Hanneke Mackie, a proudly South African woman, is the Founder and Managing Director of Buzz. She is a self-proclaimed: ‘child-whisperer’ and has managed to combine her love for children and the performing arts and gave birth to her life’s dream and passion: Buzz!
Buzz is a revolutionary Performing Arts activity for children, currently running successful in- and after-school workshops across South Africa (Gauteng and the Western Cape) for 2500 children. Buzz workshops incorporate Drama, Dance and Singing as a triple threat, 3-in-1 program. Buzzing with children between 3 and 13 years old, Buzz is specifically aimed at building children’s confidence and boosting their social skills through high energy, fun and entirely interactive workshops.
All music for Buzz workshops are created and owned by Buzz. These albums are created around unique, educational, child friendly themes. Each theme has a podcast series created especially for it.
Buzz currently employs 50 people, thereby contributing to the economy and creating permanent and self-employed contractor opportunities for some of South Africa’s best creative talents.
Hanneke trained as an actor at The University of Cape Town and achieved her degree in Theatre and Performance in 2005. Apart from being a trained actor, with most of her professional experience in children’s and community based theatre, Hanneke has first-hand experience of the South African education system as she worked as the Foundation Phase Drama Teacher at Crawford Preparatory, Sandton.
She also worked for Perform, a renowned Children’s Drama School in England for many years. Hanneke has worked inside hundreds of Primary Schools in the United Kingdom and South Africa, from disadvantaged to privileged, she has worked across a wide selection of socio-economic communities. She has developed an approach to children that is entirely unique. She is passionate about the marriage of education and play. She believes in applying the arts to develop the child cognitively, socially and wholistically.
Apart from their after-school sessions, Buzz has regular contracts in schools, delivering educational workshops as well as skills sharing workshops to help teachers ‘bring learning alive.’ Buzz also offers interactive children’s parties, holiday courses and children’s corporate events. Buzz is committed social outreach work and has delivered adult and children’s Drama Workshops in a variety of deprived communities. In 2018, Hanneke aims to branch out more robustly into the charitable space, by founding a version of Buzz as a Non Profit Organisation
Hanneke oversees all workshops offered by Buzz and guarantees the highest teaching standards in all Buzz sessions.
