In Other Words
Read more of Matthys’s published work here.
“‘Identities informed by dissolved [racial, cultural and artistic] histories often disrupt the direct connections to ancestral wisdoms and affect one’s lived experience of identity. Through an auto-ethnographic lens, this study proposed the term My Coloured, by investigating the South African, Coloured, female identifying body’s ability to connect to the past through hybridised somatic practices. The study, informed by spiritual and artistic practice, includes a compassionate yet rigorous studio practice encompassing somatic pelvis explorations, as a site that holds ancestral wisdoms, intuition and identity, as well as original adaptations of the Nama Stap Dance. The Nama people are the descents of the Khoisan of Southern Africa and this dance, part of the researcher’s known DNA lineage finds its origins in the Nama rite of passage ritual. The study sought to observe how one may connect to a sense of ancestral wisdom through acquired practices such as movement and spirituality, as well as an intuitive, idiosyncratic and eclectic approach to cultural practices that are part of one’s lineage, regardless of not having direct experience of them. Though the context of this research has been specific to the Coloured identifying female body, this developing practice aims to offer all individuals an opportunity to delve deeper into their nuanced ways of connecting to ancestry through the body. Thus it encourages alternative routes for exploring our ever-changing identities and an affirmation and validation within the self.’ ”
“When I think of improvisation, I can’t imagine a world where disciplines don’t meet. In my opinion, improvisation creates a free playing field for us as performers to tap into multiple aspects of practice – and perhaps even an opportunity to tap into parts of our embodiment and psyche that we may have never considered. ”
Francesca’s full-length play ‘The Collector’, developed through the UJ Playwriting lab, was published in 2023 in New UJ Plays 1, an anthology of new South African plays.