Kebiditswe takes Motlhala play to Chile
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Friday October 5, 2018 14:48
Her original dramatic play, Motlhala, was selected by 25 jurors from across the world, and was sequentially chosen for a dramatic reading at this prestigious conference, which is held every three years in different continents.
Kebiditswe is no stranger to this forum as she attended the 10th WPIC in Cape Town-South Africa in 2015, as a delegate. After being selected as an official playwright for the 2015 African Youth Festival by ASSITEJ South Africa, organisers invited her to partake at the conference to benchmark with other playwrights from across the world. Upon returning home, Kebiditswe began working on Motlhala, which she completed in 2017. Upon receiving confirmation that the text was selected for the upcoming conference, Kebiditswe showcased a staged performance of the play at the 2018 Maitisong Festival in Gaborone recently.
“The funding for the trip is sponsored by a Norwegian grant, which will also cover translation fees for the text to be published in Spanish. WPIC is a nonprofit, non-governmental organisation dedicated to facilitating communications, meetings, exchanges and activities in the international community of women in theatre.”
The first WPIC was held in 1988, in Buffalo, New York. In the years that followed, the conference was held in different countries such as Canada, Greece, Australia and Ireland. WPIC was officially founded in 2000 and since then, a series of conferences were held in the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Sweden and South Africa.
“I feel honoured to have been chosen to partake in this auspicious event where I will be amongst some of the intelligent scriptwriters from different walks of the continent,” she said proudly.
Motlhala is a full-length stage play and an original African story that explores self-discovery, love and tragedy. It is set in the fictional village of Maru-Maru in the outskirts of Zimbabwe, where the norm is broken and tradition is compromised. The quest for greener pastures by the main character, Tendai yields more setbacks than breakthroughs. He thought escaping to Botswana would solve his problems, but he was wrong.
It is a story for anyone who wants to be transported between the conflict of possibilities and consequences. Kebiditswe is a trained and experienced performing arts specialist with a background in fine arts, theatre, writing, directing, creative community projects and facilitating creative workshops. She is the founder of the Artistic Training Programme, a former CIPA Grant recipient, published playwright (Domino, 2018) and youth mentor.
She is currently undertaking further training in Motion Picture (producing) in order to turbo-charge her stance in the film industry, and add it to her growing brand as a performing arts specialist.
Kebiditswe can be found on Instagram @neolongdreads or on her public Facebook page Neo Kebiditswe.