Alexander Upstairs Presents ESCAPE: THE INGRID JONKER SUITE

ESCAPE: THE INGRID JONKER SUITE, featuring music composed and arranged by Nicky Schrire, will run for two nights this month at the Alexander Bar's Upstairs Theatre. The suite is set to English translations of Jonker's work by André Brink and Antjie Krog as compiled in BLACK BUTTERFLIES, with additional text from letters between Brink and Jonker as translated by Karin Schimke in FLAME IN THE SNOW.

A much-loved figure in South African poetry, Jonker's body of work, though small, continues to speak volumes decades after her death. She delicately and beautifully captured lust, love, heartbreak, anger and the fabric of everyday life in her poems. In 1994, Nelson Mandela said of her:

She was both a poet and a South African. She was both an Afrikaner and an African. She was both an artist and a human being. In the midst of despair, she celebrated hope. Confronted by death, she asserted the beauty of life.

Schrire's music sets Jonker's works to music that blends folk, cinematic and art song genres. The songs are arranged for voice, with Schrire herself on vocals, and a string quartet consisting of Bonolo Kgaile, Sisa Mgauli, Lucy Strauss and Ariella Caira, and actress Jenna Dunster delivers the poems in Afrikaans.

ESCAPE: THE INGRID JONKER SUITE runs on 20 and 21 April at 19:00. Tickets are available from the Alexander Bar website, with tickets costing R100 if booked and prepaid online or R110 if paid on collection at the bar. For telephone enquiries, call 021 300 1652. The Alexander Bar, Café and Theatre is situated at 76 Strand Street in the Cape Town city centre and can be followed on Facebook and Twitter. Keep up to date with Nicky Schrire's news on her official website.