Beyond performance, Mak Manaka shapes how poetry, voice and cultural programming sit inside a brand activation, a broadcast spot, a stage production or a public programme — the same eye for tone and pacing applied to someone else's project.
On a stage or a set, direction means shaping how a poem, a band and a room move together — pacing a three-piece live set, briefing a voice-over read, or setting the tone of a launch so the work lands the way it was written to land.
This sits alongside the live performance work: the same discipline that shapes a 45-minute live experience is available to direct someone else's stage, spot or programme.
Through the not-for-profit Buwa Fela Research Project, Manaka curates a reading, listening and writing programme for young people, using poetry as a tool for self-esteem, and mentors poets to work professionally within the poetry sector — creative direction applied to a community, not only a stage.
"I was so moved by the story, I thought you actually were that boy on stage — when you called me up, I was confused."
Sasol AGM — the CFO, after an industrial-theatre style MC performance for the leadership"I've never seen people react to poetry like that before." The room was overflowing, and people were crying, some falling, others screaming for him.
A friend visiting from Berlin, on a sold-out performance"I'm so glad we got him... it took him three minutes to do what we'd been struggling with for the past two months."
Joe Public, during a client briefing
