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21ICONS - Kitty Phetla
“Even in difficult situations, you’ve got to get up and dust yourself off and say this too shall pass.”
21 ICONS is a showcase for the South African spirit; a tribute to the men and women who have helped to shape our country and, indeed, our world. The series is part of an annual project which features unique narrative portraits and short films by Adrian Steirn, one of the continent’s pre-eminent photographers and filmmakers. 21 ICONS South Africa will feature the eighth icon of its second season: ballerina, choreographer and model Kitty Phetla.
The portrait features Phetla in a classical dancer’s pose, poised at the edge of a lake as if she is about to dance on the water. The photograph is a salute to Phetla’s most famous role as The Dying Swan, which she performed in Amsterdam for former president Nelson Mandela and the Dutch Royal Family.
In an intimate conversation with Steirn, Phetla talks about her journey through ballet, and how it transformed her from a chubby nine-year-old tomboy in Soweto to the first black ballerina to perform Anna Pavlova’s famous solo The Dying Swan in 2012, transforming the role and making it her own in the process.
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Chris Botha on The MediaShop’s office move
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21 ICONS - Sandra Prinsloo
Sandra Prinsloo: “I think acting is telling people stories, telling important stories and hoping to change people through stories.”.
5 Jan 2015 10:23
21 ICONS - Taddy Blecher
Taddy Blecher: “When people are more educated and feel that they have more sense of self-worth and more value in terms of what’s inside them, they just naturally treat each other better. I think that kind of self-worth does lead to happiness, I don’t think it’s the only thing that creates happiness, but it definitely is a factor in societal happiness, on all metrics.”.
15 Dec 2014 09:29
21 ICONS - Miriam Tlali
Miriam Tlali: “A good book by itself, if it has the right messages in it, can change a person; his outlook, his persona, it can change a human being into something he never thought he could be. It can reinvent a person. That’s what a good book can do and it doesn't come through the efforts of other people, it comes from inside you.”.
8 Dec 2014 09:49
21 ICONS - Zanele Situ
Zanele Situ: “I feel happy and proud of myself that if I want something I push myself to do it, if I fall, I stand up again, this is how life is, there will be many times when you fall and you have to get up again.”.
1 Dec 2014 10:15
21 ICONS - Peter Magubane
Peter Magubane - “I used my camera as a gun. I did not want to carry a gun, and kill people. I used my camera as a weapon, and I think I was very successful.”.
24 Nov 2014 09:18
21 ICONS - Jill Farrant
Jill Farrant - “My life has been a series of near death experiences and resuscitations. I’ve had three almost fatal incidents and I've been able to, like my plants, resurrect, dry down, resurrect, and dry out again. I think the analogy goes one step further for me in that when you add a drop of water to those plants and they resurrect as for me, you have to add a drop of (holy) Spirit.”...
17 Nov 2014 10:54
21 ICONS - Anant Singh
Anant Singh - “My view on what makes a good movie and what makes a successful movie is something that is fresh. Something that is interesting, that you can give audiences an experience that hopefully they can come out of it having enjoyed something, whether it’s commercial or artistic, either of those parameters, to give them something that is new.”.
10 Nov 2014 11:06
21 ICONS - Zubeida Jaffer
Zubeida Jaffer - “I believe that I am part of a common humanity. One South Africa, one world, one universe. I’m a child of God. I've got many identities but I am not prepared to accept that I’m one thing only. We have to get people away from this idea that they’re pink and blue and white and grey. In the end, we are very close, all of us, to one another. We have the same feelings and if we get hurt, we feel the same.”...
3 Nov 2014 08:34
