them. This is all about networking collaboration and finding out what new is happening in Africa. So Sherry Strang was supposed to be the first person today and she's unable to log on. She has another appointment, she had a clash. But please go on the website and see her work. It's called, I had enough, so I killed him. And it's a dance piece, I watched it, it's beautiful dance, and she uses the iconic poem by Maya Angelou, which is, and still I rise, as well as taking, taking, using visuals from her own grandmother. So it's a personal story as well. So please engage with her work. She's, she sent a message saying she would like you to reach out and connect with her. So that's Sherry Strang. I had enough so I killed him. So the first person we're going to, that is live with us on air is the gentleman, the gentleman here, Charles and Tembi. Am I pronouncing your name correct? No. Okay. Sorry, Charles. His piece is called 54 Silhouette. So I'll just pass it over to him so he can introduce himself properly and tell us about the piece. Charles, unmute. Good. Hi everyone. My name is Charles, a two baby. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay. So I'm Charles, a two baby. I'm an actor, TV stage film actor, and also the artistic director for theater industry international. I will play 54 Silhouette. Lucky for us. All of us. We have the writer director in the room as well. So after I give this, I'm going to also pass it over to him who is Africa O'Call. He's the writer, director of the play. 54 Silhouette originally was a five man piece, but in 20, it was a five man piece, which I played one of the characters. And in 2018, an opportunity came for us to travel to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for the New Festival. And I was supposed to present the paper on the black front and I spoke to Africa about working on the piece because it was, it was, it was a theme. The festival was themed claiming our heritage, something along those lines. And I felt the piece was a wonderful piece to speak to that theme. So I spoke to Africa and I said, you know what, let's see if we can write this into a one man piece. Side notes at the point. I think I was going through a midlife crisis. I thought to myself that one man piece would be something to kickstart that, give that shock therapy, which I spoke to Africa about and wonderfully, wonderfully. So he wrote the piece. He wrote the piece into a one man piece. And we rehearsed for I think three months or so and performed it there. We performed, so far the piece hasn't performed in Brazil. It's been performed in Lagosha at the Lagosha Festival and fight recently last year at the United Islands International Theatre Festival, last year in New York on Broadway at the Theatre Road. What's most important is the reintroduction of the world to what it means to be African. That's one of the strong themes in the play. It's one thing to speak about a person, but it's another thing to understand who the person is and speak to them in a way that is respectable. Your opinions of people can sometimes, even though we don't realize it, be prejudiced. It might be a bit tainted. And it might be tainted in ways where one can feel it's insensitive to a person's nature, to a person's heritage, to a person's culture and a cultural background. And first of all, so Louis speaks to that. He speaks to the fact that we are more than just what you see on TV. We are more than just the narrative that everybody else has seen on the Internet. We are complete. Don't just give one side of the narrative and think that the other side of it is unimportant. I mean, there were some funny lines that were, well, I wouldn't say funny, but there were some really really strong lines that were in the performance in the writing. I'm going to wrap up. I'm going to wrap up and I'm going to hand it over. You know what? I'm going to hand it over to Africa at this point. I think I'm the actor, so I'm going to hand it over to Africa at this point. Just drop one or two things of what we're looking for. Why are you going to do that? Sorry. Okay, no, good. I forgot to tell everybody that because we're so pushed for time, I'm going to intervene with a countdown. So I will start going 10, 9, 8, and then all of you will start wrapping up. So that's what I'm going to do when it gets time is going. I enjoyed that anyway. So Africa. Thanks, Charles. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Africa is the writer and director of the piece. And you met Charles. He's an amazing actor. Please go onto the website and watch him in the working progress section. The piece is called 54 Silhouettes. And what Africa grabbed me about that piece was to watch one actor playing so many roles. And I also found that the theme, which Charles spoke about, about the respect for the African human personality, is treated in a very, very funny way in that he's playing a character who is an actor, who has promised himself that he will never play, he will never act in a film, which is about Africa at war. And then he's cast in such a film and the stereotypes, you know, just pile up. So Africa, how did you come to this idea and to treat him this way? It came from my own, a sudden awareness of my own mental frustrations with the way Africa, the African continent, African people are presented on media, especially the global media. For me, it's always been a thing of, sort of thing of playing, sort of thing of pointing and saying, oh, so and so people are doing this and it's bad. They show so good. I'm