TREE/BOOM/UMTHI Invited to Festival of Theatre and Culture for Early Childhood in March 2014

Magnet Theatre has been committed to transformation in the theatre industry in South Africa for the past 25 years. They are an award winning physical theatre company based in Cape Town in South Africa. Magnet Theatre believes that we all have a responsibility to develop a more just, free and peaceful South African society. Transformation can never be only about developing skill. Fundamentally it involves developing creativity, the ability to imagine alternative realities and dream different futures.

Magnet Theatre runs a full time training program for young township performers who cannot for one reason or another gain access to tertiary institutions like the university or the theatre profession. The 2 year training acts as a bridge into the universities and into the professional performance industry as a whole.

In 2013 as part of their training, with support from ASSITEJ and Roberto Frabetti from La Baracca, the trainees made a theatre project for 3 -5 years old to take to the most forgotten child care centres and crèches of the Cape Town townships. TREE/ BOOM/ UMTHI is a delicate tender performance about the relationship between a man and a tree and the seasons. It is performed in three different languages depending on the audience and uses song, image and the physical body to tell the story.

Theatre for the very young is a new territory of performance that is opening up in South Africa thanks to the efforts of ASSITEJ South Africa. Magnet Theatre understands it to be extremely important as a way to nourish intelligence and to develop sensibility and competencies in the very young.

TREE/ BOOM/ UMTHI has now been invited to perform at the INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THEATRE AND CULTURE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD in Bologna Italy in March 2014. For all 5 performers it will be the very first time that they have the opportunity to travel outside of South Africa.

By helping these young people you will:

Support their first ever trip outside of South Africa
Allow them to showcase their work on an international platform
Allow them to gain in confidence and visibility not only to themselves but to an international audience
Allow them to observe and learn from other baby Theatre Projects
Help them learn grow and access the inspiration so that they can follow their dreams to come back to South Africa and grow theatre for the very young in their own communities

THIS IS WHAT WE NEED:

We need R 84 000 to cover the cost of the airfare of the 4 performers, the technician and the director.

THIS IS HOW YOU CAN HELP:

By visiting the following link: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/township-actors-invited-to-perform-in-italy/x/134759 and making a contribution;
By contacting the Magnet Theatre office on 021 448 3436 should you prefer to make a donation directly into the Magnet Theatre account;
We realise that not everybody can donate money, but it will help us enormously if you could spread the word on facebook, twitter and other social media networks to keep the campaign alive.

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