Self Start, South Africa

Self-Start is a program designed by Liz Bradley, sponsored by The Market Theatre and Think Theatre and collaboratively taught by people from a variety of disciplines.  The program also had significant input from South African artists, such as John Kani. Self Start is designed for the disadvantaged artist/entrepreneur who needs to develop a process for realizing their ideas, by branding themselves, creating business plans and raising awareness and resources for their projects.  Last summer we were privileged to take the program to South Africa. What follows is part of a recent email from one of our program sponsors in South Africa, Clara Vaughn, the Education Officer at the Market Theatre Lab:  “I was inspired to write today because I was just talking to Mli (one of the second years you taught), and he was on his way to pick up a tax clearance certificate - when I asked him what for, he said, "Clara! You remember what I said I was going to do in the self-start?" So he's registered a company, he's gotten someone to lend him some office space, he's been in meetings with a museum about a site-specific work...Nunu also called because she's preparing her school and wanted to ask me about issues of accreditation,Butshilo passed by my office on the way to New York...basically, I often briefly encounter the people who attended as they go about fulfilling the visions they came to the course with, and I'm struck by how they're really doing it - and that, I think, is the best measure for how impactful it was!“ 
Click image above to see a sample presentation from the class, designed by Anne Mundell