a very strong believer in the complexity of the people who are also the shades of great, which is where I believe we mostly live in those shades of great, as we try to improve as people. So I was in trying to tackle that and in trying to create this work that spoke to us and says, there's a complexity here that has been lost. There's something here that we are not saying and is not being said because it's one thing to turn to, say, Hollywood and say, oh, this is how you present people. But then Nigerians themselves or South Africans themselves or Malawians themselves also have to look at their own self and say, what are we doing about our own image out there in the global sphere? That was one aspect of it. Another was just the idea of the people of cultural understanding is something that is always fascinating as a person. I grew up in multicultural environments. My point is interactivity with people on the side of my own ethnic group, my own world view. I've always had that very kind of dynamic mix of human relationships and the complexities that come with that were very fascinating to me. But then the social security in about 10 years ago and I think over time it's even become more interesting than what's happening particularly because of how global entertainment is growing. In going global and everyone looking to places all over the world what can you do with stories from India what can we do with stories from the African continent what can we do with stories from Asia or wherever. As we do that we're mixing more as the people and with that comes the complexity of our dynamics. What happens when someone what happens when someone from Germany is in charge of a story about Pakistanis how do you what's going on there what are the complexities that come with that how do we interact such that those power dynamics do not become corrosive because they'll always be there you can't get rid of them but how do we find that balance. Okay, so Africa what would you want now in order to continue what would you need for the work to continue in terms of are you looking for more touring are you looking for collaborators so in a few sentences can you tell us what you'd like. We are looking for touring certainly like Charles said it has this one month form but it also has this five month form that presents very different opportunities for each. We of course like the idea of an entire package whether it's a separate time or as one package as a one-man play whether it's domestic touring international touring we're very open to that we are looking to that we'd be very much like the idea because at the timatic level it deals with diversity it deals with cultural mix we very much like the idea of also translating that into the project as well so when you have an international cast as well it has two Americans, two Nigerians one British Nigerian we've long had this idea of you don't just have only Nigerians but whether you have a cast that also represents that diversity and then you have two American actors two Nigerian actors and a British actor and so the diversity of the team is also being respected in the international cast and that mix of different worlds different performance styles different activities being balanced together then of course yeah thank you Ayodeji in the chat says it's a great story I've watched it twice in Lagos the actors phenomenal a good one Charles so please get in touch with the team Ricardo Peach has put the artist details in the chat and you can find the work online thank you Charles thank you Africa and so we're going to our next artist who is a musician Miserie Miserie can you Marisi I'm not going to say anybody's name anymore no it's cool that's like the English pronunciation for the South African's on the text Marisi Marisi so thank you your piece is a hip hop jazz experience that's how it's described and it's you and your band playing and you're on the piano and you do you're performing in a British rap style and just before we came on I asked Marisi how would he describe British rap and he gave me a long talk so I'm not asking him to repeat hand or hook hand over to him and please introduce your work and tell us a bit more about it so my work I'd say that so basically I'm a pianist first and foremost and a rapper singer as well don't like to use the word rapper too much but I'm a rapper, singer poet, wordsmith and pianist and musician and what so how I perform is I perform playing keys and a rap kind of at the same time and I've got how many like eight piece band so two backing vocalists bass drums, guitar and yeah that's the bass drums guitar and saxophone and my music is more leaning more towards the political side it's very lyrical but it's also very jazzy in a genre sense I'm also kind of trying to move more towards the afro sound if you will afro swing traditional South African music I'm putting influences in there which is one of what you heard in Vendor that keys line that I'm playing there I try to emulate the marimbas a lot and then obviously with the revolution song that was the but also trying to keep it very jazzy at the same time and trying to have a message as well but also obviously it's very influenced in that kind of English rapping style because that's kind of musically where my where my love for music was through rap music but then as you know from me my dad is a South African traditional musician percussionist and then my mom is a poet so then kind of merging those things but yeah for me I'd say I'd really kind of categorize my music as afro