Making words more powerful than the sword

THIS year the 15th annual PANSA Young Performers project, funded by the KZN Department of Arts and Culture and Rainbow, is presenting an innovative new home-grown work entitled ‘Soldiers in the City’, created by Themi Venturas, Iain ‘Ewok’ Robinson and Lucky Cele. ‘Soldiers in the City’ engages with the new emerging urban youth culture and comes to the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre for a short, 12-performance season from 3 to 12 July.

Two best friends, both excellent poets, compete in an underground slam poetry challenge where they realise that words can be sharper and more dangerous than swords, and forgiveness and loyalty is more valuable than glory.

‘Soldiers in the City’ is a vibrant, contemporary, relevant story talking to pertinent youth-focussed issues. The production examines the overt culture of the new generation, which includes rhyming, beat-box, urban dance, music and public artwork like graffiti, much like the very popular ‘Step Up’ movie series.

The script outline was written by Venturas together with ‘Ewok’ and Cele, and was finalised after the casting was complete, enabling the script to be customised to allow the characters to speak with their own voices and for the cast to showcase their particular talents.

The music was carefully chosen and is performed to a live band, the ever-popular The Reals. The songlist includes ‘Read All About It’ by Emile Sande, ‘What a Piece of Work is Man’ from the musical ‘Hair’, ‘Soldier in the City’ by Aloe Blacc, ‘My City’ by Toya De Lazy and Casper Nyovesi, ‘Born for This’ by HHP, Liquideep and Teargas and ‘Uptown Funk’ by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.

The poetry for the ‘rap battles’ has been written by ‘Ewok’. Spearheaded by PANSA, the Performing Arts Network of South Africa KZN, the project ensures that the learners get a taste of working in the professional musical theatre arena. The cast of 25 was chosen at auditions on 18 and 19 April.

Rehearsals have begun, with the cast meeting every weekend until the opening night.

The project promotes discipline, develops confidence and gives an opportunity to make life-long friendships and to learn a huge amount from the professionals.

PANSA is grateful to the Department of Arts and Culture of KZN along with RCL Foods (Rainbow Chicken), Business and Arts South Africa (BASA), and to Ian Schoeman and Glenwood High School.

Booking is through Computicket outlets at Shoprite Checkers, by phone on 0861 915 8000 or online at www.computicket.com.