Also meant to say that – as lots of you will know – Kim is over in the UK at the moment with Bernie – and we met up at Kaths yesterday Neil was there too. Ufoma is in London and could not make it, Sara was working and Jacqui is caring for animals in namibia….. WSI changes lives!
We are going to publish a new book of drama exercises called: “Games for Blanket Wearers and Non-Blanket Wearers” Look out for it in the shops…..
that really is all i think……
nigel

On a serious note, I hope that the rather unsettled political climate will be resolved soon and that calm will return to Maseru. It was quite an experience joining the headlong stampede from the city centre in time to meet the curfew – all traffic driving on both sides of a dual carriageway in the same direction. It was not good hearing gunfire in the night and hearing the stories that circulated in the morning….. I really hope that calm returns…

As always it has been a pleasure and a privilege to have again experienced the warmth and generosity of our Basotho friends and to marvel at the skills we have seen and the games and experiences which we have shared together. I cannot wait for next year…..

In the meantime when see the Dean, dont forget to ask him if he has seen Mumbly……. If you dont see hi – send him an email!
Nigel

Writing you from Jenny’s little office in her house at our old stomping ground, The Trading Post… Has been strange to be here without you guys and the rest of the crew, but lovely none the less. Weather here is extreme — there’s a severe drought effecting much of Southern Africa right now… hot, hot, hot sunny days and dry as a
proverbial bone. So we are doing the pula dance on a daily basis — well, just me and Mathabo and Mapoka and Joalane, with Tsili sometimes joining in … hoping that we can conjure up some water from the sky.

Everyone I’ve run into thus far is full of questions about how everyone is and what’s up with so-and-so and so-and-so. I saw Kim, Phumlani and Ditchaba this past Saturday in Jobrug. They went with me to the township of Orange Farm to check out the community work there, specifically the work of the Youth Group, which has been involved in
drama. We are hoping to connect with them somehow… And spent lots of time with Alta and Gill. Both of whom are well — Gill about to give birth, probably by the end of the week.

Finally got to Roma late Monday and was on campus much of yesterday. Saw Litseo, Matsepo and Relebohile… and, of course, Selloane — and we all had a meeting with others involved in the Arts and Culture week (the reason I’m here), during which (among many other things) Dance Me to the End of Love will be performed. There are now 22 NUL students in the show — which I get to see and record next week.

I’m also going to head up to Malealea early next week to connect with an Irish group doing work with Clowns Without Borders .. they came up to Malealea soon after our departure last July, worked with the drama group up there, and are back for another week to do the same. I’ll go up, meet them, connect with the women from the drama group, do some video taping, and then head back here for the Arts Week.

It’s exciting news about your upcoming trip here, Nigel, and about the trip in June with the 7 students! I wish we could have overlapped somehow during these March/April excursions … please let us know more as things develop with the Durham-Lesotho link.

Hoping to see the rest of the WSI-ers from June/July tomorrow evening for dinner here — and then will get to meet the whole new cast in the coming days. I brought just enough WSI t-shirts (it turns out) to cover the new cast … so they’ll all have one as the show continues to develop and play.

More news when I’m back in New York.

“Wanted to let you know I’m heading over to Africa for a quick info gathering, video-taping, performance festival trip in a couple weeks.

I’ll be staying with Gillian in Johannesburg for a couple days, and she, Alta and I will be going to the community center in Orange Farm
township to listen to their choir and see if there’s some possibility of hooking them up with future WSI work. I’m hoping I’ll get to see
the whole WITS contingent.

Then I’m heading to ye olde Mountain Kingdom, where Selloane and the Lesotho WSI folks just have refused to stop doing Dance Me to the End
of Love. They’ve added stuff, taken stuff out, now have at least 20 National University students in the piece… have performed it for the
UN folks, at just about every available location-in Lesotho — including 3 nights of (I think) sold out performances at the Maseru
Sun, where people were making speeches about how this should revitalize the call for a National Initiative to combat the virus….
And, this coming weekend they take the show to Swaziland to the InterVarsity Games — a sporting and cultural event involving the
universities from Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland….

There’s going to be a week of festival performances and various and sundry other things (workshops, talks, etc.) leading up to March 27th
(International Theatre Day)(who knew?)… so, I’ll be there for that, and will try to capture much of it on video to aid with fundraising in
the coming year.

So, if you have photos for Trading Post folks like Mathabo, Tsili, Mapoka, Kerry, Gill, Alta, the Wits-ers, NUL-ers, etc… or, like I
said, have anything small and light you want me to deliver, send it my way.”

In Lesotho, there have been several performances of a re-worked and re-staged version of the play we all created, Dance Me to the End of Love. This news comes to us through the National University of Lesotho grapevine (also known as the Dean, Chris Dunton). Driven by NUL theatre unit faculty, Ms.Selloane Mokuku’s energy and passion, a new version of the play was performaned for a U.N. day at the Convention Center in Maseru, and another version was just staged last week on the NUL campus. Please — all of you who were involved with the performances, let us know what happened and what it was like doing the play again — with a
different cast of actors? How did it go?

I also heard (through a different grapevine or grapevines) that a
couple of the Sunderland folks are traveling to (or have traveled to) various parts of Africa, with or without some of the Wits contingent. Send us some travel news — and photos!

Here in New York — the 5 New Yorkers just gave a presentation about
WSI’s work in Roma and Malealea to an All College meeting. Our New York City campus is one of many spread throughout the state of New York — so the state-wide meeting allowed them to talk about and show video
clips of this past winter/summer — many of you are featured in those video clips — looking fabulous, of course! And we’re about to give a two day residency here (December 2nd and 3rd) — to pass on the model that we all created together in Lesotho for making this kind of theatre. There are almost 50 participants signed up for the residency, coming to New York from all over the U.S., and from as far away as Benin and Nigeria…

It would be great to hear about any and everything people are up to –
so, sign on to the blog and let us know what’s happening.

I hope everyone is well and making trouble!

http://www.clownswithoutborders.org/journals/lesotho06.shtml

http://selenamcmahan.blogspot.com/