Antoinette Pienaar | |
---|---|
Born | Antoinette Pienaar 1961 |
Alma mater | University of Cape Town University of Stellenbosch |
Occupation(s) | Actress, author and singer. |
Years active | 1986–present |
Antoinette Pienaar (born 1961) is a South African actress, singer, and author.
One of five sisters, Antoinette Pienaar was born in Beaufort West, grew up in Carnavon and studied drama at the University of Stellenbosch [1] and the University of Cape Town.
She started her acting career in Shakespearean productions and later turned to singing, writing and storytelling, performing her gentle satires at the National Arts Festivals of Grahamstown, Oudshoorn and other Southern African theaters. As storyteller she is best known for her stories of historical African heroines such as Krotoa of the Cape. [2] Since 2001 she has been apprentice to Oom Johannes Willemse (a Griqua Shaman) in the deep recesses of the Karoo. [3] She is also featured in "Van Nature", a regular insert on the Afrikaans breakfast show Dagbreek.
Translated from the Afrikaans: "Herbs rule." The phrase plays on the old Afrikaans saying that herbs are natures cure for every and any ailment. [4]
Since 2003, Pienaar and Oom (uncle) Johannes Willemse (a Griqua Shaman [5] ) in his late 1990s are regulars on Amore Bekkers' afternoon drive show (Tjailatyd) on the National Afrikaans Radio Station (Radio Sonder Grense, (RSG)) and answers listeners questions on a weekly basis from location in the heart of the Great Karoo of South Africa. [6] Pienaar received great acclaim in the Afrikaans community [7] [8] [9] thanks to the efforts of Amore Bekker and RSG with this program.
Pienaars book: "Kruidjie roer my" [10] " / "The Griqua's Apprentice [11] " on folk remedies from the Griqua and Afrikaner (Boer) communities was published with the help of RSG.
In her own words, the publication of The Griqua's Apprentice is "the first step in preserving the Karoo herb heritage for South Africa and the world". [12]
After contracting cerebral malaria on a trip to Mali in West Africa in 2001 she was severely weakened and decided to stay on Theefontein (the farm of her second cousin Jacques Pienaar). She claims that the Karoo and its herbs healed her. [3] Pienaar never married.
The Griquas are a subgroup of mixed-race heterogeneous formerly Xiri-speaking nations in South Africa with a unique origin in the early history of the Dutch Cape Colony. Like the Boers they migrated inland from the Cape and in the 19th century established several states in what is now South Africa and Namibia. The Griqua consider themselves as being South Africa’s first multiracial nation with people descended directly from Dutch settlers in the Cape, and local peoples.
Stellenbosch University (SU) (Afrikaans: Universiteit Stellenbosch, Xhosa: iYunivesithi yaseStellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Saharan Africa, which received full university status in 1918. Stellenbosch University designed and manufactured Africa's first microsatellite, SUNSAT, launched in 1999.
Zoë Wicomb is a South African author and academic who has lived in the UK since the 1970s. In 2013, she was awarded the inaugural Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for her fiction.
The Voortrekkers is an Afrikaner youth organisation, founded in South Africa in 1931, for Afrikaans boys and girls. It tries to develop resilience, service, leadership and a good character through team meetings, skills development and camping in nature, with the opportunity for whole families to get involved. The movement, which also took off in Namibia, is based on Christian national principles.
Laurika Rauch, is a South African singer who performs in both Afrikaans and English. She had a hit single in 1979 with Kinders van die Wind, written by Koos du Plessis. The song featured prominently in the Afrikaans television series "Phoenix & Kie" in the late seventies.
The Owl House is a museum in Nieu-Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The owner, Helen Martins, turned her house and the area around it into a visionary environment, elaborately decorated with ground glass and containing more than 300 concrete sculptures including owls, camels, peacocks, pyramids, and people. She inherited the house from her parents and began its transformation after they died.
The "!Oroǀõas" ("Ward-girl"), spelled in Dutch as Krotoa or Kroket, otherwise known by her Christian name Eva, was a !Uriǁ'aeǀona translator who worked for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) during the founding of the Cape Colony.
Margaretha Murray is a South African actress and writer.
