Mohalenyane Phakela
MASERU — Alliance Française (AF) network in Southern Africa in collaboration with the French Institute in South Africa will stage a play at Machabeng College on Tuesday.
The drama, dubbed Ster City, is an artistic collaboration between French director and actor Jean Paul Delore, a French musician and two South African actors.
The French institute in SA made the creation of the play possible through its several inventive tours around SA and Lesotho.
“The play is an artistic performance which will not only give the audience an opportunity of learning about history, but also a stage performance by international actors, which makes it a rare privilege to Basotho as there is no local theatre,” Camille Perdereau — Director of the Alliance Française de Maseru told Xpress People on Tuesday.
“Alliance Française is part of the French family that is dedicated to promoting the language and its cultures, through the support of the ministry of foreign affairs in France.
“It plays host to artistes from different genres who normally go on tour in southern African countries (including Lesotho).
“We decided to host Ster City because it shows the joyous version of SA history in a form of music and dance, which is something not that foreign to Basotho. Its portrait focus of this play is under the contemporary influence of a country, which today, plays with landmarks and unclear margins between tradition and modernity,” cited Perdereau.
Ster City has many fictitious characters; it’s not only about the prehistoric women and their chiefs, Dutch settlers’ daughters and political icons, the fact that whilst the play is in several languages (English, French, Zulu and Xhosa), there will be simultaneous translation by the actors to make it more interesting.
“We have had more than six concerts since the beginning of this year, after taking a break in winter.
“It will only be fit that we don’t lose our trend by ending the year as we started.
We will have our usual Thursday night cinema outside Ouh la la Café on a big screen — a weekly occasion whereby people meet for the first time and create new networks”, Perdereau said.
She also said that AF wishes to see more locally produced plays that people can have access to, and that the Ministry of Tourism and Culture can become an active partner in other upcoming projects of this nature as they promote arts in Lesotho.
On the 15th of next month AF will host an Afro Malian (Mali France) band Kouyate — Neerman at a dinner concert to be held at Maseru Sun Cabanas and another concert is scheduled for November.
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