DJ Trava

Posts Tagged ‘apartheid government’

One of the great and recently established cultural and artistic attractions in Cape Town is the Fugard Theatre , which just opened its doors in February of this year. On February 12th of this year the company was officially opened and the event was celebrated not only by the theatre community but by a large portion of the city’s population, which is incredibly supportive of the arts. And there is great reason to celebrate the arrival of this new company. Many of the guests in the Cape Town hotels are curious about what all they should seek out while they are there, and some of the great theatre productions that exist in the city are always some of the top recommendations.

The theatre exists in District Six and this is significant not only for a geographic placement designation but also symbolically. Beginning in the middle of the 1800s the area was one of the most diverse and populated regions in the city. However, the apartheid government declared it was for whites only in 1966. Sixty thousand people were forcibly moved from the district and the homes that remained were bulldozed to the ground. And all these years later, the district continues to suffer from the evacuation and remains vacant to a large degree. Institutions like the Fugard Theatre, which is named after South African playwright Athol Fugard, are part of a major effort at revitalization and honoring of the city’s great history. Fugard was a major advocate for equality and much of his work dealt with issues of racism, segregation and oppression. He is almost unanimously recognized as the most important theatre practitioner to come from the country.