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Dramatist Iman Isaacs on her love affair with the theatre and the exciting future of art

Above: Iman Isaacs with Richard September in Red Aloes;

By Mick Raubenheimer

7 Sep 2024

A chat with the writer and actor provides a sense of her life in the arts, and which creators inspire her.

Cape Town’s Iman Isaacs enters the hushed and sacred space of the theatre to play, connect and collaborate. Using physical theatre techniques, choreography and puppets, her performances try to capture something essential. She is also an educator.

When did you first identify as a creative artist?

I think I’ve always been intrigued by the creative arts. As a child we created little plays with my cousins to perform for our parents and grandparents at almost every family gathering. This has unconsciously informed my love affair with the theatre.

I have been in a 30-year relationship with painting, performing and playing instruments. It was important for my parents to provide their children with access to the creative arts, something that they never really had. So my mother made sure my sisters and I studied music from the age of seven and naturally that love for performance progressed to the theatre.

Outside your medium, which branch of art most stimulates you?

I absolutely love engaging with the art galleries in and around Cape Town – viewing the work from incredible sculptors, visual artists and performance artists who are pushing boundaries in their medium.

Iman Isaacs. (Photo: Supplied)

Which artists in these disciplines have inspired you, and why?

There are so many, I’m not quite sure where to begin. In terms of visual artists, Nozuko Madokwe is a must-see. She is starting to establish her aesthetic by creating her own paints using indigenous rocks.

I have watched her on her journey of discovery and experimentation and perseverance and it has been remarkable to witness.

What, according to you, is art’s most important function?

Art’s most important function is to act as a mirror to society to help to critique and question and to provoke, curate and carve out a space for difficult conversations.

Iman Isaacs. (Photo: Supplied)

Which local creative artists excite you?

There is an exciting women-led production company called 3pillarproductions, a theatre collective founded by Jessie Diepeveen, Sinezile Matutu and Thato Mosiuoa.

In fact, there are a lot of young theatre practitioners who are entering the industry and I look forward to seeing how they grow and develop their unique perspectives through their craft.

Visual artist Patrick Bongoy’s work is provocative and political and acts as a response to the global reality of literal and figurative environmental pollution.

Francois Knoetze is phenomenal. He is an artist who identifies as a scavenger, a sculptor, a performer and a filmmaker. He repurposes discarded material and turns it into modern-day fantastical masquerades. His work is majestic and wacky, political and intricate and absolutely magical.

Performer and author Bianca Flanders, who has integrated her love of literature with her love for theatre, has created a fantastic series of children’s books called Pumpkin Pie Adventures. She has recently launched a theatre show based on her second book in the series, Pumpkin Finds her Kindness, which is so heart-warming and vital for young audiences across the globe. Her endeavour to incorporate representation for young girls of colour in her children’s books is admirable, and I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.

What specific piece of literature, music or visual art do you return to again and again, and why?

A work that has inspired my passion for physical theatre is Andrew Buckland’s The Ugly Noo Noo, which is showing at the Market Theatre.

Iman Isaacs with Richard September in Red Aloes. (Photo: Supplied)

What are your thoughts regarding the artificial intelligence revolution?

I am so divided about it. At times I feel like it removes us from a shared tactile human experience, and other times I find it quite exciting to be able to imagine the potential of the integration of AI and the arts. But ultimately art is about storytelling, which has survived the ages, and I believe it will continue to do so.

Read more: Darren English — Designed to delight, visually and musically

An exciting duo, Lo-Def Film Factory, is a collective whose work involves archival research, dramaturgy and visual strategies associated with video art, collage, sculptural installation and virtual reality, to explore and create space for collaborative, experimental community storytelling. They are definitely a collective that will not back down from the challenge.

Do you have any project you’re unveiling or wrapping up?

In collaboration with Raezeen Wentworth, I’ve recently written, directed and produced a new theatre work called Law of Carnage, which premiered earlier this year at the Baxter Theatre. Now we are revising the text in the hopes of doing a second run in the new year. I am also working on a new play text called Janaaza, which I hope to premier in 2025. DM

Mick Raubenheimer is a freelance arts writer.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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