Artists and Mentors Archives | The Centre for Humanities Research

Tony Miyambo

Artist in Residence, Theatre

Tony Miyambo is an actor and theatre-maker with a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Witwatersrand. He’s best known for his role in Wonder Boy for President alongside comedian Kagiso Lediga and actor Akin Omotoso. If you ask him, however, he’ll tell you he’s more of a ‘creative cultural resource’ – a storyteller across various formats. Having started his acting career after the passing of his father, Miyambo draws on the memory of his late father which sees him incorporating a strong element of play into his performances, for both himself and the audience.

Performances: Centre for Humanities Research

Ne’er So Much The Ape, a work produced, directed and written by Professor Jane Taylor, and performed by Jane Taylor, Tony Miyambo and Terry Norton.

Ne’er So Much The Ape was first performed for an international Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes annual meeting hosted by the Centre for Humanities Research at UWC in 2017. The performance is in part staged with a hand-carved puppet chimp made by Adrian Kohler, of the world-renowned Handspring Puppet Company. The show is a combination of puppetry arts, intellectual history, and world-class acting. Jane Taylor is a playwright, holds the Andrew W Mellon Chair in Aesthetic Theory and Material Performance at the Centre for Humanities Research, and is the author of “Ubu and the Truth Commission” and “The Transplant Men”.

Performances: Centre for the Less Good Idea

Audiences at the Centre would have seen his performance of Kafka’s Ape, a work directed by collaborator Phala O Phala, based on Kafka’s Lecture to An Academy. The 2018 season of the Centre for the Less Good Idea sees Miyambo making his puppeteering debut with a Handspring Puppet Company original piece, in a play by Season 4 curator Jane Taylor. The piece — titled Pan Troglodyte — is a performed presentation of a paper developing the argument about primate intelligence, AI, and race theory. It is part of a double bill with Vi Die Wat Wil Wiet/For Those Who Need Knowing.