This award celebrates the achievements of this remarkable group that has used movement and non-narrative dance to show that disabled performers are hardly bound by physical restraint when it comes to creative expression.
Remix is a Cape Town-based integrated theatre company that works in the arts and education fields. By integrated theatre, it is meant that the company ‘integrates†disabled people with non-disabled people both onstage and off. Remix aims to make fresh and outstanding theatre, and to introduce audiences to the presence of disabled people as full participants in the cultural life of South Africa.
Remix is fuelled by the desire to see not only the development and eventual support of a community of integrated theatre practitioners in South Africa, but also the emergence of an integrated audience in accessible theatre complexes. Through its work, Remix seeks to evolve the public perception of the disabled body and the notion of a ‘perfect†performing body in South African theatre.
The company offers residency programmes, workshops, performances and weekly classes to schools, learning institutions, arts festivals, special schools and the public. It has the long-term goal of establishing the country’s first accessible integrated arts training centre, based in Cape Town.
It is currently leading education programmes at Dominican School for Deaf Children as well as offering weekly integrated classes to the public.
Remix Theatre Company recently performed at the Dance Indaba and in the New Africa Theatre Association production Leopard in My Suitcase. Company member Malcolm Black recently became the first disabled person to be nominated for an FNB Vita Award for the category of Most Promising Performance by a Male Dancer, in the Cape region, for the year 2001 to 2002.