Passion for performing art and education keeps Pamela going
DUT senior lecturer, Pamela Tancsik is living her dream, combining her two passions, theatre and education into an enjoyable and challenging career. The German born performer chats to Berea Mail about her passion for performing arts and how she only got a regular paycheck at age 50.
PAMELA Tancsik may have spent most of her early days in the German city of Munich where she was born, but for nearly two decades she has been instrumental on the Durban theatre scene.
As a senior lecturer at DUT’s Drama Department, Tancsik is busy working on DUT’s Children’s Theatre Festival and believes it is important for children to enjoy theatre from a young age. “Being a social worker, drama and theatre has a large psychological affect on children. Drama can also be therapeutic and is easily able to get serious issues across to children – its like an extension of role-playing, and very important for their development, imagination, sense of wonder and joy for life,” she explained.
In the children’s play Looking for a Leader, the play she has written in workshops with her students, she says there is a lot of room to inspire. “Can a woman be a leader? Is a question we ask. Theatre is always a good way to get messages out, whether it is a message of hope or empowerment,” she added.
“I’m always using theatre to educate my students and we have a very strong community investment so part of the curriculum is to have plays around social issues, such as Blessers, Sugar Daddies, alcohol and drug abuse. We work with various community organisations and bring in experts in the field with relevant input for the workshops for our plays,” she added.
Tancsik is a woman of many talents and uses most in her role as an educational theatre lecturer. A well known children’s performer, puppeteer and director, she modestly enjoys writing children’s plays. She is a social worker and also has a PHD in Theatre History. Her love for theatre began when she was just 5-years-old as a Jewish girl in a Catholic school play in Munich. “I wrote my first ply when I was 14. I started working in the theatre industry when I was about 17. My passion was to be a set designer but I couldn’t get that job so I learned the art of being a puppeteer and hand puppetry while studying towards my PhD and becoming a social worker,” she said.
She visited and later immigrated to Durban soon after the first democratic elections, after meeting a local theatre group who visited a German puppet workshop. Although she had worked in Johannesburg with Gary Friedman on an educational puppet TV show, The Pheezoolies, she returned to Durban to continue her freelance puppeteer company Tekwini Puppet Plays, collaborating with local artists.
“I love Durban. It has such a rich mixture of everything, the surrounding with the sea and mountains, game reserves so close by and of course there is so much talent here. I’ve observed so many talented artists leave Durban to become stars. I really think Durban is an underrated destination, especially for film,” she added.
Being a freelance performance artist, Tancsik jokes about the struggles of being an artist. “I only got my first monthly salary at the age of 50, so I understand and identify with the burden of someone following their creative passion – on both continents!”
Tancsik said living in South Africa, especially working closely with the youth has made her realise women are quite “vulnerable in society.” “I feel Women’s Day and Women’s month is celebrated with fun events but that seems to be on the surface and the real issues facing a lot of young women like rape, maintenance laws are what need to be addressed,” she added.
