Yvette Hardie
International Selection Committee 2026
YVETTE HARDIE is a theatre director, producer, educator and advocate, focusing on theatre and performance for young audiences. She initiated the launch of ASSITEJ SA in 2007, and leads the organisation as National Director. She served from 2011 to 2021 as President of the international ASSITEJ (International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People), which networks across over 100 countries, and is now Honorary President of the association. She serves as Chairperson of the STAND (Sustaining Theatre and Dance) Foundation.
She was responsible for hosting the 19th ASSITEJ World Congress & Performing Arts Festival, Cradle of Creativity, for the first time in Africa, in 2017, and has continued to produce the Cradle of Creativity Festival biennially since then. She produced the award-winning Colonnades Theatre Lab production,Truth in Translation, which toured widely for several years. For her own company, FreeVoice Productions, she has produced national and international tours, including of the award-winning work by Sindiwe Magona, Mother to Mother. As director, projects include Suzanne Lebeau’s The Ogreling, which toured South Africa, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Cameroon. She also was Festival Director for the Out the Box Festival of Visual Theatre and Puppetry.
She is valued for her work in Arts Education, having written national curricula and textbooks for Dramatic and Creative Arts. She was the Head of the Drama Department at the National School of the Arts, where she taught between 1991 – 2004. She has also taught at the Market theatre Laboratory, AFDA, University of Cape Town and other tertiary institutions. She has an MA in Theatre Practice from Tshwane University of Technology. She has written and spoken extensively on issues relating to arts for young audiences, arts education and arts for reconciliation and conflict resolution around the globe. She was awarded the Mickey Miner Award from IPAY (International Performing Arts for Youth), based in Philadelphia, USA, for her contribution to theatre for young audiences locally and globally.
📣 Hi Yvette!
🎤 What are you most looking forward to being part of the International Selection Committee?
What I'm most looking forward to is the exposure to a great deal of work that I don't always get to see. Being South African, I have limited opportunities, especially post-COVID, to travel and see a wide variety of work from around the world.
Having so many interesting pieces coming into my inbox from across the globe is a great privilege, and I will really enjoy exploring them. I think any festival application process is like a snapshot of the performing arts world at that time. I'm really looking forward to diving in and seeing what is happening across the world for young audiences right now.
I'm also excited about working with the international panel. Hearing the opinions of others around this work is always an enriching and illuminating experience. Each panel member brings tremendous breadth of experience and knowledge to the task. I know that we will have some really fascinating discussions about why we feel what we feel about the work.
It's a great honor and privilege to be part of this jury and to have these opportunities.
🎤 What does bibu mean to you?
bibu was the very first international experience I had of theatre for young audiences. I came to ASSITEJ through Niclas Malmcrona, who invited me to attend a meeting of African centres of ASSITEJ in Swaziland, now called Eswatini.
In that meeting, I began to see the potential of ASSITEJ and realized that South Africa really needed to come on board in a strong way. We needed to create a national centre that could promote and support this work. I was already involved in theatre for and with young people, but in South Africa, the sector was quite fractured and under the radar.
Coming to bibu, meeting other international artists there, spending time with, for example, Hopa Azeda from Rwanda and others, was an extraordinary experience for me. It was a real window into what this international association of artists might give us all access to. I remember being challenged by some of the work. I also had no idea at the time that it was a completely new festival. My impression was that it was highly organized and had been running for a long time. So I was very surprised to later discover that it was the very first bibu that I was attending.
It feels very special to be coming full circle and to be on the jury of bibu after so many experiences within the international ASSITEJ over the years. I come now to the task with a different experience and a much richer idea of what TYA means across the world. Nevertheless, I have a great sense of heart for bbu as it was my very first international exposure in TYA.
