Tainted… winner of the 27th Zwakala Festival will debut on the professional stage
JOBURG – Tainted… joins a long list of incredible productions which have graced the stages of the Market Theatre after winning the converted prize at the Zwakala Festival.
Tainted… was announced as the 2019 Zwakala Festival winner on 9 February 2020 and the production will now be supported by the Market Theatre Foundation as it made a professional debut in the Ramolao Makhene Theatre on 19 February – Sunday 1 March 2020.
On stage until 1 March, Tainted… is about a young girl who wants to fulfil her dream in the dance world and a young boy who uses poetry to escape his abusive adoptive father. They both try to fight for their dreams in dance and poetry until dark family secrets threaten to cripple and change their destiny for the worst, for good. The production is a story about incest, toxic family relations, sexual abuse and drug addiction.
Tainted… is a heart wrenching drama that portrays how young people deal with traumatic experiences in their lives and how people who are often supposed to give love and support turn out to be the perpetrators of grief in their lives. The anxieties in which the characters live, artistry and the creativity in the story will leave audiences gasping for more.
Tainted… joins a long list of incredible productions such as Thula Thula (2014), Tau (2015), Isithunzi (2016), Dikakapa( 2017) and Eqhudeni (2018) which have graced the stages of the Market Theatre after winning the converted prize at the Zwakala Festival.
The Zwakala Festival continues to remain one of South Africa’s most dynamic theatre festivals aimed specifically at community-based theatre-makers. Established three years after the Market Theatre Laboratory was founded in 1989 by Barney Simon and John Kani with funding from the Rockerfeller Foundation, the Zwakala Theatre Festival provides a platform for community-based artists to acquire artistic skills through a structured fieldwork programme and to create a showcase performance that can be presented at the Ramolao Makhene Theatre in the Market Square.
The Zwakala Festival is sponsored by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture as an annual event that seeks to give fresh and young talent a space to showcase their work. The Festival is committed in its pursuit of excellence in the unearthing of emerging artists.
