Flexible weaving: investigating the teaching and learning opportunities in the practices of theatre-makers and performers from selected townships in Cape Town

Abstract

In 2005–2009, the author researched the theatre-making practices of young people in selected black townships near Cape Town, South Africa. Township theatre groups comprised secondary school learners and out-of-school youth who join together to learn about and make theatre, perform and watch each other. These theatre practitioners do not describe their activities as ‘education’, ‘teaching’ or ‘learning’. Nevertheless, the writer was continuously confronted with the practice's educational orientation and value. This is significant in a context in which the quality of formal education is profoundly wanting. This article endeavours to tease out the learning and teaching orientation and curricular processes embedded in the theatre activities of township groups. The overarching intention, rather than a detailed explication, is to notice the character and contribution of the inextricable interwoven-ness of the context, teaching style and curriculum, in township theatre-making practices, to the informal education of township youth. Prefaced by a brief description of those aspects of township living which most affect the theatre-makers, this article looks, firstly, at how theatre-makers are drawn to this pursuit and how they are skilled. Secondly, it examines the informal organisation of theatre groups with regard to the processes of leading, learning and teaching. Thirdly, it examines the theatre-making practices more closely, noticing how these are coloured by the township habitus and local performance-based culture, and also by theatre education as it is accessed by township theatre-makers. Overtly there appears to be little system, but an attempt is made to articulate trajectories of intention, skills building, learning and teaching within what appears to be a seamless gestalt of practice.