jazz that's what I've been trying to play with that idea my experience of listening to it and watching I mean you're lovely to watch and your band is lovely to watch because they're so into the music and your singers and I said to you it felt like going on a tour because I could I could hear influences of reggae I could hear the African music and the vocals which you know it's definitely rap you speak very fast it was like global politics racial politics what it meant to be a black man in Britain today so yeah a word Smith and your rapping we can hear that we can listen to it as you play and you sing so it's quite an immersive experience it's not a concert where you just tune out it's not the kind of jazz that you just tune out you have to really engage with the lyrics I would like to say what would you like to say what would you need now what would you like to say to people listening today it's funny you kind of say about what I'm trying to do basically with my music is I'm trying to make people dance but also listen at the same time so I want to try and find a balance so that people can move as well as take in but what I need is touring basically I need touring but also the space to be able to grow on the band because the band how it is is very you know there's a few key musicians in there and you know as a group I've kind of got the core there you know everyone's there but it needs to be built upon but it also needs touring and I'd say for now the main thing is touring I really want to do international work especially in Africa very specifically South Africa because I really want to just tap into the South African scene I've been trying to make inroads I've got obviously I've met people through pace and the Free State Festival and I've also you know that's through Jenny and Nexus but I've also made kind of musical connections through family and friends in South Africa and family friends in South Africa as well so that's helped but my main thing is just touring taking the show across Europe across South Africa Southern Africa, the whole of Africa I'd love to hit up Nigeria at some point because I've heard that it's really even the scene out there and stuff yeah it's really strong so thank you very much please connect with Marisi again please say your name yourself because Marisi how you pronounce that it's cool but as I said for the South Africans on the chat it's Marisi even me I don't pronounce my name like that it's Marisi thanks a lot the next piece we're going to be talking about is called Simon and the artist is a dancer choreographer his name is Tammy he will introduce himself in full and he's made a beautiful evocative solo piece about a South African icon called Simon so Tammy can you take can you yes switch on your camera it sits on can you hear me yes we can fantastic oh please Sumi you can you please introduce yourself and tell us briefly about your piece hi everyone I am Tammy Shabalala I am a creative director producer choreographer and a dancer so I created Simon two years a year ago actually but I just started conceptualizing the work in 2018 because I was looking for something that would like stimulate my mind absolutely like evoke my creative muscle and I was like okay cool let's go about creating a work and I'm really interested in telling people's stories so I read a lot of African stories a lot of African biographies and I went past this amazing story about Simon Zikongoli that connected with me because of his sexuality and the race that he ran as well so the work really details and pays homage to the African legend Simon Zikongoli part 8 black gay movement founder and HIV activist so the work he tells his journey he struggles triumphs social acceptance and pure expression of himself to the of his existence you know so the work aims to celebrate and educate the nation and many more of and some heroes that we have in Africa a lot because my biggest passion is to always recreate and create the African renaissance the African narrative is very important for us because at the end of the day then we have people telling stories on our behalf when we have the ability and the complete background and the full resources so it was to do that so I staged the work firstly at the Dansembriela Africa under the curatorship of my Malay-Nyamsa in April 2019 and then because of the success and popular demand then asked Simon to come back for a full season so I said I can see theater which I did for five shows there and then to my surprise I got nominated for the Ferdinand Levy Awards which is a really huge theater award ceremony in South Africa and it was the first category of it's first kind based contemporary production of 2019 and I was one of the younger artists to be nominated for it and I was like wow you see so there are plans I have a voice so if you have a voice literally speaking for the marginalized and the young artists for me in my country that are always sidelined because we are always told if you're not good enough or there's not enough resources I'm like you know I'll use my own money I'm not going to wait for anybody to actually help me I'll use my own money so we can tell these stories and create this archive full of history so that people next time in the generation are looking up to create contemporary works and Dansembriela's productions of the generations but prior to them they will look up works of our kind the Gregorium of Thomas Dansembriela you know because as of today I really believe being an artist is about telling stories and also as Nina Simone