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Writing samples | Wikipedia contributions

I researched and wrote up several items for the Wiki. Below are a few excerpted samples.

Top Gcina Mhlope

Gcina Mhlope was born in 1959 in KwaZulu-Natal to a Xhosa mother and a Zulu father. She is a well-known South African freedom fighter, activist, actor, storyteller, poet, playwright, director and author. Storytelling is a deeply traditional activity in Africa and Mhlope is one of the few woman storytellers in a country dominated by male storytellers. She does her most important work through charismatic performances, playing, singing and dancing her way to preserving storytelling as a means of keeping history alive and encouraging South African children to read. She tells her stories in four of South Africa's languages, English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa.

 

Mhlope started her working life as a domestic servant. She worked as a newsreader at the Press Trust and BBC Radio, then as a writer for Learn and Teach, a magazine for newly-literate people. The unique timbre of her voice eventually singled her out to perform.

 

Several experiences created impetus for turning Mhlope towards a career as storyteller. She credits her storytelling ability to her grandmother, who brought her up in the Transkei. Mhlope says, "My grandmother taught me everything about telling stories. When I was growing up, half the kids in our neighbourhood would come and spend the evening at home so that they could listen to izinganekwane (tales)." Then, she began to get a sense of the demand for stories while in Chicago in 1988. She performed at a library in a mostly-black neighbourhood, and the audience kept inviting her back day, by day. And every day the audiences grew larger, and larger. Nevertheless, Mhlope only started thinking of storytelling as a career after meeting an Imbongi, one of the legendary poets of African folklore, and after encouragement by Mannie Manim, the then director of the Market Theatre, Johannesburg.

 

Since then Mhlope has appeared in theatres from Soweto to London and much of her work has been translated into German, French, Italian, Swahili and Japanese. Mhlope has travelled extensively in Africa and the world, including really isolated areas, giving storytelling workshops. She is inspired by AC Jordan (The Wrath of the Ancestors, a Xhoza novel), Earl Lovelace (The Dragon Can’t Dance), Grace Nichols (The Fat Black Woman’s Poems), Zorah Neale Hurston, Milan Kundera, Isabel Allende, Zakes Mda, Paulo Coelho, Eskia Mphahlele, Mariama Ba, and Sindiwe Magona.

 

Mhlope's stories meld folklore, information, current affairs, song and idiom. The realisation of her dreams is a visceral motivator for her and she is passing on her infectious enthusiasm by developing young talent to carry forward the work of storytelling through the Zanendaba (Bring me a story) Initiative. This initiative, established in 2002, is a collaboration with the Market Theatre, Johannesburg and READ, a national literacy organization. Some of her young protegés have already taken to the stage.

 

Currently, Mhlope focuses on making books available to poor South African rural communities by making sure that libraries are built, and making sure the libraries are stocked with African-flavoured books.

Top Womanhouse

Womanhouse (30 January-28 February 1972) was a women-only art installation and performance organised by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, co-founders of the California Insitute of the Arts (CalArts) Feminist Art Program. Chicago, Schapiro, their students and artists from the local community participated. Chicago and Schapiro encouraged their students to use consciousness-raising techniques to generate the content of the exhibition. Each woman was given a room or space of her own in a 17-room mansion in Hollywood, California.

Only women were allowed to view the exhibition on its first day, after that the exhibition was all-come, all-see. Chicago observed that on the first day, responses to the artwork were heightened, and on subsequent days responses were muted.

 

Among the artists and CalArts students that collaborated were Beth Bachenheimer (Shoe Closet), Sherry Brody (Lingerie Pillows), Faith Wilding (Womb Room), Kathy Huberland (Bridal Staircase), Camille Grey (Lipstick Bathroom), Robin Weltsch and Vicki Hodgetts (Nurturant Kitchen), Amelia Jones, Mary Ann Ray, Lauren Lesko, Amy Gerstler (poem: Recipe for Trouble), Michelle Fickeisen, Lynn Aldrich, Yong Soon Min, Harryett Mullen, Dana Cuff, Lynn Spigel, Laura Meyer, Pat Morton (Teen Room), Karen Lang (Kant’s Vanity), Christine Magar, Betty Lee, Alessandra Moctezuma, Susan Silton, Joanna Roche (How-to Hats or Webs for the Head), Kathleen McHugh, Erika Suderburg, Catherine Lord, Annie Chu, Susan Narduli, and Miriam Schapiro (Doll’s House) and Judy Chicago (Menstruation Bathroom).

Johanna Demetrakas filmed the performance pieces: Faith Wilding (Waiting), Sandra Orgel (Ironing), Judy Chicago (Cock and Cunt Play, performed by Faith Wilding and Janice Lester), Karen LeCocq (Leah’s Room).

Top Jael

Jael (Hebrew Ya'el, the hebrew name of the Nubian Ibex), is mentioned in the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible, as the heroine who killed Sisera to deliver Israel from Jabin. She was also the wife of Heber the Kenite.

 

God told Deborah (a prophetess and leader) that he would deliver Israel from Jabin. Deborah called Barak to make up an army to lead into battle against Jabin on the plain of Esdraelon. Jabin's army was captained by Sisera (Judg. 4:2), who fled the battle after all was lost.

 

Jael received the fleeing Sisera at the settlement of Heber on the plain of Zaanaim. Jael welcomed him into her tent with apparent hospitality. She 'gave him butter' (i.e. 'lebben', or curdled milk)'in a lordly dish'. Having drunk the refreshing beverage, he lay down and soon sank into the sleep of the weary. While he lay asleep Jael crept stealthily up to him, holding a tent peg and a mallet. She drove it through his temples with such force that it entered into the ground below. And 'at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead'.

As a result of the murder of Sisera, God gave the victory to Israel. The praise given to 'blessed' Jael in the Bible, is given for her action.

Top Molly Picon

Molly Picon was born Margaret Pyekoon in New York City on June 1, 1898. She was a star of stage, screen and television. Her career began at the age of six in the Yiddish Theatre.

In 1912 she debuted at the Arch Street Theatre in New York and became a star of the Second Avenue Yiddish stage.

 

She was so popular in the 1920s that many shows had the name Molly in their title. In 1931 she opened the Molly Picon Theatre.

 

Picon appeared in many films, starting with the silent movies. Her earliest film still existing is East and West which deals with the clash of new and old Jewish cultures. Molly plays a daughter, and her husband in real life, Jacob Kalich, plays one of her Galician relatives from Eastern Europe.

 

Her most famous film, Yidl Mit'n Fidl (1936), was made on location in Poland. She made her English language debut on stage in 1940.

 

On Broadway she starred in the first staged play of Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn in 1961, and in the musical Milk and Honey also in 1961.

 

Her first English speaking role in the movies was the film version of Come Blow Your Horn in 1963. She also played "Yente, the Matchmaker" in the film version of the Broadway hit Fiddler on the Roof in 1971.

 

An entire room is filled with her memorabilia at the Second Avenue Deli in New York.

She died on April 5, 1992, aged 93, from Alzheimer's disease in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her husband, from 1919 until his death in 1975 from cancer, was Jacob Kalich. They had no children.

 

© (but not really, only sortof) Tanya Pretorius 2006

 

{Tanya Pretorius' Bookmarks: Me, CV, Writing samples, Wikipedia contributions}


 
 

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