‘7de Laan’ stars pay homage to Chris van Wyk

04 June 2019 | Story Supplied. Photo Lungelo Mbulwana. Read time 4 min.
Soapie star Zane Meas teams ups with Christo Davids to pay homage to South African author and activist Chris van Wyk.
Soapie star Zane Meas teams ups with Christo Davids to pay homage to South African author and activist Chris van Wyk.

7de Laan stars Zane Meas and Christo Davids have teamed up to present Van Wyk – The Storyteller of Riverlea, which explores the life of renowned South African author and activist Chris van Wyk.

Created and performed by Meas and directed by Davids, the production examines Van Wyk’s influence as a poet, writer and political activist, his family life and his battle with cancer. It also pays homage to his humour, political values and storytelling abilities.

 Van Wyk grew up in Riverlea just south of Johannesburg, a township designated for coloured people during apartheid. It’s a community he lovingly brought to life in Shirley, Goodness & Mercy (2004) and Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch (2010). In these memoirs, he pays tribute to the strong and resourceful women in his family and community, particularly his mother (the “Shirley” of the title) and grandmother.

Among his 20 books are poetry collections, an adaption of Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom into a book for young readers, a series of short biographies of liberation struggle figures for school children, and A Message in the Wind (1982), which won the Maskew Miller Longman Award for Children’s Literature.

 

“Van Wyk found his inspiration in the ordinariness of life; his imagination and craftsmanship transformed it into something extraordinary, even magical.”

Some of his individual poems have been published in Europe, Turkey, the United States and Canada. In 1996, he received the Sanlam Prize for the best South African short story for Magic.

As an activist, he pulled no punches when calling out racial and social injustice. His well-known anti-apartheid poem “In Detention” appeared in the collection It is Time to Go Home (1979), for which he received the Olive Schreiner Prize.

His writing gave insight into his creative spirit. His humour spoke of a capacity for resilience and an irrepressible appetite for life, even in complex circumstances.

Van Wyk found his inspiration in the ordinariness of life; his imagination and craftsmanship transformed it into something extraordinary, even magical.

In Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch, he explained that “writing a memoir is a little like travelling into your own past”.

“Unlike science fiction, you can’t change the past. But, like science fiction, it does have its own magic”.

Van Wyk died in October 2014 at the age of 57.

Show details

Van Wyk – The Storyteller of Riverlea, which Beeld’s Johan Myburg said “confirms Van Wyk as an innovative writer who deserves to be read”, runs at the Baxter Flipside Theatre from 12 to 29 June. Shows are at 19:30 nightly.

Early bird tickets are available for purchase at R100 before 7 June. These are for performances from 12 to 15 June.

Ticket prices are R120 from Mondays to Wednesdays and R150 from Thursdays to Saturdays.

Tickets for scholars, students and block bookings of 10 or more are R100 per ticket. Booking is through Webtickets on 086 111 0005, online or at Pick n Pay stores.

For discounted school or group block bookings, fundraisers or charities, contact Sharon Ward on 021 680 3962 (sharon.ward@uct.ac.za) or Carmen Kearns on 021 680 3993 (carmen.kearns@uct.ac.za).


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Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC)

 

The Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC) Steering Committee was established as a result of a period of unprecedented tension at the University of Cape Town (UCT) at the end of 2016. The creation of the multi-stakeholder steering committee that will oversee the proposed IRTC was one of the resolutions made in the 6 November 2016 agreement, which effectively brought the waves of continuing protest at the university to a halt.

The agreement, which was signed between the UCT executive and protesting student groups, paved the way for the establishment of the IRTC, whose aims are to

  • consider all Shackville-related protests of 2016, including disciplinary procedures and interdicts
  • invite submissions from all constituencies on clemencies that were granted and decide whether clemency should be turned into amnesty
  • make recommendations on how the university should deal with pending cases and other such matters in the future
  • make recommendations on institutional culture, transformation, decolonisation, discrimination, identity, disability and any other matters that the university community has raised over the past 18 months, or may wish to raise in the future.

The IRTC’s objective is to map an inclusive and fair course for the university as it tackles the legacy of the so-called Shackville protests and to focus on the issues that have caused division on our university campus.

IRTC Final Report



Statement of Council on the Report of the Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC) UCT Council has released a statement regarding the Report of the Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC). 28 Jun 2019 UCT Council
IRTC Steering Committee meeting of Monday, 3 June 2019 On Monday, 3 June 2019, the IRTC Steering Committee met to discuss feedback from the various constituencies with a view to making recommendations to Council. 03 Jun 2019
Engagement with the IRTC report Chair of Council, Sipho M Pityana, writes to the campus community about the recommendations put forward in the IRTC report. 03 May 2019 UCT Council
IRTC Steering Committee meeting of Friday, 22 March 2019 On Friday, 22 March 2019, the IRTC Steering Committee met to discuss the recommendations made in the IRTC’s final report. 22 Mar 2019
IRTC final report released Chair of Council, Sipho M Pityana, writes to the campus community about the release of the IRTC’s final report. 20 Mar 2019 UCT Council
IRTC and IRTC Steering Committee meet for the release of the IRTC’s final report On Monday night, 18 March 2019, the Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC) met with the IRTC Steering Committee and released its final report. 18 Mar 2019

Statements by the IRTC



 

Latest news




 

Reports from the Steering Committee Chair




2018 IRTC Steering Committee meetings

 


 

2017 IRTC Steering Committee meetings

Minutes of Steering Committee meetings



 


 

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