Lights, camera, action!
2007-10-30 14:19
Cape Town - The movement class at the theatre school tucked away in Sybrand Park near Cape Town is in full swing. Sixteen students balance precariously on their stomachs, the logo on their black shirts for the 2007 New Africa Theatre Association (Nata) just visible as they stretch and contort their bodies.
Willem Breedt's instruction to "stretch your arms and legs upwards," is met with groans from the class. "It's been too long a holiday!" he jokes, and the students burst out laughing.
Monica Lahle is the most vocal. "That thing!" she says of a particular sequence Willem proposes. "Wooo," she exclaims shaking her head. Willem grins at her. "No gain without pain!" he teases.
This isn't a drama class at UCT that would cost tens of thousands for the year. And Monica Lahle isn't someone you'd immediately associate with the glamour of the film industry.
Struggle
The 30-year-old from a township in East London has struggled her way through a teen pregnancy, a devastating divorce and crippling poverty.
But the single mother's pretty face lights up as she describes to me the thrill of landing a paying acting job on her first try last year - in a full-length feature film about pioneering heart surgeon Chris Barnard, called To Be First. "They treated me like a queen!" she laughs. "They organised me transport, wardrobe fittings, a room with my name on it - everything." For a near-penniless woman from the townships with zero television experience, the opportunity was almost too good to be true.
The film industry in Cape Town has become a serious economic force. The Western Cape film industry raked in an estimated R2.65bn in the past financial year with 77% (R2.03bn) of this located in Cape Town, according to a Cape Film Commission study.
International actors and models are frequently seen on city streets and the cosmopolitan city's favourable exchange rate, world class equipment and near perpetual sunshine in summer are a boon to film production schedules.
Yet Cape Town remains a fiercely divided place economically. Beyond the bright lights and action of the film locations lie the informal settlements - and the millions of men, women and children struggling to make a living.
'Raw talent'
Then there are people like Monica, bursting with raw talent and a love for performance, who are slowly making their way into a sector formerly almost exclusively the preserve of the middle class.
Places like Nata, the only institution in the country that offers accredited theatre training to students from a disadvantaged backgrounds at a heavily subsidised rate, are helping them do that.
Students attend classes five days a week, for a year and afterwards are given a level 5 national certificate in the performing arts that gives them a good start in the industry.
All for only R3 200 a year.
Monica tells me that after the high of winning her first role so effortlessly, she quickly found out that without qualifications, her move from East London to Cape Town had been in vain. But the cost of tertiary education was beyond her grasp - until she heard about Nata.
"I'm paying it off piece by piece because I really want that qualification," says Monica, who works as a bartender between a hectic training schedule. "I get three hours of sleep a night," she admits. While she has rent to cover, living costs and tuition, Monica still finds a little bit extra to send home to her two beloved children, who live with her mother in Mdantsane, East London.
"My son used to go to school with 50c or no money at all," she says. "Now I make sure he has a lunch box."
And by all accounts, he's as vivacious and talented as his mother. "He does music: percussion, steel drums and trumpet," she says, bursting with pride as she scrolls down on her phone to show me a picture of the 16-year-old. "I've told him he must come join Boss models in Cape Town!"
Songbird
The class has recovered from their rigorous movement class with Willem and are chatting and laughing up a storm. Shannon is desperate for me to hear a certain pupil sing. "She has a gorgeous voice, you have to hear it." Within a few minutes an impromptu performing space is set up and I'm one of three in an audience watching Zinzisa Kente, 23, take centre stage. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and suddenly the room comes alive with her powerful voice. "Intonga zamakhwenkwe zasikel' emilajani," she sings, recalling her grandmother's song about initiation rites.
Zinzi made the top 100 of this year's Idol's competition. The young woman from Gugulethu has had no formal singing training - until now.
"They network for us," says Monica. "New Africa has a name in the industry."
With good reason. Nata principle, Shannon Bishop, proudly points out the school's alumni on the "wall of fame": a smorgasbord of newspaper cuttings tracking the careers of the school's graduates.
One student, Clayton Everton, has landed a role on e.tv's soccer drama series Shooting Stars. A 2004 graduate has taken a group of problem kids from Ravensmead under her wing.
Giving back
Giving back to the troubled community they came from is a common theme among the school's graduates.
While Monica may have a great prospective film career ahead of her, her real dream is to take back what she's learnt to her community. "I want to take this back to East London, I want to introduce theatre to interest the youth," says Monica. "They have nothing to do and that's why they get involved with drugs and crime."
She informally taught theatre to a group of children before coming to Cape Town. She plans on returning to them with the skills she's learnt. "I miss them so much!" she says of the students who have become like children to her.
Nata has big plans to further empower prospective students, but big plans cost big money and they rely on donors to supplement their grant from government's arts and culture department. "It'll cost R6m to upgrade and renovate the entire building," Shannon tells me, as she unfolds a detailed plan for the expansion on her desk. Next to it stands an award from the Western Cape municipality, for the best contribution to the performing arts.
"We have all the facilities, it's all here," says Shannon. "We just need a huge facelift basically."
A renewed fire
Breedt mops the sweat off of his face after the class, glowing with vigour and enthusiasm. The drama teacher, writer and theatre manager works at Nata for a pittance, sharing his skills for the love of it. "There is a renewed fire in them," he says of the students. "It's almost as if there's a silent revolution, a renewed strength in the youth of the day."
He pauses as he watches the students leave the class."They're ready to take that step, to be the phoenix rising out of the ashes and fly."
Breedt, a production manager, actor and teacher, waxes lyrical about the class. "There is such an old-school methodology that happens at universities," he says. "Students are scared to break the barriers whereas these kids aren't afraid because of their background.
"These kids are willing to step outside the barriers and try new things.
"Economically they are flat on the ground: there's a tendency to use that as a springboard. To catapult themselves upwards."