Yes to climate drama
Budding actors from eight Cape Town schools have leapt into the future as part of the third YES Environmental Drama Festival. The theme for this year's festival is Cape Town 2020: Climate Change and the pupils have taken part in a series of workshops, written and performed their own plays portraying the effect of climate change on the city.
The YES Drama Festival is organised by the City of Cape Town in partnership with Artscape and is specifically geared to towards encouraging high school students to produce plays on environmental themes.
The festival take place today, July 16, and tomorrow at the Artscape's Arena Theatre. The festival is only open to participating schools.
There are eight schools participating in this year’s YES Environmental Drama Festival: Malibu High, Zisukhanyo Secondary, Aloe High, Durbanville Children’s Home, The Settlers High, Isilimela Comprehensive, Windermere High and Immaculata R.C. High.
In preparation for this festival, participating schools attended creative workshops on environmental theatre led by members of the well known theatre company, Theatre for Africa. Says Nicholas Ellenbogen: “The learners really engaged in these workshops, exploring different ways of using the body and the voice to develop character and theatrical form; they have also received great support from environmental experts to assist in the accurate development of information for their scripts”.
Learners were encouraged to write scripts which focused on an environmental issue relevant to the community in which they live and go to school, and relevant to the overall environmental concern of climate change. Nicholas Ellenbogen also developed a ‘one-set-for-all’ design which challenged the learners to use the same set properties in their plays. This is a very exciting development of the YES Environmental Drama Festival and has called on the learners to be highly creative in their approach to the set, no longer relying on extraneous props but using their bodies and voices, and minimal set.
Project Manager for the City, Lindie Buirski says that the build-up to the festival has been exciting so far. "It's amazing how creative these young people are. It's quite a variety of schools and some are from underprivileged areas. It's a heartwarming, amazing programme to be part of."
The eight performances will take place before an adjudicating panel of six judges. This panel comprises Andrew Bennett, an environmental consultant from icologie; Ina Bruce, the Curriculum Advisor for the subject Dramatic Arts at the Western Cape Education Department; Liz Ellenbogen, director and founder member of Theatre for Africa; Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, principal performer with Theatre for Africa; Mdu Kwayama, award winning theatre and dance practitioner and performer; and Pavs Pillay, a science communicator who specialises in marine issues and global climate change based at the Marine Research Institute at UCT.
On Saturday 17 July the festival will host a showcase performance and prize giving. Prizes will be awarded for the Best Performer and Best Supporting Performer, Best Production and Most Promising Production, the Best Script and an overall Judges Award for an unique feature in a production which is worthy of special mention.