says I live on this mantra my best quote ever is the artist's responsibility and duty to tell the stories of what's happening at the moment and to start conversations that will adhere to better so there's some comments in the chat Ricardo Peach says I just love love these narratives around Simon and Cooley such an important queer African man and Mariah Weathers she says congratulations Tammy I watched the piece and what struck me is I was expecting maybe a protest piece you know a piece with a lot of anger but you you pitched it at a very sort of meditative level personal it was very subtle it was very emotional and there's one thing that really got me is when he was speaking to his mother's dress and obviously his mother's voice was over you know recorded and then he put on her dress and started to dance and I thought that was a very beautiful moment and you were explaining to me why you decided to approach the issue like that could you say a bit more about that absolutely yeah because Simon's story is not so far-fetched from my story just because he lived generations or years before me doesn't mean his story and his struggle is completely far from me his struggle was never over until actually was never over so I just took the burden from him and I run with it and also when I created Simon I wanted to make it very personal to myself as well and internalize all the emotions and the journey that he went through because I had went through the same thing as well so when I decided to especially create that mother's scene when I came out to my parents that I was homosexual it was a very very very tough situation because in the African culture as my dad's only son it was impossible for me to be homosexual how are you going to carry on the generational legacy how are you going to have kids and have grandkids and I said to him don't worry about that that has got nothing to worry about because at the end of the day I'm still human and creating that scene for me was a conversation that I've always wanted to have and I've always yearned to have with my mom and the only way I could do it because I'm a man of minimal words was to put on stage and create that scene and interact with the dress and also I think I asked my mom for that dress by surprising enough so when I got the dress from her and when I actually decided to do that scene I was like oh wow it actually really works and I internalize this whole work because the story is super personal and as an artist you only create as personal as the artist to yourself and people only written it with the art as long as it's personal more to yourself so I decided to go with a more trajectory work like giving the audience a full experience taking them up and down with the same emotion in his journey when he was in the jail cell when he was protesting against the entire apartheid regime when he was protesting against the black gay movement when he actually was the one who adversed for the LGBTI community with the government that hey the rights need to be uplifted we have we are one we are not segregated because of sexuality but we are one as we are in Africa so Tami what what what do you want what do you want for the work to continue well to be honest I really would like this work to tour a lot because I want to really shine light on the African narrative I want to preserve and nourish and export the African narrative by the African child so that it is not subdued it is not watered down or watermarked because it's told by somebody else but it's told by the African child for the African people for the world because our group we've got a lot of like encrypted and like really beautiful archive stories in our generation and in our archive as Africans that have never seen the light of day so by doing that I would really like to also have more platforms to engage and deliberate with like-minded artists who will continue to share knowledge and guidance and open up more platforms for me to perform this work internationally and South and mainly in Africa because still it's still it's a boon Africa in a lot of countries so the more we start these conversations have these platforms to create these works and to display them to the masses the easiest the next child to grow up so thank you very much thank you so please connect with Tami in the social lounge and during the festival so our next artist now is a choreographer who I call Size and she's going to tell us about her dance piece Size can you put your camera on Size is Size here hi my name is Size sorry about that I had another urgent call to take hi my name is Size and I'm a female choreographer from Bloemfontein and I choreographed in Google and this work is about Femicide and the intention of the work is to look at the psychology of men that kill and the events that happen that the work is filled with from actual events that took place the environment of the work happens in a prison cell and this guy is about to die and just before he's about to die his forefather who has already passed on sees his death his brutal death that is about to come and his forefather over one day wants him to actually atone and show some sort of remorse for the women and the number of women that he has killed and how he has killed them this man actually refuses to atone and in the African proverb there's what we call and I took that and I broke it up into two and there are two dances that physicalize the one shadow plays the mind and the other shadow plays the soul and the forefather asks him a lot of questions he questions