Refiloe Lepere
Playwright | Director |Theatremaker
Woundscapes
Woundscapes - Wound as Portal” is a multidisciplinary performance art production created by Refiloe Lepere and Mxolisi Masilela that combines storytelling, and visual art to delve into the profound concept of wounds and trauma. It examines how wounds, whether physical or emotional, can act as portals to transformation and growth, as well as archives of our personal and collective histories.Woundscapes is an immersive art experience that combines various artistic elements, including a postcard exhibition, live-art performances, and facilitated public conversations. The project delves into the concept of cultural fragmentation, which often finds its roots in historical trauma. Through artistic expression, it seeks to determine if these fragments can be respectfully acknowledged and reassembled into new opportunities for connection. The play and mini-exhibition will feature original content that encourages dialogue, introspection, and a deeper understanding of the human experience. Performances: Georgetown University, Washington DC
Recipes Remedies and Rumours
Created by: Refiloe Lepere and Itumeleng Moeketsi
Movement Director: Kenneth Mphahlele
Produced by: Antonio David Lyons
The play Recipes, Remedies and Rumors is a site of combat breathing. Using movement as an aesthetic choice in phrasing and wording. The play explores how we create recipes for living in order to navigate trauma stories.
Performances:
Part of the Mosaic Theatre Till Trilogy at the Mosaic Theatre, Washington, DC, USA
MLK Library, Washington, DC, USA
Studio Theatre, Georgetown University Theatre, Washington, DC, USA
“Women’s Liberation and Protest Through Transnational Musical Storytelling Conference at the Indaba Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa
The 1s and 2s Festival at TX Theatre, Tembisa, South Africa
Nexxus Collaboration, Ava Gallery Cape Town, South Africa
Mankokosane Playback Theatre
I am co-founder of Mankokosane Playback Theatre Company a creative enterprise that uses visio-embodiment practice to capture stories as a pretext for dialogue. Playback theatre invites participants on a narrative journey of sharing, listening, witnessing and reflecting. We deliver performance-led workshops that allow for the emergence of participants as empowered subjects despite structural limitations. We actively train participants in playback, and advocacy.
Postcards: Bodily Preserves
Postcards, looks at how our bodies remember traumatic events. The play is a deep, ritualistic turbulent exploration on how we store memories—we preserve records in our bodies because there is something in them that defies understanding but we want to grasp the conspicuous, and feverish. The focus is on the portrayal of power, how the choreography of the human body creates meanings – abstract or concrete. Drawing heavily from orality, storytelling, rituals, and celebrations, the performance examines how bodily behaviours are repeatable and embodied activities, and how these bodily encounters change due to context, space, gender or politics.
Performances:
Brecht Theatre, Tubingen University, Germany
MAFA Project Space, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
Louvre Theater (NYU), New York, United States of America
May 2019 – Wits Theatre, South Africa
Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
