An Apprenticeship with Sorrow

CREATIVE TEAM

Sara Matchett - Performer and Writer

Sara Matchett is an award winning Theatre Director and Associate Professor at the Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies (CTDPS) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She is also an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework® the Regional Co-ordinator of the Fitzmaurice Institute for Africa, and an Advanced Breathwork Practitioner with Breathwork Africa (www.breathworkafrica.co.za). Her teaching profile centres around practical and academic courses that include, voice, acting, performance-making, applied theatre, and performance analysis. She is especially interested in transdisciplinary modes of creating. Her research explores the body as a site for generating images for the purpose of performance making and specifically focuses on investigating the relationship between breath and emotion, and breath and image, in an attempt to make performance that is inspired by a biography of the body. Her particular interests are in embodied practices that focus on presencing, co-sensing, co-llaborating and co-generating as a way of transforming egosystems to ecosystems. As co-founder and Artistic Director of The Mothertongue Project women’s arts collective, Sara has experience in the field of theatre and performance as a performance-maker, performer, director, and facilitator.  

Nina Callaghan - Performer and Writer

Nina Callaghan is the Co-Director of the Centre for Sustainability Transitions, at Stellenbosch University (SU). She is seeking better questions and practice for development, politics, institutional work, education, family-making and being together on this mysterious planet. Her MPhil builds theory for relational governance practice, focusing on partnerships, strategic coalitions and institutional work to shape governance outcomes for transition. She is currently a PhD candidate extending her inquiry into ways to navigate planetary collapse, with questions framed around embodied sustainability. She has co-edited a book on state capture, Anatomy of State Capture (Callaghan, Foley & Swilling, 2021) and co-authored book chapters for The Oxford Handbook of the South African Economy, (Oqubay, Tregenna & Valodia, 2021) and The Evolving Structure of South Africa’s Economy: Faultlines and Futures (Mohamed, Ngoma & Baloyi, 2023). Nina serves as the Transformation Committee Chair for the faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at SU. She is a lecturer for the Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development. Nina has previously worked as a director of the NGO, Children’s Radio Foundation, as a broadcast journalist and has experience as a theatre performer.

Lwanda Sindaphi - Director

Lwanda Sindaphi is an award winning, published playwright, theatre director, and poet with an Honours degree in script writing from the University of Cape Town and Certificate in Physical Theatre from Magnet Theatre. He has 10+ years of experience in the South African theatre industry. He is well-versed in adopting contemporary performance techniques and avant-guard theatre methodology to produce ground-breaking, award-worthy productions. Lwanda is a collaborative leader with a proven track record of delivering stellar live and site-specific performances. He is also an accomplished poet with an outstanding record of delivering performances at Grounding Sessions, Naked Word Festival, and Badilisha Poetry. Lwanda has extensive international experience as a performer and director, travelling to France, Germany, Switzerland, Dubai, and Mauritius. Selected theatre credits include, KUDU (3 Fleur Du Cap Awards), Esiseleni Sedini, Ingqanga, and Songs of this Soil (NAC Trade Fair award for Best Playwright) as writer, director, and contributor. More recently he directed Nadia Davids’ What Remains as well as Woza Albert for AFDA, Cape Town. Lwanda currently lectures at the Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies at UCT and serves as the Creative Director of Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement.