Mkhululi Mabija and Paul Castles as a librettist-compose team working on two companion pieces of alternative music theatre.
The road between the desert and the ocean explores what it is to have lived through the great changes of the 20th-21st centuries, forgotten tragedies and triumphs, and loss of knowledge. Its protagonists are two elderly women who find themselves in a purgatory-like version of the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, accompanied by the goddess of death.
The call is an examination of homosexuality in Africa. It is centred on two men of different ages who meet one night on the docks of Cape Town.
Mabija and Castles are seeking to link the ethereal and the political through research into the of the Skeleton Coast, the Namibian genocide, and the history of homosexuality in South Africa, which will directly inform their creative work. They will also conduct research and experimentation into evolving practices in how music theatre is created outside of traditional pathways of development. They are especially interested in cross-media storytelling the increasingly interconnectedness between digital and live forms. They will also research historical forms of interconnectedness, all of which will directly inform how The road between and The call are created and produced.
