PHALA OOKEDITSE PHALA | Cantos Reborn

Cantos Reborn was performed in September 2013 at Theatre Arts.

Presented in partnership with Distell and The Baxter Theatre, supported by BASA
Directed by Phala Ookeditse Phala
Designed by Kabelo Chalatsane
Created with and Performed by Iman Isaacs, Alecia Daniels and Thando Doni
Mentored by Lara Bye
Poster Design by Warren W Turner
Photos by Dex Goodman

Cantos Reborn explores the psyche of an unborn girl child who refuses to be born into the South Africa that women know and experience. We need to keep reflecting to ourselves the society we are each building and embody. One such a reflection is how our willful blindness contributes to alarming violence against women, and how such violence and abuse is slowly becoming tolerable behavior and second nature.

From an experience of seeing a blind dog and having Oliver (a friend’s blind cat) sit on my lap for almost an hour with such interactive warmth, I started to wonder about blindness; the need and responsibilities that come with it and how it affects or effects dependency? A lot more questions emerged - What is to be blind? Apart from loss of eye sight what other forms of ‘sight’ and perception are affected by being ‘blind’? What journeys of blindness have I walked or continue to walk? How do we turn a ‘blind eye’ to human pain; our own and that of others? Do we have empathy or sympathy blindness? What kind of blindness encapsulates those who hurt others deliberately through abuse and violent crime? What kind of blindness does one engage in, to stop feeling the pains of their traumatic situations? Where resides all forms of blindness (literal and metaphoric) in our lives and especially in our bodies?