Tshwane University of Technology
Dr Karina Lemmer
Motshidisi Manyeneng
Dr Nicola Haskins
Tumisho Mahlase
Alastair Pringle
Gend(h)er
Hudhayari (2021) describes the significance of violent language in GBV. This applies particularly to utterances through which LGBTQ+ individuals are attacked, harassed and excluded. This is represented in the lexicon of every community and is highly prevalent in student communities.
In this multimedia performance collaboration we employ artivism to explore and problematise this important, yet often neglected element of Gender Based Violence. It is a continuation of the work we initiated in 2023 that explores words as acts of Gender Based Violence and positions the body as a vehicle of agency and resistance beyond the binary.
The performance sees a collaboration between Dr Karina Lemmer – Directing, Dr Nicola Haskins – Choreography, Mr Motshidisi Manyeneng – Costume Design, Mr Alastair Pringle – Make up Design and Mr Tumisho Mahlase – Cinematography. We combine our various disciplines and related research to this collaboration which will premiere at the Symposium.
Tumisho Mahlase
Tumisho Mahlase is a cinematography lecturer for the film programme at the Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa.
He holds an MTech in Motion Picture Production from the same institution. Tumisho serves on South Africa's Department of Higher Education and Training panel to evaluate creative artistic outputs. Tumisho also served on the National Film and Video Foundation panel for the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme.
BIOGRAPHIES
Dr Karina Lemmer
Dr Karina Lemmer holds a PhD, which examines multilingual embodied acting in the South African context. This was the outcome of various creative projects that explored multilingual acting and that has culminated in publications in national and international journals.
She is a senior lecturer at the TUT Department of Performing Arts where she specializes in acting and voice. Karina is a certified Lessac body-voice and Meisner facilitator who has coached several stage productions and films. She is also a Naledi nominated director who has adapted and directed several classical texts and has also created original multilingual South African Theatre. Karina is the co-founder of the Creative Research Lab and co-leader of the Research Niche Area for Artivism against GBV.
Dr Nicola Haskins
Dr Nicola Haskins is an award-winning embodied researcher, choreographer, educator, and dancer with over 23 years of national and international experience.
Her work is rooted in arts for social impact, focusing on how embodied practices and performance can foster dialogue and bring awareness to critical social issues. As a full-time lecturer at the Tshwane University of Technology in the Faculty of Arts & Design, Performing Arts: Dance Stream, she actively integrates artivism into both her teaching and creative outputs.
Nicola is the co-leader of the Research Niche Area: Artivism as a Tool to Combat Gender-Based Violence (GBV), further demonstrating her leadership in using the arts to address social justice concerns. She creates and facilitates performance-based interventions that address GBV and promote embodied ecological consciousness.
Notable milestones include her Naledi Award nomination for Best Choreography for Rapture at the 2024 Kucheza Festival, three Standard Bank Ovation Awards and a Gold Ovation Award for The Anatomy of Weather, and a long international tour with Dada Masilo’s Swan Lake. She is a Certified Movement Analyst through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York, Nicola is also a published academic.
Motshidisi Manyeneng
Motshidisi Manyeneng currently lectures Costume theory and practice at the Tshwane University of Technology. His research work focusses mainly on African traditional performance costume.
Motshidisi holds a Masters’ degree in Performing Arts Technology, specialising in Costume and construction from Tshwane University of Technology and is currently enrolled for his Doctoral Degree in Performing Arts at the same institution.
With a very widespread industry costuming experience and two Naledi Award Best costume designer nominations under his name, Motshidisi is a creative costume designer with an extensive experience in designing, developing and managing costumes for world-famous plays and musicals.
His work as a costumer includes some of the world’s leading theatre shows such as Disney’s Lion King (RSA & Taiwan), Beauty and the beast (RSA), A new song, Lion and the jewel, Kwezi and Tsogo.
Alastair Pringle
Alastair Pringe has taught Make-up at Tshwane University of Technology for over thirteen years. In reading for his National Diploma from Technikon Pretoria, he specialised in costume and make-up and received an award for best student in make-up in 1997.
He currently holds a M Tech in Performing Arts Technology (cum laude) from TUT. His dissertation was titled Investigating Illusory Makeup Techniques for Performing Artists with Dark Skin Tone. He has gained extensive experience working on live opera and musical productions and has worked in the performing arts both locally and abroad.
Highlights include working as a costume technician and make-up artist on Disney's production of The Lion King staged at the Teatro at Montecasino, Johannesburg in 2007 and in Taipei, Taiwan the following year; a hair stylist on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, staged in Johannesburg and Cape Town in 2009; hair supervisor for the South African production of Jersey Boys on its local and international tour in 2012/2013, and as an extra's hair stylist for the film Long Walk to Freedom.
Most recently, he created wigs for Pieter Toerien’s production of Witness for the Prosecution and is active in the student productions within TUT’s Department of Performing Arts.