Charles J. Fourie is a South African writer and director working in television, film and theatre. Fourie staged his first play as a drama student at the Windybrow Theatre in 1985. In 2021/22, he received a writing and research fellowship from the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) to develop a new theatre format involving artificial intelligence. His latest radio-drama series Alleenmandaat is currently broadcasting on SABC. As of April 2022, he will engage a residency fellowship with the Posthuman Art Network and Foreign Objekt to further develop his latest creative project - AI Performance Narratives. Fourie's play The Parrot Woman was staged in September 2022 at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg.
Louise Smit is a South African writer of children's books and creator and director of children's television programmes and characters.
Willim Welsyn aka William Welfare, is a South African rock singer-songwriter, filmmaker and an award-winning podcaster originally from Ladismith in the Western Cape. He is better known as the lead singer and guitarist for the Afrikaans Rock band, Willim Welsyn en die Sunrise Toffies and as former photographer, features writer and podcast host for the South African Rolling Stone magazine and for his weekly Afrikaans podcast show WAT Met Willim Welsyn Podcast.
Hetta Amor “Amore” Bekker is a South African radio personality, author, MC and columnist. She was the host of Tjailatyd, an Afrikaans radio show broadcast by Radio Sonder Grense (RSG), the Afrikaans language Radio Service of the SABC. As an author, Bekker published her first cookbook (Tjailaresepte) in June 2010. As of July 2010 she also writes a column for the Afrikaans-language women's magazine Finesse.
Diane Awerbuck is a South African novelist. Her most notable novel, Gardening at Night, won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. In 2011, her collection of short stories, Cabin Fever, was published by Random House Struik. Her novel, Home Remedies, was published by Random House Struik in August 2012. She was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2014, and won the Short Story Day Africa competition the same year.
Amor Vittone is a South African singer.
Jeanne Goosen was a South African journalist, poet and writer. She wrote short stories, children's books, plays and award-winning novels.
Margaret Joan Roberts was a South African herbalist and author of over 40 books on herbs and related topics. Margaret Roberts brought herbs into South Africa over 60 years ago and gave lectures about the benefits of herbs and healthy living, her motto was to 'Educate and Inspire'. The Margaret Roberts Herbal Centre in De Wildt, North West Province was developed by Margaret and is named after her, this continues with her daughter Sandy Roberts who has worked with Margaret for 32 years. Margaret has lent her name to product ranges including food ranges, toiletries, gifts, kitchenware, stationery, textiles, seeds and books. The Margaret Roberts Herbal Centre is known to be one of the top ten gardens in South Africa. Margaret is well known for her Margaret Roberts lavenders which she cross cultivated over 15 years and which is endemic to South Africa, also known for her Ginger Rosemary, High Hopes Basil and Margaret Roberts Rose, all of these varieties are named after her.
Shaleen Surtie-Richards was a South African television, stage, and film actress, perhaps best known for her starring roles in the 1988 film Fiela se Kind and the long-running series Egoli: Place of Gold. She performed in both Afrikaans and English.
Stephen Michael Fritz is a Khoi leader born in South Africa on 4 March 1970. He is a South African indigenous and traditional leader and Senior Chief of the South Peninsula Khoi Council, which is based in the Western Cape of South Africa. He is a well-known environmentalist and public speaker. He is an expert in the use of plants for medicinal purposes and he is a qualified indigenous guide and wildlife conservationist. He is also an activist for the rights of the indigenous people of South Africa. Chief Fritz is a founding member of the Pro Elephant Network and member of the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum South Africa.
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen is a South African writer, editor, publisher and professor. She is the co-founder of the publisher Fourthwall Books and owns a bookstore called Edition. She acts as the primary editor for works on law and history of South Africa and the architecture and building process of its constitutional court structures, along with artistic book publications of the work of William Kentridge. She has also published her own novel called The Printmaker.
Anna Lemmer Badenhorst Swart Rudolph was a South African author, composer, and singer who wrote books, theatrical works, and songs for children. She is especially known for her contributions to Afrikaans children's music, which was widely sung by Afrikaans-speaking children throughout South Africa during the 1970s. She published under the name Anna Rudolph.