him on what brings him to the decision to kill is it the mind or the soul and he takes him through various stages of wanting to atone and as he does as he refuses to atone he keeps raising the stakes and he shows him little children and what could have been with their future if he had not killed them and he brings in his mother and what if his mother was killed in that sense but the man refuses to atone and at the end when he sees how he's about to die that's when he wants to atone but it's a little too much too late and the work was inspired by my fear as a South African woman I created this work in 2018 and Femicide was there but it was not as terrible pandemic as it is today in South Africa it is terrifying to live in South Africa today as a woman and this is my way of just speaking out and fighting back through my artistic voice and my creation Thank you, Sonia in the chat is agreeing with you she says your work is very powerful and necessary and very relative Charles is saying thank you to Tami so that's another misreading the quote so that was for Tami but Sonia is saying thank you to you for this necessary work you've performed this work in a number of places already what has the response been I brought the work to the PACE lab last year because the work was very abstract and you were one of the facilitators and Mike from Alphen that had a look at the work and suggested other ways because the work was very technical to actually try and make it more abstract and make it more readable so this year we had received funding from the lottery to do it in schools because we thought this is a conversation that we need to have with the younger generation because you find that especially in the townships these boys when you see them after school they busy twisting the little girls arms they slapping them around so we thought let's just have this conversation in high school so we had a Blumfontein and a Free State Famicide Awareness High School tour and just before Covid hit we had actually done three schools where we made the work more literal so that the kids can quickly read it and understand it and interpret it much faster and it had a wonderful response and we're looking forward to working it all out in such a way that it can become a one-hour work that we would have a festival in each school that we had gone to because the principals had agreed and we're just being 15 minutes in every school and unfortunately because of Covid we just had to stop but the three schools that we went to we had an amazing response and the kids got it and you'd be surprised the number of girls that actually say yes I've been slapped by a boy at school and the number of boys that actually say no I didn't think it was a big deal for me to dismiss her when she speaks but it's something that we really it's a conversation that really needs to be to be held Charles Henning is saying in the chat aiding the youth to rediscover mature masculine energies great so Size what do you need for the work to continue what would you like to go forward from here how would you like to go forward I already know how I want to finish off the work because just before Covid we were already working on it I would like more platforms especially up Africa and I would like to have more you know stages to be able to showcase the work the 15 minutes that we have done for the schools is so powerful I feel like even just that 15 minutes if I can move to different schools around the whole of South Africa and up Africa as well performing it and talking to the youth I find it more motivating to speak to a younger audience than the older audience great so if you if you're someone who can facilitate that for Size please get in touch with her as we say the artists details are in the chat and Size will be around for the rest of the week so thank you very much so we're now going to our next piece and it's called Nightlight another dance piece you've got a lot of very talented dancer choreographer performers in the work in progress today and it's Daniel Rudin Hi, hi Hi Daniel and Daniel's piece Nightlight is about a young girl can you tell us more absolutely and so Nightlight is essentially about a night in one girl's life where she's feeling very scared and she's struggling in the dark but also struggling with sleep so there's a bit of a nightmare haunting her the piece was designed with the intention of being able to go into oh sorry it's also for young audiences it's aimed at 9 to 11 year olds and the piece was designed and created with the intention to really travel to spaces that are not necessarily only theater spaces and are not only in urban areas so we really designed it with the idea that we'd be able to take everything with us but still have a bit of the magic of theater so our little we've got a little now it's a gazebo where we attach all of our lights and we travel with our sound as well but actually in this moment it's a bit of a tricky one because our audience would be quite closely packed together so we starting to think about where to from here but that's essentially the piece oh I watched the piece online and I was enthralled it was quite magical and quite dimly lit and you did really feel you in a bedroom and in a magical space and you what I read is that you made this piece to encourage children to listen to their inner voice and there was a line in the piece that really resonated with me which goes listen to the rush of your blood as it flows and why did you decide that this was a topic that you wanted to treat? Well