Dr Makgathi Mokwena

Programmes Director
Makgathi Mokwena is a qualified dance/movement therapist with an Honours Degree in Speech and Drama from Rhodes; a Masters in Dance Movement Therapy from Antioch University (USA, courtesy of a Fullbright Scholarship) and a Doctorate in Psychology from the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU). She is a registered therapist with the Health Professional Board of South Africa and is a published author in the fields of psychology and spirituality. Her passion lies in facilitating healing and transformational processes with individuals and groups. Her interests include issues related to gender, spirituality, race and the arts. She has been involved in conducting workshops in change management, equity and transformation, conflict resolution, teambuilding, expressive arts therapies and vegetable gardening. She has recently re-opened the door to dancing and performing and expressing herself in many colourful ways. She has just performed Washa Mollo at Out the Box Festival in Cape Town and is looking forward to performing at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

Sara Matchett
Co-founder & Artistic Director
Sara has experience in the field of theatre in South Africa, Singapore, India, Kenya and Bali as a facilitator, theatre-maker, director and performer.  She has been responsible for co-creating and directing all of Mothertongue’s productions to date. Sara holds an MA in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town. In addition to her work with Mothertongue, she has lectured in the Division of Dramatic Art at the Wits School of Arts (University of Witwatersrand) and currently lectures at the University of Cape Town. Her teaching profile centres around acting, voice, theatre-making and applied drama/theatre. She is especially interested in interdisciplinary modes of theatre-making, focusing on women's theatre in Africa with reference to cross-community professional theatre as a means of facilitating conversations across differences.  Her area of research involves exploring the role of the performer as contemporary Shaman with particular reference to honouring the feminine within Shamanism through performance.

Rehane Abrahams

Co-founder and Director-at-Large (Indonesia)
Rehane is a theatremaker with 20 years professional experience in theatre. She has worked in South Africa, England, America and Indonesia with diverse theatre companies in diverse styles ranging from Butoh to Grande Guignol, and is an award-winning actor on both stage and film.  She is now engaged in creating a fresh phase of performance explorations under the title “A New Geography of the Heart”. She recently directed an intercultural site specific adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the 2009 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, Indonesia with her theatre company, fireFLY. Based in Ubud, Bali, she continues training and researching performance with her company.

Jill Levenberg
Project Manager
Jill graduated from the University of Cape Town in 2004 with a BA Honours in Theatre and Performance and was nominated twice for the Fleur Du Cap Most Promising Student award. Highlights include her role as Medea directed by Brett Bailey and Lara Bye, Onnest’bo with Magnet Theatre, Breathing Space and We Dream Therefore We Are with The Mothertongue Project as facilitator and performer, Met Woorde soos met Kerse, directed by Sandra Temmingh, a collaboration with Sara Matchett and Ndoni Khanyile to form the poetry and music group Nia which toured to Switzerland and I Virgin Boy, directed by Peter Krummeck.  In 2007 she taught at a High School in South Korea. Her most recent performance was a singing collaboration with the Osan Pop Orchestra in Osan Theatre, South Korea. She has lived in and travelled through parts of Europe, the United States and Asia. In Munich Germany, she collaborated with Electric Sheep (Jan Bruhnke) as ‘Sandcake’ to release an EP called Grey Grass Adventure on the electronic music scene and wrote music and performed with Oliver Boeg in the band Cinnamon.