Mthuthuzeli ‘Blaze’ Zimba is an Actor, writer, director, academic researcher, art teacher, and interdisciplinary artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. Zimba believes in creating performances of transgression and disruption as a way of creating dialogue to confront and address unresolved socio-political issues that plague contemporary South Africa. Holding a Master’s Degree in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town, his powerful, socially urgent work also includes works that critically interrogate Black masculinity, Marginalization, space, and surveillance. Having trained as a theatre maker, Zimba has written, directed, and produced several theatre plays and also curated thought-provoking live art projects, showing at various internationally acclaimed performance festivals in Cape Town, South Africa. Zimba’s work attempts to reimagine Black marginalised people out of the bondages of destitution.
Synopsis
WHEN A BLACK MAN MOURNS / UKUZILA KWE NDODA is a performance art exploration by a black man in grief, that reflects on a form of mourning loss, driven by song, dance and spoken text. This performance is an attempt to create space for black men in grief to explore vulnerability through mourning loss. In the contemporary world, spaces for black male vulnerability rarely exist, which then leaves black men with unchecked past traumas. This performance becomes a critical inquiry into the hegemonies of black masculinities.