actually I've been slowly moving towards creating work for younger audiences over the last few years and a few years ago I did a workshop with Aztej South Africa about creating work for this age group and during that time we were encouraged to kind of look back at our own lives and kind of explore a little something and in that moment in my adult life I was feeling so desperate to be in like a small dark town and I started this darkness and I had this interesting pull towards it and then when I was in that workshop I started to realise that around this age group I had a very complex relationship with the dark where I had some beautiful moments in the dark looking at the stars but I also remember being quite scared in certain moments by myself in my room or whatever and so really it was just about and not shying away from difficult topics for young audiences because really I think the truth is that we have to engage with the more difficult topics in a magical way in order to kind of just normalise it and allow that recognition to be there It's a beautiful piece for 9 to 11 year olds so how would you want to continue to take this forward? Awesome, so we've been thinking about what next in this moment and we would really across all of this funding would be amazing partners, potential collaborators as well what we feel the next step is to film it so that we have a filmed version of the show that can go into even virtual festivals but beyond that we really want to take this moment to create an interactive performance offering we'd really like to create something where our audience our young audiences perhaps engage with it in smaller segments and are able to reflect on the experience as part of the performance as part of the experience using digital platforms like this one I've also been looking into some more learning based platforms that might be able to support different kinds of offerings on the platform So you could collaborate with a range of organisations from educational institutions online platforms to seizes so a number of organisations I just want to read in the chat saying amazing introducing the notion of trusting ones in a voice from a young age shaping of one's psychological presence fantastic so thank you Daniella please mingle and have a chance with lots of people whilst you're at pace we'll do good so we have two more artists this afternoon and the next artist is Amadoum and he's going to be telling us about his piece which is called Amadoum Pin Hi everybody Hi Shego Can you hear me Yes Ok woman please Alright yes Amadoum Pin basically is one of the creations by Krampus of Africa and what we're discussing is the issue of migration Can you hear me Yes we can hear you Ok what is causing the issue of migration it's not a peculiar thing to Nigeria but it's an African thing and if you consider what's been going on before colonisation we thought that Africa was colonised through entrances that is the sea the ocean and the desert and it was difficult getting Africans out I mean these are narratives that we're all used to but the surprising thing is that today all the young people are the labour force living because of their search for greener pastures so we really carried out a research where we went to the villages where you call countryside in other places you call them villages and big houses that are empty and the only people you find there are young people children and very old people now this is where we have all the farms this is where the food that we feed the entire nation should be coming from but then you have only young people children and the labour force are really in the urban area they move to the cities and when they get to the cities they become so disillusioned and they want to go abroad so they do every kind of thing to get to migration destination countries like Europe and America and so on and when they get there reality hits so you see us running around and we thought that Omodomping would be a good intervention that really a conversation a dialogue between the host countries because migration is a natural thing human beings move from place to place it's natural and animals do it too but when it is a forced one when it is not out of when it is enforced that becomes a problem and it's a problem on the hosting country so you have so many people all of a sudden people just term your place and you don't know where they're coming from and you feel overwhelmed sometimes your people have rights to have that kind of fear and so it's just a conversation between the migrants the hosting countries and where they are coming from it's just to share these stories, these ideas of what would make me leave my country if you understand me maybe you want to treat me with a bit of understanding and if I know your fears too maybe I want to take care of your space as if it's mine so we can all make this world what it's supposed to be thank you very interesting how big is the cast for this piece the six dancers are three musicians and of course the choreographer and director six dancers, three musicians choreographer, director and I noticed you describe it as a multimedia performance for sure and from what I saw you have a screen behind on the Saikarama and the characters in the videos that you play are speaking in Yoruba so it seems to be multilingual you have different languages coming through yes, yes it's a sad based work we actually went to the villages and spoke with people with Kadali people and a few young people we find around, we talk to them where are you staying