Alex Burger

For 5 weeks I have hosted a group of 10 writers at my house, teaching a Writing Master Class.  The class was mostly professionals in the industry, an amazing group – sometimes things just work.

Each week we’d read, theorize, do exercises, and discuss a new topic: Structure, Tension, Character, Language.  The class was so smart that we’d quickly jump to the next level of complexity:  Yes, we get 3 act structure, but how do African story forms pull against this? What are the alternatives to heavily Judeo-Christian moral resolutions?;  What ways can we break apart language, departing from a heavy tradition of naturalism in South African theatre, to speak about our fractured, post-apartheid lives?

Perhaps most striking from the group was that we created a community of writers/artists who share the similar values and now a common language. A diverse group: Nigerian, Zambian, British, Congolese, American, South African – yet connected by a desire for new and fresh art – to break out of our cages. We’ll keep meeting. Watch this space.

Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep and was reading about Charlie Hebdo and I posted an article on Facebook called “Everyone is talking about the French massacre, but 2,000 people just died in Nigeria.”  I almost stopped myself (in part because I have french friends grieving and marching) but I didn’t, I was angry, devastated, confused at the scale of tragedy around the world and the inordinate attention that 12 deaths in France are garnering.

In the morning a few more radical black friends had made comments (I almost expected this) but what I didn’t expect were friends commenting from Pakistan, India, Turkey, a white woman from South Africa, a few white friends from the USA.

You see I’ve been struggling this days – feel like I’m painted into a corner around race, mostly around pieces of work I’m writing.  I often divide the world into two parts – a group of more radical black people (in a few countries) whom I trust and converse with  – and the rest of the world.  I bump into race / racism all day long, watching its long fingers curl its way around the necks of friends, and I retreat in anger and incredulity.  But maybe allies, connections, comfort, resistance is in more places than I realize . . .

2014 was a hard year . . . . I left my job for the sake of art.  In 2014 I wrote everyday, learned a thing or two about the craft, wrote one piece I was happy with, threw aside tomes of other work as heartbreakingly mediocre.  In 2014 I saw a lot of bad theatre, mind-numbing television, and dull movies, but I did see a couple works of art that opened my heart and mind . . . .

Now as I enter 2015 I’m seriously wondering if art is enough. My year is all planned out: teaching writing at Wits and at the Market Lab, my play Two Women opening in July, new television, theatre, and film projects on the go.  But I’m  still not sure . . .  sometimes I think maybe I should do something more concrete like shoveling a ditch or closing down a prison or even opening a mine . . .

I spent the new years catching up with old friends in England – an odd mix of chatting, visiting restaurants and theatre, crawling around the floor with babies and frantic toddlers.  We spoke a lot about our lives, where we were going, the role of art.  Afterwards I got this not from a friend:

“For me art seems more important than ever, looking at how people can fragment away from humanity and be brutal, it seems we almost have a ‘duty’ to maintain the amazing achievement that civilization is. A person could be in the mud killing each other or they could sit in a beautiful ancient building listening to an orchestra play a subtle and intricate composition of feeling and implicit cooperation. More than ever, art seems to me very much what it means to be human and to live – both for ourselves now and for future generations.”

I love the sentiment of the quote – art is what teaches us to be human.  Although as I read her note over and over I realize part of why I feel far away (from my former self) and perhaps a little despondent.  I’m not looking for art anymore in European buildings or orchestral concerts – I’m looking now instead in the textures of life in South Africa where I live.  I’m looking for transformation in what Fugard describes as the toilet water English of his Afrikaans mother.  Or I’m seeking hope in South African pre-colonial theatre traditions like the performance of a Pedi wedding negotiation with its speeches, praise poetry and dance.  Or I listen intently to the ways in which stories get mulled and churned and structured at taxi ranks waiting for the buses in Joburg- I want to know what instruction this language and these stories can tell us about how to live. This is where I seek my art these days.

So here’s my plan and this is where I’m looking for meaning in art in 2015. It feels like a difficult and sometimes fools errant task, but we’ll see what I find  . . .