as a child of seven i was chosen for a role in South African film production, but my parents discouraged it on religious grounds. did i show any talent for acting? i don't have a clue. during high school, i was the main actor in a school play production, but i never thought i was any good at acting from a script.
yet the theatre space and the freedom to be a character that talks and walks started to draw me strongly as i ventured into the spontaneous realm. there was a period during the late nineties that i performaned, fully spontaneously, without any music instruments or other mediums of expression. just with what i could express only with my body, my voice and the silences in between. naturally, acting elements started caming to the fore then.
also during that time, the idea of intuitively portraying the birth process with my naked body, gripped me, and "BIRTH" was born, so to speak, first performed at the Wits theatre in Johannesburg. BIRTH also appeared at the National Arts Festival and a few private venues through the years. Recently i made it part of the performance offerings during some of the HA!Retreats. BIRTH evolves from the womb up to a primitive form of being, stopping short of language and relational behaviour.
another theatre format that arose for my preferred fully spontaneous way, is "One Man and a Cello". in this, the cello is not so much an instrument to make music with, but a fellow character, or symbol of human refinement. each performance is obviously different, yet the theme of the tension between what we have become as civilized beings and our more natural and primitive origins, remains.
i particularly enjoyed a few collaborations i had with other actors during the early 2000's, where we framed a setting and broad narrative within which we then spontaneously acted and interacted. One such was "A Cure for Madness" (delving into the deeper layers of mental instability) and another "We, the Criminals" (addressing black-on-white crime in South Africa), both performed at the National Arts Festival. Joke Debaere and i, at the beginning of our journey as partners, also dived into the fully spontaneous dramatic realm with "TALK", only once performed in Antwerp.
my draw to the
acting field remains and i keep looking out for new dramatic avenues
to spill my busy mind into..