individually, where are you not in the city like everybody and we spoke with people in the city too we played this back while the performance was going on okay, thank you so where do you want to go from here yes it's a I don't think it's supposed to be an ongoing conversation because we stopped right now where they arrived at their destinations abroad but then this space for another kind of conversation with the people they meet and how they interact and the kind of things they get into sometimes those dreams just blow up in your face and you're like wow, okay the reality is different from the imagination so we really want to explore that space and it would be nice to have people to collaborate with us on this and we're also looking for theaters who are open to that kind of conversation let's hear from these young people again it's going to be a good opportunity for the young people I work with in Crown True to see other parts of the world thank you very much please get in touch with Shagun and as he engages with Pace so our last artist for today is another musician and he's created an album called Art to a Perf it's in French and it translates as full proof Shagun origin so can you please make yourself visible Art to a Perf am I pronouncing it correctly is the artist in the room is the artist in the room it seems like the artist might not be here okay in that case we've come to the end oh it seems that he's lost his connection unfortunately so he's lost his connection but please check him up in the working progress section on the website and you'll see that the name of his piece is Art to a Perf and I'll put the title in the chat please listen to the music it's an album which is in French and it's fused with Malian rhythm so it's hip hop fused with different kinds of Malian rhythms Sai, Dayan and these are rhythms that he writes about and his themes are on politics and social topics so thank you for being here for the working progress session please if you look in the chat you'll see a number of links and pdfs and different people please talk to each other and hopefully we'll be able to do some more interaction later today so right now I'm going to hand you over to Erwin Mass thank you for listening thank you so much Fumi and all the artists unfortunately we missed two of them internet remains sometimes a fickling thing and so sometimes people have trouble getting on but despite all our earlier technological challenges I thought this was a great session thank you for moving it along Fumi and wonderful artists to hear your perspectives on the work as mentioned unfortunately we cannot share the full work in these live sessions because that just would take much too long but anybody can go on the website and engage with the artists there by going to connect with other delegates and you can find the artists there and you can look at their work under the work in progress tab and you can find more information about their work there and also the videos so please engage and check out their work because a lot of these works are really really worthwhile presenting are really worthwhile engaging with and thank you so much again just a few little housekeeping notes I'm the housekeeper in that sense so due to our challenges earlier we of course anticipated that this session would run a little bit longer but unfortunately because we missed two we actually are now pretty much on time however we have communicated to all the delegates also that are not here we have communicated that our lounge they will start just 10 to 15 minutes later because we anticipated that this session would run longer so if you try to get into the air meet lounge at 4.45 it might just not be activated yet so please be patient and just check back in at a little bit before 5 this is South African standard time so in about half hour from now 20 minutes from now 25 minutes to half hour you can all log in to the air meet lounge and there hopefully the artists that just presented can join as well and be at tables so you can further discuss these works there compared to yesterday for those that were with us yesterday in the lounge yesterday of course because it was our first day we had our funders present there that is not happening today so actually today the full hour you basically have the chance to engage with people at the tables and you can leave a table and join another table and meet people that way we might try again the speed dating function which means that we're all in the orbit and you're matched with one person for 3 minutes and that's another way to meet people so that might happen as well that's it for today again please check out the website connect with people there check out the works there tomorrow we have workshops in the afternoon some workshops are running consecutively or actually I mean at the same time and so you have to check which workshop you want to do because they have separate Zoom links tomorrow all our sessions the first two sessions are on Zoom and the final session the lounge of course every day will be on air meet thank you so much have a great day stretch and hopefully we see you all in the lounge and if not please join us back again tomorrow at 1 p.m. South African Standard Time for another great panel on touring your work so a lot of artists have been saying we want to tour this work so go in the panel you'll meet festival directors and producers that actually my book and tour your work so ask your questions there and also connect with them in the website thank you all and see you in