The movement is set to take over
JOHANNESBURG - A group of ambitious threatre stars are making their own path in the industry.
Whoever said the current generation of 20-somethings is lazy, clearly never knew about The Movement RSA.
“Our group is The Movement RSA and we’re a group of graduates from AFDA [The South African School of Live Performance], The Market Lab and Wits, and we thought that since we have nothing to do next year, let’s not sit around and wait for auditions. Let’s make our own work and do this theatre thing ourselves,” said the group’s Campbell Jessica Meas.
The group was formed in October last year and has since performed at a number of venues including Pop Art in Maboneng.
It was at Pop Art where Gita Pather, theatre director of Wits University, found the group and asked them to perform at Wits’ 13th annual 969 Festival, after taking their show to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
The newly-formed group has already faced a number of challenges that all who enter the South African theatre space will encounter and these include drawing audiences and creating original works. “Even if only one person comes to watch us – which we hope never happens – it’s an opportunity to perform and be an artist that’s being paid for what we love to do,” said Meas.
In order to prevent that from happening, the group partners with a number of other performers in hopes that supporting each other will bring audiences from within the theatre and especially non-theatre audiences to each of their shows.
Just as important in their line of work is finding sponsors and theatres willing to give them the platform they need to express themselves.
“We don’t want to rely on the theatres to give us the opportunities. That’s why we started The Movement RSA, to create those opportunities ourselves and show that, as young artists, we want to bring the work and we’re not looking for anyone to give it to us.”
The group does well in interpreting texts and stories, and making them their own, but now they’re faced with creating original work with which they will tour to schools in the country in October – an opportunity given to them by Assitej, a non-profit organisation which operates as a networking platform for young people and children interested in theatre.
So, watch out for this dynamite group of performers.
