SA Theatre Personality gets MA Degree

South African theatre director, impresario and high profile arts personality Themi Venturas has graduated from UKZN with a Master of Arts degree.

One of South Africa’s leading theatre directors and personalities, Themi Venturas, graduated with a Masters of Arts degree for his research titled: In Search of the Water: Interrogating Intercultural Performance with a Special Focus on Examining my Role in the Making of The Last Anniversary (2014).

His research, supervised by UKZN’s Ms Lliane Loots, interrogates the Hopes & Memories Project (2012-2014), and specifically the new operatic drama that emerged from the project titled, The Last Anniversary(2014).

In the project, Venturas examined the making of this theatrical case study and also his role as dramaturge, director and performer.

The Hopes & Memories Project (2012-2014) was an intercultural performance dialogue partly funded by the European Union and by host countries South Africa, France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

It brought together artists and artistic organisations from the five countries, in various disciplines, including drama, stage design, dance, music, opera and digital technology – as well as from different cultural and economic backgrounds – to create a new performance work.

‘This afforded me, as theatre-maker and theatre researcher, the opportunity to participate in, research and interrogate the process and the dynamics of a living, evolving, contemporary case study of intercultural performance.  The project also presents a living case study for the interrogation and analysis of the power dynamics and the polemic between opposing hegemonies in the creation of an intercultural performance piece,’ said Venturas.

Said Loots, ‘It was a huge privilege to work with and supervise Themi’s MA dissertation. Not only did he bring a wealth of theatrical knowledge and award-winning experience to his MA but he was open to new reading and to finding a way to use the MA process to navigate and reflect on his own life-long theatre making praxis.

‘I felt like we were both learning together. His dissertation is a wonderfully informed account of his intercultural theories and work processes and I think stands as an exceptional academic testament of a searching South African theatre maker.’

Words by Melissa Mungroo

Source University of Kwazulu Natal