The 2021 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre Award is a well-deserved recognition of the Cape Town theatremaker’s exceptional skill, talent and hard work.

The My Body My Space (MBMS) public arts festival, launched in Emakhazeni, Mpumalanga, in 2015, eschewed the darkened corners of the traditional black-box theatre for open fields, school yards, church buildings, playgrounds and busy intersections. These became the stages and gallery spaces for local and international creative practitioners. 

Having been a boarder since the age of four, Qondiswa James knows school hostels intimately, from their dark passageways to the tangible structures that form the perimeter of the grounds. She knows, too, the invisible structures that determine life within these boundaries. Despite her discomfort with the institution, the concept of school has been a recurring theme in her activism. From these experiences emerges A Howl in Makhanda, a semi-autobiographical play written and directed by James.

Antigone (not quite/ quiet), subtitled Ninganiki Okungcwele Ezinjeni (Give not to dogs, sacred things) can be read as an academic exercise. It is a reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone that begins as a commentary on the traditional tragic form, moves into the story of a disembodied Antigone, and finally ends with a digital interpretation of S.E.K Mqhayi’s poem Mbambsuhe – Lwaganda’s favourite dog.

Makumbi is the author of Kintu, a novel that, in the four years since its release, has become a pillar in Ugandan literature. Kintu opens in 2004 in the streets of the Ugandan capital and, similar to Dust — another groundbreaking novel, by Kenyan writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor — the book begins with a mob justice killing.

We have all travelled, no matter how short the distance. We know what it means it to traverse space and time, and to land in someplace new. We all know movement. For some, moving is not as simple as packing up and leaving. It comes with rules and regulations.

Seven feminine figures, seven red-stained lips, seven sets of heels, six white jumpsuits, one figure in an umbhaco holding an iTsoba - Lhola Amira. A red cloth is dropped across her one shoulder. Her movements are deliberate as she leads the six uniformed people down to the pier of the Kalk Bay harbour. 

Shifting perspectives as well as transposing characters and concepts, Nwabisa Plaatjie gives a new spin to an old play.

Cape Town's Creative Nestling and Boaston Society gave creative people of colour a taste of who they could be. 

"Theatre is often a space in which empathetic listening happens and very often unknowingly.