Faniswa Yisa
Faniswa Yisa is an actor, physical theatre performer, and arts activist. After graduating with a Performer’s Diploma in Speech and Drama from the University of Cape Town in 2000, she became resident performer at Magnet Theatre from 2004-2011, then turned freelance in 2012. With Magnet, she performed in The Fire Raisers (2004), Cargo (2007), Ingcwaba Lendoda Lise Cankwe Ndlela (2009, directed by Mandla Mbothwe), Autopsy (2010), Voices Made Night (2012), and has toured internationally with Every Year, Every Day, I Am Walking (from 2006 onwards). Her most recent projects include playing an archeologist who confronts the ancestral spirits of the slaves who were buried at Prestwich Place in Nadia Davids’ What Remains (2017) and 19 Born 76 Rebels (2013, 2017), an activist performance with choreographer Mamela Nyamza addressing racial inequalities in the arts industry, for the 2017 opening of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.