Lindiwe matshikiza biography for kids

Lindiwe Matshikiza talks FOUR CORNERS, living in both South Africa and London and why she picks the jobs she does.

Q: Lindiwe, tell me about your character.

A: Leila Domingo is a young doctor, newly degreed doctor, I think, who has to come back to sort out the affairs of her recently late father in Cape Town. She’s coming back from London, where she’s established herself and her life, and never imagined she’d need to come back, but, of course, death has a way of spoiling your plans in life, and she’s forced to come back and deal with this world that she grew up in, the people that were part of that world and the memories and, of course, the trauma of her father’s passing.

Q: She’s also got a connection to the Farakhan character.

A: Yes. That’s one of the people in her world. A childhood friend.

Q: And possibly more?

A: Yes. It’s possible. I think that’s kind of hinted at, but, yes, they’re childhood friends, and they both went on very, very different paths and they re-encounter each other when Leila comes back to the area and he’s just come out of prison and I guess they’re trying to negotiate what their relationship could be now, after all that’s happened, and all the time that’s passed and who they’ve become as people.

Q: Your character is a doctor. Tell me about working in the hospital in the film, especially your opening scene with the gunshot victim in the hospital.

A: And I slice him open. I did that, I literally sliced him open, obviously it wasn’t him, thanks goodness, otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. What a different tale we’d be telling right now. No, I’m obviously not a doctor, I’m an actor, but I became an actor because, and it’s something that I read in Robert De Niro’s biography, ‘You can be anything you want to be when you’re an actor&rsqu

The Gallow Gate welcomes Lindiwe Matshikiza and João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga in residence this month. The artists have been invited to take this time to experiment and to play, sharing a work in progress, open for reflections, rather than ‘finished’ work.

Lindiwe and João are frequent collaborators and contribute to each other’s work in a multitude of ways, both visibly and behind the scenes. Together they form two thirds of Mother Box, a non-profit, artist-led organisation studying self-determined artistic research and processes with the aim of articulating them in a language that embodies the processes themselves.

I don’t know what form it’s going to take. Being in the dark is a question of inside and outside feeling.
It’s in me…that…something is happening.
I’m….I’m….I….I’m…..Me….I’m not….me

Let’s begin

Ritual Being is a new work being developed by sound artist, musician and composer, João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga and writer-director, Lindiwe Matshikiza. Seeking to make a new, more portable collaborative work together, the two artists have been developing the story of a character attempting to speak from a space between life and death, wake and dream, with an urgent message to deliver. Inspired by a range of African and South American myths, histories and codes, this inter-dimensional character’s communications are translated between sound, ritual and story.

The piece combines the abilities and individual processes of Lindiwe and João, resulting in sound compositions, texts and performative elements devised in response to one another. Members of the public are invited to experience this work-in-progress as a live performance by the two artists, who will be conducting their early explorations during a two-week residency at The Gallow Gate in Glasgow.

Lindiwe Matshikiza is a Johannesburg-based artist with a background in theatre-making. She works as a writer, performer, director and voice artist in a variety o

By Buhle Andisiwe Made

DocLove and the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association are back again in Makhanda, and on 28 July screened the documentary film, One Take Grace by Lindiwe Matshikiza. Matshikiza, a former Rhodes University Drama student and a member of the Matshikiza family of writing and creative art luminaries, is now a filmmaker and creative.

She chose the Rhodes University Theatre for the screening as it was the place where she developed her process-based creative practice. One Take Grace has stacked up international accolades since its release, including Winner of the Best International Feature in the 2022 Montreal International Documentary Festival, Winner of Best Feature Documentary in the Blackstar Film Festival, and Winner of the Envision Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2022 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). It has been nominated for several other awards.

Developed over a decade, the film follows the life of Mothiba Grace Bapela as both a domestic worker and fellow actress. Bapela and Matshikiza met in Johannesburg during a production that featured both women. In getting to know one another, Matshikiza was made aware that Bapela was in fact, also a domestic worker. Matshikiza said, “I looked at this person who wanted to escape this life”. Interested in Bapela’s perspective and experience, Matshikiza documented Bapela’s life from 2011.

Bapela narrates her story in Sepedi and travels with the audience through her timeline as a young girl into her womanhood – jumping in between past and present times. Her life of servitude began in the 1980s at the age of 14, when she left her home in Ga Mothapo, Limpopo to find work on a farm in Johannesburg. Over the next three decades, Bapela worked as a domestic worker and nanny, caring for families in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and the USA, whilst being a mother and grandmother to her own children.

In the early 2000s, on the hunt for better financia

South African actor (1954-2008)

John Matshikiza (26 November 1954 - 15 September 2008) was a South African actor, director of theatre, poet and journalist.

Life and works

John Matshikiza was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to Todd Matshikiza – jazzpianist, composer and journalist – and Esme Matshikiza. Due to apartheid, the Matshikiza family went into exile in London in 1961. John was only seven at the time he boarded the ship for London. Later the family moved to Lusaka, Zambia, where John completed his schooling and took a degree in economics and politics. He returned to London to the Central School of Speech and Drama to train in drama. While in the United Kingdom, he worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Glasgow's Citizens Theatre company and also worked in television and film. He became active in the exiled African National Congress, joining Mayibuye, the Cultural Unit of the ANC (he can be heard performing on their album 'Spear of the Nation', a collection of poems and songs in Xhosa, Sotho, Zulu, and English). John also lived in the United States, Netherlands and various African countries including Senegal, where he was director of the department of culture of the Gorée Institute. While in exile John had two books published: South Where Her Feet Cool on Ice (1981) and Prophets in the Black Sky (1986). In 1989, he wrote lyrics for the Grand Union Orchestra's world jazz album, Freedom Calls.

When the African National Congress was unbanned in South Africa in 1991, John returned there and directed plays at the Market and Windybrow theatres, wrote and directed documentaries and dramas for television and appeared in various films.

Among others, he was seen in Hijack Stories, Leon Schuster's There's a Zulu On My Stoep, Cry Freedom and 1987's Mandela, in which he played the role of Walter Sisulu. One of John's last acting roles was the villain in the third series of the television seri