‘Just Here’ is a unique piece of puppetry theatre about a little someone called Kodu, who finds herself in an unfamiliar place, far from home and from the people she knows unable to leave her bed, but with a little magic and the power of her own imagination, goes on an enchanting adventure. It is created for 1-3 year olds, and meets this special audience eye-to-eye, mind-to-mind.
This is the latest offering from Pillow Fort Theatre Productions, the company behind the highly acclaimed ‘Patchwork’, which won ‘Best International Performance’ at the 2015 Festival of Theatre for Children and Youth in Iran. Just Here has toured successfully to Reunion Island, Italy, Germany and Hungary, while Pillow Fort Theatre’s other productions have toured to Italy and Reunion Island.
‘Just Here’ is directed by Handspring puppeteer Gabriel Marchand, featuring Asanda Rilityana and Roshina Ratnam, with handmade instruments and original music by Pedro Espi-Sanchis (Pedro the Music Man).
Pillow Fort Theatre will tour to creches in the mornings and will be offering workshops for theatre professionals, students and anyone else interested in creating this type of theatre.
The workshops will take place at the UJ Arts Centre on Tuesday 25th September 14:00-17:00, Thursday 27th 14:00- 17:00 and the whole day on Saturday 09:00-15:00.
Bookings for the three workshops is through the UJ Arts & Culture website and costs R 150 for ASSITEJ SA members and R 300 for non-members.
For a trailer of the production, go to http://www.designindaba.com/videos/interviews/making-theatre-specifically-kids-below-age-2
‘Just Here’ was created with the support of ASSITEJ SA and the South African National Arts Council and has previously toured to creches in Limpopo, the North West and the Northern Cape with support from ASSITEJ SA, where successful workshops with artists led to the development of new productions. ASSITEJ SA hopes that the works inspired by these workshops will get their first outing at the ASSITEJ SA / UJ Family Theatre Festival to be held at UJ from 26 November – 9 December 2018. The best works may be invited to participate in some way in ASSITEJ SA’s international theatre for young audiences festival, Cradle of Creativity, to be held from 20-25 August 2019 in Cape Town at the Baxter Theatre.