Maternal ancestors: women’s collective gives life to Cape’s early years
It all started when two women came together over a cup of chai in a Mumbai kitchen in 1999. The result was the launch of an organisation, The Mothertongue Project, and a magnificent play, Womb of Fire. The recent Stellenbosch Woordfees awarded the play best actor (Rehane Abrahams), best director (Sara Matchett) and best play. The play came to life when Abrahams persuaded Matchett, a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies, to direct the piece she was writing. Back in SA a few years later — Abrahams was living in Indonesia — after a rewarding run of What the Water Gave Me in Cape Town, they had a choice: to continue and build their organisation or abandon it. "Rehane and I chose to build The Mothertongue Project. The need for a women’s arts collective, one that focused on women creating and performing theatre inspired by women’s personal stories, became apparent in terms of the role it would play in redressing gender imbalanc...
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