What happens when a story emerges as a recurring dream and asks to be told, not in the voice of the performer but in the voices of those who appear in the dream, begging to be heard?

Sand is strewn across the stage, transforming it into a surreal and secluded shoreline. Brittle statues are evoked, dotting the landscape like stubborn markers of history. Various objects are strewn about – the detritus of a shipwrecked mind or the fragments of memory – and a solitary figure traverses the landscape.

Eribuweni Ra Lwandle | On the Shoreline, conceptualised by Tony Miyambo and Phala Ookeditse Phala, with movement direction by Thulani Chauke, combines object theatre, performance, and trance-like movement patterns to tell a story born from a recurring dream full of fragments.

Traversing the historical landscapes of slavery, colonisation and apartheid – landscapes full of the unseen, the unrecognised, the unheard, and the undocumented – the work finds its meaning through the absences, the missing pieces, the spirits of the dead, and the untold truths.

History, like a dream, is a patchy palimpsest. Always erratic, abundant with sparse information, and full of the unseen, the unheard, the undocumented. It is this fragmentary cacophony from which the play derives its meaning: the missing, the ghosts of the dead, the untold truths, those pushed to the margins of history and rendered invisible.

Rich in text and led by short, considered moments of movement, Eribuweni Ra Lwandle is a profound, immersive prose poem for the stage. It is both a memorialisation and a mourning – an enduring attempt at recognising and remembering.

CONCEPTUALISERS | Phala Ookeditse Phala & Tony Miyambo
DIRECTOR | Phala Ookeditse Phala
MOVEMENT DIRECTOR | Thulani Chauke
PERFORMER | Tony Miyambo
RECORDED MUSIC | Micca Manganye, Simphiwe Skhakhane, Tshepang Mofokeng, Phala Ookeditse Phala & Lindokuhle Thabede
CO-PRODUCED BY | Noma Yini (Pty) Ltd, The Center for the Less Good Idea & SPIELART Theatre Festival

— David Mann

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi