Relebohile Mabunda is an applied theatre practitioner, performer, arts advocate, and academic researcher. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) and Master’s degree (specialising in Cultural Policy and Leadership) from Wits School of the Arts (University of Witwatersrand). She currently acts as a lead facilitator for the Ekurhuleni Public Employment Programme funded by the National Treasury and Presidential Stimulus at Dumisani Masilela Theatre. The experience and networks gained during her studies have allowed her to work and interact with people from marginalized communities including children and youth living with disabilities. She unearthed her love for the arts while in high school; where she wrote and performed her first story in an assembly and won a national reading competition in her home country, Lesotho. Ever since then, she followed her passion for being a formidable practitioner in the arts. As testament to this, she landed her first audition with the Youth Intrust Academy, facilitated by the State Theatre – securing her a place as a student and being cast in numerous student and professional productions during that tenure. Her creative work has been showcased in festivals such as Rehearse Reveal, Zwakala, Ishashalazi and Zabalaza Community Theatre Festival - just to name a few. Using her applied drama and theatre background, she co-founded Lule Productions as a steppingstone to accessing and engaging with more marginalized communities. She strives to keep community artists and arts alive at a grassroots level and her vision has earned her opportunities of representing community artists through local and provincial art forums. With hopes to expand her knowledge in her field of passion, she is consistently looking for opportunities to grow and culture her expertise. Her work-ethic and dedication has developed what was just a passion in her high school day’s to being well-on-her-way to being the formidable arts practitioner that she dreams of becoming; in hopes of changing and developing the lives of these communities and people.
Lunga Khuhlane is a theatre maker, applied theatre facilitator and a Masters’ graduate in Cultural Policy and Leadership with more than 13 years’ experience in the performing arts sector. Born and raised in Mahikeng, he started with community theatre productions bridging to mainstream and scooped numerous awards with various productions in various festivals including the National Arts Festival. He has done some television work as well featuring in ads such as Dettol, 8ta, Newscafe to name a few and docudrama with Dzugudza productions. He has directed, facilitated, notably in Mvuso (DFL short course) which made use of the mode of applied theatre. This helped shape and re-shift his focus into the field of applied theatre and drama studies - realizing that it can play a huge role in informing social change as well as educating communities and the youth. He has facilitated drama with kids around Soweto schools using applied drama with Wits Drama for Life, Facilitated, and directed drama productions in Gauteng West-rand schools for provincial competitions with Xquisite productions. He was part of the adjudication panel for 2017 Abospa National arts festival in Botswana, Gaborone. He is also a curator and a management team of the Abantu band which recently performed in Malawi and Mozambique. He is co-founder of Lule Productions and ART THAT MATTER organization. Lunga is also an academic researcher in which his interest is in preservation of indigenous language in storytelling and also the governance of community arts and cultural spaces.
