Archives for April 4, 2013

Let the wheel turn

Dead.
Dead to me.
Is the concept of compassion.
And yet here you stand before me.

Your soul laid bare,
Your dignity gone.
Your pride,
A bitter pill to swallow.

You stand here and speak to me of truth.
Your eyes betray your words.

You stand here and speak to me of patience,
Your nervous twitching betrays your haste.

You stand here and ask for my counsel,
Your heart will never listen.

Your mind will only hear,
What you want to believe.

Turn around,
Walk out my door.
Walk out my life.
I have nothing for you.

ROYAL COURT – Call for playwrights – Zimbabwe

The Royal Court runs long-term play development projects in many different countries, helping to stimulate new writing and bringing many of these writers and plays to London for further work and sometimes productions. At any one time, the International Department will be working with dozens of playwrights through specific projects. Long-term play development relationships now exist through projects and exchanges with writers from Columbia, Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Uganda, Nigeria, Syria and many more. The British Council has been a key collaborator and supporter of many of the Royal Court International programmes and is delighted to be in a position to extend this work to playwrights from South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Phase One – Elyse Dodgson, Head of International Department, Royal Court will travel to South Africa where the workshop will take place, accompanied by two workshop leaders to conduct a 7 day workshop for a total of 12 Zimbabwean participants. The aim of the workshop is to support each individual participant in writing a new contemporary play. The workshop will be designed for the needs of each writer, explore individual interests, and in the end each writer will be asked to propose an outline of a new idea for a contemporary and original play. The first draft of this play will be submitted three months after the end of the first workshop. The workshop will consist of group and individual sessions and there will also be time for writing.

Phase Two – Once these plays are received, they are read (in their original language by one of our readers/translators if appropriate), who will then make recommendations on how or whether to proceed with each play. The team, predominantly the same (but we try to include a director if possible), travel out to work on the plays individually with the writers and do more group work exploring some common problems. Sometimes at this stage actors are used and workshops and readings done of the plays. This again will last about a week. At the end of this phase, the writers are asked to work on a next draft.

Phase Three – The new drafts are again read, assessed and translated before the team returns for the final phase of development work. This can sometimes involve public rehearsed readings in the countries, either of extracts or of whole plays as well as individual meetings with each writer. Sometimes at this phase we attach the writers to local directors who will help to facilitate the development of the plays. The first three phases usually last between 18 months and two years.

WHAT WE WILL PROVIDE

THE SPACE & ACCOMODATION & CATERING

The workshop will take place at Mokoya Lodge www.mokoya.co.za South Africa. Accommodation, food and workshop spaces will be provided.

LOGISTICAL SUPPORT

The British Council office in Harare will book and pay your travel as well as pay for visas to get you out to South Africa for the workshop. Please be aware that you will be required to have a valid passport in order to attend the workshop. The British Council will not be in a position to help pay for any costs related to obtaining your passport.

THE TIMELINE

8 March 2013 – disseminate open call
19 April 2013 – application deadline
10 May 2013 – announce participants

26th June 2013 – Fly to Johannesburg, South Africa

27th June – 5th July 2013 – Workshops

6th July – departure from South Africa

There will also be further activities as described in the 3 phases above, by applying you are committing yourself to being involved in the project for up to two years.

 

http://eliotmoleba.com/2013/04/04/royal-court-call-for-playwrights-zimbabwe/

Darkness

I see a scene
Of thousand dreams
Of shattered skies,
dead butterflies.
Broken glass is drawing blood
on feet stained by years of mud
Faces stained red by tears
Eyes go dark, veiled by tears.
Hearts will clench in iron fists
Swallowed by the blackened mists
Dreams will live and dreams will die
In this deathly lullaby.

I am still Human!

When you pass me on your way to work
When you stare at me with disgust
When you look away with shame
Please remember that:
I AM STILL HUMAN!
Ignoring my existance won’t extinguish me
Spitting on me won’t make me disappear
Turning a blind eye won’t vanish me
Please remember that:
I AM STILL HUMAN!
When I bow to you begging for a penny
When I give out my dirty hand unto you
When I gaze at you with innocent eyes
And when I smile at you with yellow teeth and a bad breath
Please remember that:
I AM STILL HUMAN!
Sleeping on cold concrete street floors
doesn’t make me less of a human
Eating out of gabbage bins and dumping sites
doesn’t make me a dog
Wearing dirty old clothes and not taking a bath
doesn’t make me a virus,bacteria,or some disease you should be scared of
Begging all day long
doesn’t make me inferior to you
Having no place to call home
doesn’t make me an animal
Please remember that:
I AM STILL HUMAN!
When you sleep at night
please thank and count your lucky stars
When you think that you are too fat
please think of the starving
When you don’t like the clour of your shoes
please think of walking with cracked heels on a winter day
Please remember that:
I AM STILL HUMAN!
For I have a heart that pumps blood through my veins
For I have feelings of love and pain,like when you spit on me
For I still have hope for a brighter day:
that oneday you would look past my
unhygiene,my begging,my starving,my stinking scent,my poverty

That you would one day look into my eyes
and see the grace that I have;that I am a nice person and well mannered
that you would listen to me and hear my hopes and dreams alongside
my passion and ambition
that you would listen to my heartbeat and feel the love I have inside of me
and that you would give my hand a helping hand
and not ignore me but encourage me to reach my goals
by teaching me how to fish
by remembering that I am God’s image
by remembering that humanity is lost when we stop fighting for one another

And most importantly remembering that:
I AM STILL HUMAN!

In time

Time kissed my hand
In attempt to comport my straying heart.
Held me warmly close to its heart
Beating slowly in a calm harmony.

Time walked beside me
Keeping me calm, making me smile.
Yet my heart leapt over the mind
That continued to lead me nowhere.

Time slipt away from me
Close my eyes and hand me a rose,
Blow me into an existence of broken clocks
Where time stands still at my demand

Time smiled at me
And said I will be fine.
I suffered the fate of mistakes
That caught up with my presence.

Time did more than shake my grounds
Reminding me of all I passed through
With not a scratch but lessons learned
All I knew held me hostage until I made peace.

Time taught, time loved,
Time spoke, comforted and healed.
Time smiled more than it frowned at me
Through it, in it and with it
I grew and came to know
That life happens in time…

By: Missty 2012

Time in space

The time of mother
The time of a baby
The time of my time.
The time of my birth, my death.

The time I cant see
The time I cant touch
The time I can only measure
The time I dont know.

the time that passes
the time that arrives
the time thats never there and always here.
Where are you time?

Show me you beginning.
Show me you end.
Let me be part of you.
Let me travel with you.
let me be there nor here.

Marry me, I am space.
I cannot move without you.
They cannot see your beauty without me.
Together we move in beauty.
Beauty that unites us.
Beauty they will call space-time.
Space-time that bears life.
Our baby, our creation, our beauty.

I shall fear no evil

The last star has faded.
The light has gone.
I walk alone in death’s garden.
Doomed am I to wander,
The eternal dark.

Black,ever flowering roses,
Line the broken paths.
Their roots sinking in,
Nourished by thorns tearing into dead flesh.
Watered with corpse blood.

Unafraid,every step sure of footing.
Every step taken from memory.
The darkness my ally.
How do you hurt,
What you cannot see.

Content am I.
My heart no longer reaching out,
Blindly searching for solace.
In death’s garden,
Another flower grows.