Mak Manaka, an award-winning poet and author, will collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Jiyane and the Alexander Choir to present a live lyrical and sonic expression of love, poetry, and music to Joburg audiences. Played on Joburg Theatre’s Lesedi stage, Manaka and Jiyane’s poetry and musical showcase – dubbed Homeless@Home – is scheduled for Thursday, 20 October.
Homeless@Home aims to spark intergenerational conversations about social cohesion, disability, depression, violence, unemployment, inequality, and corruption.
Manaka has always had a deep desire to reflect on his personal journey on stage, in which he explains his wrestling with physical disability and attempting to be at home with his body and passion, and the Joburg Theatre is facilitating this poetic expression.
In Homeless@Home, Manaka has one objective: to unpack the different layers and facets of the meaning of “home” and “homelessness,” probing if “we are at home in our skins, bodies, and languages”?
He wonders if home is where one belongs, what is home when living in a country that belongs to everyone but itself? as well as addressing the uncomfortable issues surrounding one’s own body, skin, and language as a major cause of homelessness.
“Homeless@Home is an attempt to articulate what it means to be at home in your body, your skin, and your language. If a home is a place where one belongs, then are we at home with ourselves? Right now, we have a management crisis, but the main crisis is how we relate to each other as Africans and humans,” he explains.
He says he wants to inspire self-determination and encourage young people to remember the past, look past the unjust violence and continue the relentless determination to achieve the impossible.
Manaka and a sign-language interpreter will also dance a poem together on the centre stage.
For one night only, Manaka performs Homeless@Home on Thursday, 20 October at Joburg Theatre’s Lesedi stage. Entrance is free at the door. Telephone Hloni on 081 573 2582 to book your seat.
Written by Bongiwe Radebe
07/10/2022