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11 April 2018 Photo Charl Henning
Nicro approach UFS Drama for crime-prevention play
Dion and Charl with the school group during rehearsals at the Scaena Theatre on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus.
Theatre is one of the many ways used by the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Reintegration of Offenders (Nicro) as medium to educate our youth. Nicro approached Prof Nico Luwes, Head of the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of the Free State (UFS), to assist with a crime-prevention play project.  

Prof Luwes then knocked on the door of Drama lecturer, Dion van Niekerk, and master’s student Charl Henning.

Nicro is a non-profitable organisation with the purpose to create awareness among learners about different societal issues such as crime, substance abuse, etc. 

“They have this leadership programme within the organisation for youth who have not fallen into a life of crime. They are known as the ambassadors,” said Van Niekerk. 

 Play address societal issues 
“We did two plays; the text of the plays were existing text written by Prof Luwes. The text wasn’t about crime prevention, but rather about HIV and other societal issues; however, we improvised by making use of the children to guide us.”  

They are the ones who are confronted with these issues on a daily basis. “You see their leadership quality grow and how they can work together in a team. It was also a way to build their self-confidence in a fun way,” said Henning. Not only did it improve their self-confidence, but it also improved their interaction with learners from other schools. 

The play will be performed at schools in Bloemfontein.  The project is conducted at four local schools, namely Kopanong Secondary School, Moemedi Secondary School, Hodisa Technical School, and Louis Botha Technical High School.

News Archive

Prestigious Helgaard Steyn Prize to be awarded to UFS composer
2010-11-08

 Hans Huyssen.

The composer Hans Huyssen, affiliated with the Department of Music at the University of the Free State (UFS), is to be the current recipient of the prestigious 2010 Helgaard Steyn Prize, the prize-winning work being Huyssen’s Proteus Variations (2006).Annually this award is administered and presented to a selected composer, painter, author, or sculptor by the Universities of the Free State and the North-West on a rotating basis. The judges for this year’s prize were Prof. Bertha Spies, Research Fellow, North-West University, and Professor Extraordinary, University of Pretoria, and Mr Noel Stockton, Senior Lecturer at the University of the Free State.

Hans Huyssen’s musical activities encompass the diverse poles of early and contemporary Western and African music, often in an attempt to assimilate the essential qualities from all these fields. His intense focus on contextuality suggests that he approaches music as a profoundly social force which has a particular role to play in our ‘new’ diversified South African society.

The Proteus Variations were commissioned by the Deutsche Welle Radio for the South African National Youth Orchestra 2006, and were premiered at the Beethoven Bonn Festival during 2006. These variations are described by the composer as “a musical representation of South Africa’s manifold Proteaceae”, named for the Greek god Proteus who, at will, was capable of assuming a spectrum of shapes and appearances. As the composer states: “It is worth noticing that a Protea is South Africa’s national flower. What could be more appropriate in providing a key to an opposite perception and understanding of the country’s diverse cultural expressions? In this regard it is my hope that the Proteus Variations may contribute a little to the wide scope of cultural responses necessary to begin to do justice to the extremely rich tapestry of our immediate cultural and natural surroundings”.

The prize of R170 000 will be awarded to Hans Huyssen by a representative of ABSA Trust, who is one of the trustees of the Helgaard Steyn Trust, in Bloemfontein on 8 November 2010.

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