Events
COMMISSION CONTINUA
Noma Yini
(South Africa)
WORLD Premiere
Book NowBright Maluleke works for the government. He copies and stores important papers. Tony Bonani Miyambo, from the show Kafka's Ape, plays Bright. Bright tries hard to focus on his tasks. But, it is hard to ignore what the papers say. They talk about big and terrible events in South Africa’s history. Bright starts sharing his frustration about how hard it is for South Africa to find real change and healing, after years of Black and non-White people being treated unfairly and given fewer rights than White people. The show uses a simple setup. It only has a photocopier, a microphone, and a loop station.
Artist Statement
Important records, like investigation reports, are like maps. They show different parts of a bigger story and connect them. The show, Commission Continua, mixes sounds and touch. It shows us what is missing from these records i.e., our personal understanding of history. The sounds show how some physical things fade over time.
It also explores big issues, like:
- what kind of control we have over our lives
- what lasts forever
- how ideas change when we share them
- who owns the past
- What the real truth is
Commission Continua is a powerful and affecting production. Miyambo succeeds in delivering a complex concept with care.
— Nkgopoleng Moloi, The Critter
Bright Maluleke—played by Tony Bonani Miyambo (Kafka’s Ape)—is an employee who copies and archives official documents from the commissions. He does his best just to stick to his brief and ignore the content of the files—but this proves difficult when faced with all these pages giving an account of the most critical and catastrophic moments in South Africa’s history. In the frugal setting of a photocopier, a microphone, and a loop station, he begins to give vent to his annoyance with South African society’s struggle for real change and reconciliation.
Bonani Miyambo is terrific and deservedly gets one of the strongest ovations of the night
— Teresa Guerreiro, Culture Whisper
a devastating one-hander that emphasises how the culpability for historical and recent crimes perpetrated against the South African people has become buried under mountains of paperwork.
— Chris Thurman, Business Live
There will be a dialogue with the artists after each performance, with speech to text interpretation available upon request for the dialogue on 18 January 2025. Please email your request to info@singaporefringe.com by 6 December 2024.
Artist Statement
In this production we consider how archives such as commissions of inquiry function as a map: tracing specific features of a broader landscape of phenomena and putting them in relation to each other. Commission Continua brings a collision of the tactile and the sonic where performance counters that which is absent in the paper by reinforcing a connection to historical memory and works as a sonic hypertext to analog ephemera, and how issues of subject agency, immortality, translation, ownership, and truth are thrown into bold relief.
Date & Duration
17 to 18 January 2025, 8pm
60 minutes with no intermission
Location
Esplanade Theatre Studio
Price
$38
*20% DISCOUNT FOR STUDENTS, NSF, SENIOR CITIZENS AND PWD CARDHOLDERS
*10% discount for Esplanade&Me members (limited tickets). Log in to your Esplanade&ME member account to access the promo code.
Accessibility Features
Open captions in English for all shows
Rating
Advisory (Some Mature Content)