The Kaza Kamba Pan African Theatre Festival returns to The Market from 20 – 23 August 2026 bringing a dynamic a range of Theatre, Music and Workshops.

Kaza Kamba Pan African Theatre Festival returns to the market from THURSDAY 20 to SUNDAY 23 AUGUST 2026. The partnership between mehlo-maya (eye-to-the-sun) and The Market Theatre is in its third year and is “arguably one of the most defining and deserving festivals of our time with a slant on Pan Africanism”, Daves Guzha well known Zimbabwean theatre producer.

The theme Memory Against Forgetting is based on the Milan Kundera quotation, “struggle of memory against forgetting” from novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, which balances the lightness of living without the weight of the past, which the weight and responsibility of remembering”. In South Africa this rings very sharply at present as we navigate a particularly difficult time in our history.

The dynamic Kaza Kamba Pan African Theatre Festival programme brings a range of Theatre, Music, Film, Workshops and a Colloquium, as well as tables of goodies to buy.

The festival is committed to bringing together the arts with political discourse.

iPhupho L’ka Biko main lines the festival is the very dynamic group bringing to live a brand-new multidisciplinary piece which revisits the Marikana massacre both in memory and mirror. Marikana Still…fontein is a lament for the fallen, for the living, a reflection on fractured solidarities and a call to reclaim a Pan-African imagination rooted in dignity, memory and collective liberation.

Sounding the South with Yonela Mnana, [piano], Lesego Rampolokeng [poetry] and Gontse Makhene [Percussion] an expressive artistic ensemble that fuses harmony, spoken word and ambient percussion. Spearheaded by the ever fearless and provocative poet and author, Lesego Rampolokeng. Sounding the South is not just a melting pot for piano, poetry and percussion, it is an estuary of communal thought and a confluence of critical, yet therapeutic reflection urgently needed in this country and beyond.

Theatre Productions include the ever-relevant play Skierlik based on a tragic South African event of 14 January 2008 that took place in the informal settlement, Skierlik. Thomas returns to the place where his wife and young daughter were killed in a racial motivated shooting, it is a story of love, loss, and hope, paints poetic pictures with words, written and performed by the skilful story telling Phillip Dikotla.

The Dying Need No Shoes joins us from the Kenyan International Theatre Festival, this thought-provoking play, written by Fred Mbogo, directed by Alacoque, and performed by Emmanuel Shikuku and Ann Keveli, reminds us that memory starts at home. Purity Munanda finds herself in a room with her father after years of silence and fear, all the buried trauma comes to the surface. What begins as a tense confrontation soon unfolds into a gripping battle of truth, power and survival as dark family secrets are exposed.

A Season of Hillbrow, a re-imagination of Arthur Rimbaud’s Season in Hell, is staged by the Windybrow Arts Centre. It asks what ‘hell’ might mean in the unfinished present of post-apartheid South Africa. A Season in Hillbrow brings the fire into post-apartheid Johannesburg, where young people from Hillbrow turn the city’s abandonment and reckless multilingual life into poetry, movement, voice and collective rebellion. The play is performed by the students of the Windybrow Arts Centre and directed by Sibahle Mangena and Gerard Bester.

Bioscope Beyond Borders traces our theme Memory Against Forgetting. It includes the classic revolutionary film, The Battle of Algiers (1966) as memory; Word Down the Line which see poet Lesego Rampolokeng goes down the line speaking to fellow poets about words and politics and the politics of

words; Rearview where Didier, an e-hailer driver just wants a quiet day on the streets of Johannesburg, far from his experience of a Kivu Massacre; and the most important film, Sudan…Remember Us (2024) with a discussion by the Sudan Solidarity South Africa members following the screening.

Bioscope Beyond Borders is introduced through an installation – a small cinema in the Lindelani Buthelezi Gallery with a range of South African films dedicated to migration and identity. People are invited to sit and watch the films in the Gallery. Bioscope Beyond Borders is a mobile film festival and will be taken to other cultural events in the country.

Kaza Kamba Workshops are key to the festival, where young and old, starting out and experienced practitioners share ideas. Five workshops covering voice, music, drumming, chanting, movement, languages, offered. Including a workshop for youth and children from as young as three years.

Book Launch Rising to Palestine: Africans in Solidarity for Decolonisation and Liberation, edited by Raouf Farrah and Suraya Dadoo with articles from African scholars connecting struggles from Gaza to Sudan, the DRC and Western Sahara.

Play Readings is our new Kaza Kamba development wing, sees Khutjo Green Maki Next Door, and Jonathan Maseng Sobukwe will be presented to an audience for comments and debate.

The Kaza Kamba Pavement Café will be open from Thursday to Saturday night, in The Market Theatre Precinct with music and an open mic and lots of lovely food and drink to purchase, as well as stalls with materials, clothing, earrings, and all manner of goodies.

In short, there is a lot to see!

All documentary films and workshops are FREE. Tickets for plays and music shows are available on Webtickets – https://www.webtickets.co.za/v2/event.aspx?itemid=1599414899.

Do not miss this vital festival – critical to our country today. It presents a weekend of live performances, film, workshops, and debate on Pan Africanism. Everyone is most welcome!

For reduced price block bookings (of 10 or more) and school groups, contact Anthony Ezeoke (Audience Development) at AnthonyE@markettheatre.co.za or 083 246 4950.

For enquiries, please contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at the Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@marketheatre.co.za or 011 832 1641 ext 224.

Bongiwe Potelwa
bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za
079 967 3441
The Market Theatre Foundation
http://www.markettheatre.co.za