The Final Spring Live Performance 15th December 2019

The show was really moving and the kids were amazing. The overall production was incredible. I loved it! Titled The Final Spring the futuristic climate change themed play starts in the year 2119 when all of humanity has been wiped out or has left planet earth.

Ashraf Hendricks, reporter for Ground up
Link to the full article https://www.groundup.org.za/article/final-spring/

Here are some photographic submissions from various local and national photographers who were there to capture the live event.

Images shot by Graham Abbotthttps://www.facebook.com/graham.abbott2?viewer_id=639846339

Striking Portaits shot by Jonathon Reese https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156363105386403&set=pcb.10157043892507473&type=3&theater

When one Goal flows through many souls…

  • When we have one GOAL, It doesn’t matter who is who or who is better than who.
    #NVP #FinalSpring #Goalorientated #2K19

At our session of bonding with all the participants for the Parade, we brought forward our spirits and what we hope to achieve at the end of this journey. So everyone got a candle to light and placed in the center. Unconsciously the casts place the candles in the form of a Tree which symbolize our theme for this show. What fantastic gesture to see❤.

ASSITEJ PUPPETRY WORKSHOP

Puppetry workshop at Net Vir Pret
#NVP #TheFinalSpring #15Dec2K19

If someone told me a few months back that I must bring life to a puppet, I would just stare at them like a granny trying to understand this fast moving technologies of this age🙈🙊. But that all changed with the Assitej puppetry workshop held at Net Vir Pret on Friday 15 November😎. Faye Kabali-Kogwa and crew did a fantastic job in preparing our performers to bring life to the puppets👌. The Breathing and Movement activities surely allowed our puppeteers to transform into the puppets. New Generation arts development studio reps and the crew of Mother Tongue joined for the preparation workshop.

Like bestselling US writer Sherrilyn Kenyon said: “Success is when persistence meets preparation.”✌

#NVP #TheFinalSpring #15Dec2K19

The Vertical Journey a tribute to the still unknown

The Vertical Journey 
a tribute to the still unknown

The artist Marcus Neustetter and his collaborators explore spaces in between: from the vastness of the universe, with earth as our space ship, to the temporal experience of the everyday. This year they are collaborating with the Parade team on The Final Spring through the brilliant videography explored in this pivotal planetarium project.


In July 2019 The Vertical Journey saw the launch of a series of planetarium dome short films accompanied by live improvisations. The series was developed out of creative experiments with local artists, learners from Navalsig High School, the Naval Hill Planetarium and the Boyden Observatory. This work ambitiously attempts to imagine, manifest and animate the mysteries of infinite spaces large and small while at the same time conjuring the unarticulated stories of the people that explore these spaces.
For the collaboration with the Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade 2019, the films take on a new dialogue partner and become the backdrop for a puppet performance in partnership with Net vir Pret and the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape.

…

The Vertical Journey 
a tribute to the still unknown

a planetarium show by 
Marcus Neustetter

in collaboration with

Mark Edwards – film
Wayne Reddiar – sound


Manzikazi Scota – vocals
Sifiso Teddy Mhlambi – performance
Xolisile Bongwana – vocals / performance
Elrico Plaatjies – performance

Mariette Erwee – scientist / planetarium show expert
Ofentse Letebele – artist / planetarium show expert

Zanda Nosenga – assistant / poet
Regienald Milanzi – assistant
Reitumetse Lebatla – assistant

The 2018 and 2019 participants:
Reitumetse Lebatla, Regienald Milanzi, Violet Isaacs, Kamogelo Chao, Hakirah Bosch, Sylvia Chaka, Wendy Menong, Zanda Nosenga, Benedicta Osei, Perseverance Mavuso

With Thanks to:

University of the Free State
Angela de Jesus
Miné Kleynhans

Vrystaat Art Festival
Ricardo Peach

Naval Hill Planetarium
Prof Matie Hoffman
Dr. Hendrik Van Heerden
Léon Snyman
Dinah Mangope

Boyden Observatory
Dawie van Jaarsveldt

The Trinity Session
Stephen Hobbs
Paul Setate
Ciara Struwig

The project is developed in partnership with the 
Programme for Innovation in Artform Development (PIAD), 
an initiative of the University of the Free State 
and the Vrystaat Art Festival, 
generously supported by 
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2019

2019

Entering the Gateway of the Universe

Words by Sudonia Kouter

The realisatin of this is it, the gateway to the universe –  hit me when we were creeping steadily up the mountain on the stretching road which gleamed silver in the headlights of our minibus. We all got quieter the nearer we came to the SAAO centre in Sutherland and excited chatter only started when we descended from our vehicle.

Even now whenever I am outside I would look up at the night sky, trying to pinpoint what we saw when we were stargazing, something I never would have done before our vist to Sutherland.

Never have I felt closer to the beautiful cosmos which is our universe and also learning that there’s even more universes. Honestly when we researched and discussed terms like lightyears, galaxies, planets, stars etc, my mind was unable to fantom the figures of billion this and trillion that! When I was gazing up, not with one of the telescopes – Each star felt so close and there were so many! The visit to two of the Telescopes, The Elizabeth and SALT was equally amazing! One of the things that stood out was that the mirrors used inside the SALT Telescope was the shape of a honeycomb, which is one of the elements in our story this year –  part of the set is also a honeycomb!

I believe that the whole experienced has touch each of us in different ways but ultimately it will forever connect us.

What I have learnt about the universe and its infinite stretch, brought in me a feeling of belonging. Before this journey I was forever looking out and wondering where I fit in. I delved into the alienness of existing right here, right now. Being a woman, being a mother, being a wife, being a daughter, being me. I’ve given being me many names – different, unique, awkward, strange, deep thinker, complex, infinite. Today I am most probably all of them and I accept that. For I no longer seek, I have found like many scientist have a discovered before me, stars, galaxies, planets.

I have found myself.

I am a daughter of the universe, I am like the sun, bright, warm, fierce and scorching, but the centre around which my cosmos orbit around. I am like a planet, centred with its own stars and moons which brighten even the darkest of days.

I conclude by saying that by looking beyond I have come to the realisation that there a place for each of us to exist, the universe is so fast and that our planet is so unique that no one needs to threaten another living being’s existence, for there is a place for all of us even if we are different from one another.  The stars are so many that each of us can choose one to guide us when we feel lost. And when that one star’s light gets dimmed we need only look south, to found our way again.