The Hillbrow Theatre (Outreach Foundation) with the support of Flying house would like to invite you to a Fund raising performance of Isaro and Tshimbila Rantsula.   Two Drama Performances That Interrogate and teach about Africa today performed by young participants of Hillbrow Theatre

The word Isaro is a Rwandan word meaning beads that have been knitted together, symbolizing unity.  The play emerged as a response to the 20-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.  It traces the journey of ‘The Forgotten One’ who flees Rwanda and lands up in South Africa.  It uses this narrative to probe the reasons behind South Africa’s repeated Xenophobic violence. The work asks if we are Xenophobic or Afrophobic? It questions if the attacks on those who are ‘Other’ in South Africa occur as a result of fear of cultural invasion, language dilution, competition over resources or fear of losing what we fought for during Apartheid.

Isaro has been presented at various festivals and competitions.  It has won the following awards:

Tshimbila means ‘walk’ in Venda.  The cast is comprised of seven girls and one boy. This play deals with the way Africans have lost their sense of identity through the dilution of culture and through the pervasive wash of western teaching. A group of women in this work tell of the struggles that are experienced in different parts of Africa and allegorically deals with issues of Gender and Women’s issues through its tale of how Africa was thrown out of the village because she was a woman.