Creative Writing: Call for Submissions – CHANGE – aAh! Magazine
In each print issue, aAh! Magazine interrogates one word which runs as a theme throughout our published submissions. The theme of our next issue is CHANGE.
Featured image: Graham Clayton-Chanceзаймы онлайн на карту наличное
as british as a watermelon follows mandla on a dreamlike journey through their selective memory as they piece together a life of trauma and rebirth.
mandla rae is a queer Zimbabwean writer, performer and curator. They are agender and their pronouns are they/them. Their work typically explores their intersectional existence and their response to the world around them.
Contact, Manchester held the series of performances as a live world premiere in collaboration with Black Gold Arts Festival.
The play’s stylistic choices are triumphant in their simplicity. mandla was decked out in colourful matching watermelon patterned shorts and top. Two glowing doorways on either side of a square shaped performance space framed a single table and around a dozen watermelons were scattered across the floor.
Throughout the performance mandla cathartically decimates the watermelons, stabbing them with screwdrivers and hammers, scooping out the insides and creating something new, as they retell their story of “rising from the dead”.
mandla’s sweet demeanour contrasts with the weight of the play’s themes and creates a darkly comic tone to the performance. Using their calming and contemplative voice, mandla muses on religion and the motives of God if one existed and recounts fragmented memories of asylum and migration.
mandla held the attention of the audience with ease which is a testament to both the delivery of the performance and their writing and artistic choices. Alumni of popular spoken word collective Young Identity, with as british as a watermelon, mandla has graduated into a world class performance artist.
About the author /
aAh!
More News Stories:
-
17th January 2022 -
17th January 2022 Print Call for Submissions – The CHANGE Issue
In each print issue, aAh! Magazine interrogates one word which runs as a theme throughout our published submissions. The theme of our next issue is CHANGE, and we want you to be involved!
-
14th January 2022 The Wombats’ Dan Haggis: “We’re on several of Mick Jagger’s Spotify playlists”
Featured Image: Press Contrary to what you may think because of their name, The Wombats don’t actually originate from Australia. But needing a title to put on a poster of their first Liverpool gig, they chose their name after calling each other ‘Wombo’ and ‘Stupid Wombat’. They’ve come a long way since covering the Postman Pat theme…
-
12th January 2022 Pens at the ready as Manchester Writing Competition returns – new judges reveal what makes a winning entry
International £10,000 Poetry and Fiction Prizes are open until 5pm on 28th January 2022
Leave a reply