South Africa

I recently returned from Soweto in South Africa where I collaborated with Thabang Ramaila and Dinganga Theatre Creations on a new piece of dance theatre.
‘Matters of the Heart’ follows a female taxi driver as she deals with the demands of her family and her job during the course of a single day in Soweto.  (Note: ‘Taxis’ in Soweto are mini-buses plying a particular route.)  The script interweaves drama and dance, it is thought-provoking but entertaining and laced with humour.  It touches on contentious issues for South Africans that are also relevant to other countries, for example: unemployment and rising prices, the double shift worked by women who are both breadwinners and mothers, prejudice against asylum seekers, gays and lesbians.   Sebenzile and her passengers struggle to carve out new identities in a rapidly changing world.  Tradition and history weigh heavily on their shoulders.  They are determined to spare their children the suffering they have undergone, and to contribute to building a true ‘rainbow nation’. 
Thabang is currently auditioning, and will choreograph and direct. We hope to premiere ‘Matters of the Heart’ at the 2011 Grahamstown Festival in South Africa.
Thabang and I met in 2007 in Port Elizabeth at the work-in-progress Eastern Cape Dance and Drama Festival.  See my photographs on Flickr.  We were part of an exchange of artists from the NE of England called 'The Swallows Partnership'. I'd been invited to tutor play-making workshops and rehearse with local companies, Thabang was performing with Northumbrian dancer Emma Dunn and musician Paul Keene. We found each other's ideas intriguing and leapt at the opportunity to work together.
A big thank you to Culture Ireland for financial support towards my travel costs. We hope to bring Thabang to Ireland in the autumn of 2011 for a Donegal-based residency, and with any luck bring the company over in 2012. If you would like more information from either me or Thabang, or if you would like invite Thabang to work with your organisation, do get in touch.

Zimbabwe

In 1989 I was awarded an international writers' exchange bursary by Northern Arts. This enabled me to spend 4 months in Zimbabwe working with theatre companies, writers, publishers and educators. My exchange partner was the renowned Zimbabwean writer Charles Mungoshi. It was a life-changing experience. For an account of my trip you can read this pdf document.

Northern Arts suggested I return in 1996 and provided a second bursary. I worked with Albert Nyathi's Imbongi Theatre, ran drama workshops at Northcot, an institution for young offenders, and directed The Trials of Brother Jero by Wole Soyinka for Rooftop Productions at Theatre in the Park, Harare.

My short story Writing to the President published in this anthology was informed by my time in Zimbabwe.

Ghana

Father Patrick Shanahan and I met in Oxford at historian Terence Ranger's 'retirement' conference at St. Anthony's College. The founder of Street Child Africa, Patrick had been a priest in Ghana for 30 years. He was intrigued by my account of drama workshops at Northcot in Zimbabwe. In 1999 he invited me to Accra to work with Catholic Action for Street Children and Street Girls' Aid. I helped the young people devise two plays based on their own experiences. Rik Walton documented the project and together we mounted 'Why should we tell our stories?', an exhibition of photographs and writing which toured galleries in the NE of England. We were particularly pleased when the British Council brought the exhibition back to Accra and Kumasi.

My daughter Rosa Stourac McCreery accompanied me in 2000 and a further 3 plays were created. We also ran drama workshops for pre-school children in a number of SAID crèches and offered training to staff.

Lesotho

In 2006 Nigel Watson, my colleague at the University of Sunderland, asked if Rik and I would like to join him and 5 graduating drama and performing arts students at the Winter/Summer Institute in Theatre for Development in Lesotho. 22 students and 8 lecturers from 4 countries and 3 continents were given the opportunity to collaborate on a challenging drama project on the role of gossip, rumour and silence in the spread of HIV-AIDS. The National University of Lesotho hosted, and faculty and students from the University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, and Empire State College, State University of New York as well as Sunderland participated.

Together we created a remarkable piece of theatre called Dance Me to the End of Love (thank you, Leonard Cohen) which was performed at NUL, at the Maseru Sun Hotel and for villagers in the Malealea Valley. The students became facilitators, encouraging village actors to devise scenes based on their concerns in relation to the themes and in response to our play. These scenes were interwoven and performed at the 20th Anniversary Festival of Malealea Lodge on July 11.

My role was primarily that of facilitator and script writer/editor, together with Rethabile Malibo and Sele Radebe from NUL.

For more info and to see photographs of the project and Lesotho, the Switzerland of Africa, go here