ITP returns to Philipi Township outside of Cape Town, South Africa for year eleven of our RISING VOICES residency with a special tour of the original student plays throughout Townships outside Cape Town. This year we are expanding our by adding a new community partners. We will increase the number of young people we work with.
SOUTH AFRICA 2023
SOUTH AFRICA
We will be returning to Philippi Township, South Africa in June and July 2023 for our eleventh year working with teen-agers at the iThemba Labantu Community Center. We are excited to expand our program in South Africa to include more students and more opportunities for them throughout the year.
This year four ITP alumni students in our LEADING ACTS program will be hired as teaching apprentices mentored by ITP teaching artists.
ITP South African Program Coordinator Mbovu Malinga joins ITP artistic director Stephen DiMenna and ITP U.S. teaching artists Harry Waters Jr. and T. Mychael Rambo to work with 70 kids on creating an original play with music to be performed for their community.
In 2019 ITP was invited to perform our original play MEMORIES WE'VE FOUND created by our students in 2018 for the South African Youth Arts Festival at the Artscape Theatre, Cape Town's premier performing arts venue. This was an unprecedented opportunity for our students to perform in a venue with national prestige that elevates and validates the work of our young artists. Artscape houses the Cape Town Opera, Symphony, Jazzart Dance Company and international Broadway tours.
As a follow-up to the performance at Artscape our Leading Acts alumni produced a tour of the play to small theatres in the neighboring townships of Delft and Khayelitsha. They performed the show for hundreds of youth groups and members of their communities.
The play was re-mounted this Summer directed by our ITP alumni in our Leading Acts Program.
