PLOT 99
IN MEDEA RES
LALOBA
ABAJO
RESIDUE
MALADAMATJUATE

After two months artistic residency in the abandoned historically blacks only female hospital ward F of the Valkenberg mental asylum in Cape Town, PLOT 99: The 21st century Prophecy Show opened its doors to a highly anticipatory public. The event created an experience of puppetry for both performers and audiences from within, both the asylum and the psychic terrain of sexual emergency, that was accelerated by the meeting points of choreography, installation, architecture and site, puppetry performance, video, dance, ritual, improvisation and sound. Inspired by the true story of Nonthetha Nkwenkwe, a visionary Xhosa prophetess and little known historical icon from the Eastern Cape, South Africa, incarcerated by the state for mental insanity in 1922, Plot 99 brings to light the forgotten histories of the thousands of patients at Nonthethas time pushed through the psychiatric system, which served as little more than a prison for the politically, culturally and sexually unruly. It also inspires questions about mental illness in South Africa today, the links between personal emergence and state emergency, madness and self-growth, illness and healing. The exponential growth of South African puppetry both locally (such as in the Out the Box International festival) and on the world stage, brings to the foreground not only the achievements of South African artists but also the need to develop and expand support structures, discourse and experimentation within the art form. The PLOT 99 event presents a transformation of South African womens puppetry performance through alchemical methodologies for creative freedom, theoretical possibility and expansive distillations. I was moved, destabilised, mesmerised, opened and pummeled into the psychic past...thank you for honouring the dead...beautiful ensemble, evocative images, longings for healing... Warren Nebe Theatre for Life

A theatre piece of bone and marrow like few- Die Burger

PLOT 99
IN MEDEA RES
LALOBA
ABAJO
RESIDUE
MALADAMATJUATE

in medea res1 Visual Theatre and Puppetry company, The Paper Body Collective present In Medea Res, a visually sumptuous and stirring re-telling of the myth of Leto, Goddess of exiles. Directed and created by Aja Marneweck, this 'heat stroke' production played on the main programme at the HIFA festival (sponsored by Prohelvetia 2010) after sold out performances at the world famous Festival Mondial Des Theatres De Marionnette in France and performances at theatres around Belgium (2009, sponsored by IFAS, BASA, Digital Brothers, the NAC and Africalia). Vivid imagery, imaginative puppetry and powerful storytelling follow Letos journey through exile as we encounter mobile characters and strange wanderers lost on the peripheries of society, dreaming of home. The Paper Body Collective creates South African Womens Visual Performance that promotes professional experimentation in risk-taking creative production. The award winning team includes Commonwealth Vision film-maker Jacqueline van Meygaarden and designer Angela Nemov. Created and Directed by: Aja Marneweck Puppetry: Aja Marneweck, Jade WallerAssistant director: Awelani Moyo (Zimbabwe) Cinematography: Jacqueline Van Meygaarden Design: Angela Nemov Lighting: Daniel Galloway Technical Manager: Beren BelknapPerformance coach: Jori SnellKey cast: Andrea van Meygaarden, Martin Kintu, Cindi Mkaza, Rouxnet Brown, Fundi Zwane, Theo and Asa LaubscherWith text adapted from Marina Warner, Suzan-Lori Parks, Toni Morrison, Jeannette Winterson and Chirikure Chirikure.Special Thanks: Ant Strack (design) Sebastian Voigt (additional sound)
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"I thought it was amazing, the most fantastic thing I have ever seen and I actually couldnt move out of my seat "-audience response at the HIFA Festival in Harare

LALOBA

PLOT 99
IN MEDEA RES
LALOBA
ABAJO
RESIDUE
MALADAMATJUATE

La Loba

'Nobody wanted to leave at the end of this astounding performance. The gifted duo mesmerise weaving a magical journey into the psyche of archetypal womanhood. Brilliant.' CK, The Cue, 3 July 2007.

La Loba, is a thirty minute, two-women live performance. Using shadows, multimedia and large paper puppets, the piece was originally created by multimedia puppeteer and visual theatre director, Aja Marneweck. La Loba has been developed with videographer and performer Jacqueline Van Meygaarden who has worked with Marneweck since 2005. The show has been performed at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, the Out The Box Festival Cape Town South Africa, the European Womens International Festival in Finland and Sweden and at the Nairobi International Puppetry Festival, Kenya.

There are in actual fact four performers on stage, with Chuma Sopotela and Stephen Davis suspended on two paper screens accompanying the performance. Prose is adapted from Jeanette Wintersons irreverent and imaginative novel Sexing the Cherry (Vintage 1990).

This offbeat piece tells a dark tale of feminist intrigue, as Wintersons prose juggles with our perception of history and reality; love and sex; lies and truths. La Loba is about a woman who finds herself in a space she doesnt quite remember. She moves through the dusty, littered attic of her mind. The space is cluttered with jars full of memories, paper, suitcases, the paraphernalia of her life experiences. As she moves, she gathers fragments of the formative fantastical spaces of her world. Out of her recollections she begins to build something. Much like the archetype of La Huesera, the old bone-woman, the gatherer, Loba is gathering bones. She looks for pieces on herself, around in the space, to build something new, but it is old, it is herself again, and it is not what she thought it would be.

ABAJO

PLOT 99
IN MEDEA RES
LALOBA
ABAJO
RESIDUE
MALADAMATJUATE

RESIDUE

PLOT 99
IN MEDEA RES
LALOBA
ABAJO
RESIDUE
MALADAMATJUATE

PLOT 99
IN MEDEA RES
LALOBA
ABAJO
RESIDUE
MALADAMATJUATE

Residue

Dance Factory, Newtown Johannesburg. Prague International Puppetry Festival, Czech Republic, Intimate Theatre Cape Town, Cape Town Festival: Cape Town.