Ganga Nyoko! Inzima Nyoko! goes to NAF

ARTIST BIOS

Sibuyiselo Dywili is a published playwright, as well as an award- winning performer who has been seen both on screen and stage. His 2021 play Ganga Nyoko! Inzima Nyoko published by Junkets Press and in which he performed, won the Zabalaza Festivals; Best Production, Best Actor and was nominated for three Fleur du Cap Awards, winning Best New Director. His screen credits include The Whale Caller, Moffie, Inkaba, Jabu, Poppie Nongena and Grobber Freund, Kleiner Junge. Sbuja performed in Tsotsi the Musical as well as Comfort Ye and Buzani ku Bawo. In 2021, he was invited by Lara Foot of Baxter Theatre, to be under the Masambe Writing Residency, where he was supported both financially and with resources to write his second play titled - Ngxi! under the careful eye of Lara Foot, Nwabisa Plaatjie and other selected playwrights. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Filmmaking, in which he majored in Directing, Screenwriting and Producing. Sbuja had the distinct privilege of being taught Musical Writing by the legendary David Kramer at Baxter Theatre. He graduated from a series of Filmmaking Workshops hosted by Tomas Films, from which he co-wrote and directed a short film shot on a cell phone and garnered praise from the Tomas Films Producers/Makers. In 2022, Sbuja received raving reviews for his performance in Dr. Siphiwo Mahala's one man show, House of Truth, for which Sbuja was nominated in the 58th Fleur du Cap Awards as a Best Actor in a One Man Show.

Siphenathi Siqwayi is a 28 years old Theatre Maker / Director, born and bred in the Eastern Cape. He moved to Cape Town, in search of better opportunities and currently resides in Kraaifontein. He began acting in 2009 when he joined a local organization called Mayibuye Developmental Agency. Through his career as an artist, he performed in various productions, like ‘Zixananazile the Musical’ and ‘The Journey’ by Bulelani Babutyana, ‘’This day 6 years ago’ by Avala Gigi ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ by Mkhuseli Richard Tafane. Due to the burning desire to bridge communication, marketing and pitching skills with Arts, he then went to study Public Relation Management, Siphenathi craved more education and went to enroll at Magnet Theatre, he is currently one of the trainees. He has crafted and directed his own play ‘Ilizwi Lomzali’ (Cape Town Fringe) ‘Freedom Or What’ and Ulwamvila Lokufa by Avela Gigi. In 2021 he directed an intriguing IsiXhosa play titled Ganga Nyoko! Inzima Nyoko, which won The Baxter Theatre’s Zabalaza Festival and went on to be nominated for three Fleur du Cap awards, for which Siphenathi was crowned with the award for Best New Director. In 2022 he took on the big responsibility to stage and direct Dr Siphiwo Mahala’s one man play about the life of Can Themba, a play titled The House of Truth, which was also nominated for a single Fleur du Cap award for its actor. In 2023, as part of his graduation project from Magnet Theatre, Siphenathi wrote and directed another provoking IsiXhosa three-women-play titled Ematyeni, a play that both wowed and provoked audiences to have more dialogues for change.

Siyamthanda Bangani is an actor, voice artist and filmmaker who holds an Advance Certificate in Acting for Film from ACT Cape Town. In 2021 he starred in two shows which had a season at the Baxter Theatre - Heads or Tail(s) directed by Robyn September and Ganga Nyoko! Inzima Nyoko! directed by Siphenathi Siqwayi, and for it he was nominated alongside his co-star Sbuja Dywili, as the Best New Ensemble at the 57th Fleur Du Cap Theatre Awards. Late 2021 he produced and starred in a film titled Life Happened , released in 2022 which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video and VIU. In 2023 he played Frikkie in Reza De Wet's classic play "African Gothic" directed by Amee Lekas, a recipient of the Theatre Arts Emerging Directors Bursary for 2023

Tandile Mbatsha (They/ Them and Theirs) is a South African queer and gender non-binary performance artist, choreographic-activist, educator, speaker, host, producer, model and scholar. They make multimodal performance art work that illuminates imigudu ne mizamo/ efforts of racialised queer people to self-fashion and self-determine. Tandile creates work that emphatically declares the full humanness and citizenship of queer people of colour in Africa as Africans. They have performed at the PERFORMA17 Biennale in New York, in Zoë Modiga's set at Afropunk, at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and opened for FAKA at the Cape Town Electronic Music Festival, commissioned by the V&A Waterfront for the Artist Alliance Campaign. They produced the film The Solo Ball on the virtual National Arts Festival curated programme. Tandile has also worked with internationally acclaimed artist Zanele Muholi on various projects. Mbatsha, a Master of Arts (MA) in Theatre and Performance (with distinction) from the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Cape Town, was selected as part of the top 100 artist entrepreneurs by Business Arts South Africa’s (BASA) for the Debut Programme. Their latest work I AM premiered at the Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) Live Art Festival, Tandile featured at the exhibition opening of the Goethe Institut Young Curators Incubator curated by Nkgopoleng Moloi, they co-curate the Digital Soirées at the Performing Arts in Context conference hosted by Zurich University of the Arts and they are a coordinator at Queer Feminist Film Festival.

Uyanda Kiva is an actress, poet, film director and writer. She was born and raised in Middledrift (eXesi) in the Eastern Cape. She grew up with ambitions and dreams to become a television personality and had always been the character amongst her family. In her early teen years, she began creative writing, writing short plays for her school programs and church programs. In 2015 she was awarded as an Outstanding Actress in her highschool Hector Petersen High School in Zwelitsha, King William’s Town. She holds a certificate in Media Design and Technology from Damelin College and a Diploma in Film and Television Production at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Some of her acting work includes Netflix’s original series JIVA which premiered in 2021, with a couple roles in student films and doing make-up and wardrobe for local productions. In 2020/21 she stage managed the theatre production Ganga Nyoko! Inzima Nyoko! In 2022 she appeared as a contestant on Honey Channel’s HairToTheThrone season 1 as one of the competitive hairstylists. Currently she is continuing her studies at the SA Film Academy.