Imagine this:

It’s the mid-90’s. You spend your whole childhood living a poor, yet honest and noble life. You attend a school with an average amount of resources. The odds are probably stacked against you. Fast forward to 2010, you finish school. You flourish academically. The problem is that you don’t know where to go next.

You have slight self-confidence issues. You’re a bundle of nerves, stress and anxiety. You decide that you want to go to drama school. You overcome the stress and anxiety that you’ve been struggling with. You manage to impress the panel at the audition and you find yourself enrolling for a BA in Theatre and Performance at the University of Cape Town.

Student life is amazing. Similarly to high school, you flourish academically at university too. First, second and third year goes by. At the start of fourth year, things become a bit shaky, because students around you are starting to lobby for decolonisation. The university becomes a toxic space. You too decide to jump on the bandwagon. You lead peaceful disruption at UCT’s drama campus. Artistically, a group of your peers, including yourself, devises a piece of theatre that for the next years to come would mould your career, give you exposure, and chart a journey of success for you.

This is the story of Sihle Mnqwazana (26), a freelance actor, who graduated from the UCT when the landscape of student activism was at its steepest. In an interview, Sihle opened up about their experiences of student activism and how this impacted his life in the performing arts industry.

The conversation initially started on a heavy note where Sihle described how #RhodesMustFall and later, #FeesMustFall were initially stumbling blocks in him catapulting himself into a successful, resilient career. “We were supposed to graduate in December of 2015, but instead we graduated in June 2016 because of protests. The student movements shifted the way in which I saw myself. I found it difficult to launch myself into a career. I had to define myself in that realm”, says Sihle.

While at UCT, Sihle performed in the powerful Black Dog/Inj’emnyama, a multilingual workshopped theatre piece devised by Barney Simon, which narrates the lived experiences of students who engaged in student riots in 1976. It was Sihle’s performance that attracted the attention of Lara Foot, CEO and Artistic Director at the Baxter Theatre Centre. “Lara had recommended that we as students nearing graduation start a collective consisting of artists, and that we create work together”, says Sihle. This provocation gave birth to Age of the Artist, a collective which was co-founded by Sihle, alongside Tankiso Mamabolo, Ameera Conrad, Cleo Raatus, Thando Mangcu, Sizwesandile Mnisi and others. Sihle describes the collective as “a movement of free-thinkers in multidisciplinary fields committed to creating accessible art and self-sufficiency”.

The creation of work that led to greater opportunities

Co-founders of Age of the Artist, alongside Sihle of course, went on to devise a legendary piece of theatre that commented on the pain that black students at UCT had felt during the fallist movements. The Fall, a docudrama, through a process of catharsis, reflects on plenaries held by students in which they mobilised for the removal of the iconic Cecil John Rhodes statue at the university’s Upper Campus. It doesn’t stop there. The Fall also reflects on the successive student movement, Fees Must Fall, and arising issues that emerged as conflict among students in these movements: the need for Afrocentrism; transphobia; patriarchy; rape culture, and issues relating to classism at the university.

“When we initially started devising, we had some unaired tensions with the white cohort of the graduating class, that didn’t understand the movement, and our aim was to get them to understand what the movement was about.”, says Sihle. The Fall served as a healing process to those members of the collective who created the work, as they were ‘forced’ to engage in constructing a timeline of student protest events as they happened. They also had to create dreamscapes: reflect through poetry, dance, and the recreation/re-enactment of scenarios that emerged at student plenary meetings, and bring to life actual characters that were present in these spaces. “This play was about emancipating ourselves as black people”, says Sihle.

Needless to say, The Fall found immediate favour amongst the students, as it was the first time that an artwork was created that had the potential to broadcast the pain that students were feeling to the rest of the world. This indeed happened as the play has toured to Europe and North America – the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland; St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York; and Studio Theatre, London. The play obtained accolades such as The Stage Edinburgh Cast award, Fleur Du Cap Encore award, and The Scotsman Fringe First award.

“I am something beyond The Fall”

Given that Sihle has toured the world by virtue of The Fall, it may create the impression that he has had an easy career. That is not the case. “People view me in a certain light. They think that things came easy after The Fall. That didn’t happen at all”, says Sihle. Having your fingers in multiple industry pies is a crucial step to discovering opportunities in the industry.

Sihle is also a firm lover of performing for younger children. “I started working with young kinds, because in performing for them, you can literally see their imagination expanding. They allow you to be dumb. They allow me to step out of myself and just play”, says Sihle.

Sihle described that student activism was a catalyst for the start of his professional career, but adds that he had a strong identity before The Fall, and that he has a strong identity even after the production makes its final bow. I am something beyond The Fall”, says Sihle.

When asked about his plans for the future, Sihle let out an optimistic sigh and expressed views on the potential of African stories. “We are considered to come from a dark continent, and I feel that our stories casts a light on our futures. I have so much to contribute towards positioning our stories at the forefront, and to shift the gaze from the West to Africa”, says Sihle.

From the initial point of contact with Sihle, to the moment we concluded our engagement, a sense of strong passion for what he does was radiated through his words, his facial expressions and the sparkle in his eyes evident in every explanation. If you want to see Sihle in action, he is currently performing in The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? which runs at the Baxter Theatre Centre until 18 May 2019.

Here are some key moments from our interview, captured in a short audio feature.