Dance lovers across South Africa can get ready for another exciting season of thrilling ballet productions presented by the Cape Town City Ballet. Continue reading
DURBAN University of Technology will present Behind Closed Minds at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
Written and directed by Farrell Drew, the play offers a dramatic and emotionally powerful story. It is a dark and soul-questioning piece that touches on issues such as loyalty, injustice and the misuse of power.
Behind Closed Minds is centred on the lives of Dr Victor Duval, his wife and assistant Anita, and the patients who were released into their care. The play seeks to examine a side to hypnotherapy that has yet to be explored, while revealing how the selfishness of one man destroyed the lives of all those who trusted him.
The play will be staged in the Rehearsal Room at 11.30 am on July 7 and 2.30 pm on July 8. Tickets are R45 (concessions R35).
Also staging a work in the student drama festival is the University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban. Ashes to Ashes, written and directed by Camilla Rogers, is a political satire that ridicules the actions of our political leaders and law enforcers, while acting out a robbery.
The play will be staged in the Rehearsal Room at 5 pm on July 6 and 8 pm on July 7. Tickets are R45 (R35 concessions).
Bookings are open and can be made via the website:http://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za. Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004
Pick up a Festival programme and booking kit from selected Standard Bank and Exclusive Books. The full programme is online athttp://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
DURBAN actors Ralph Lawson, Clare Mortimer and Menzi Mkhwane will be starring in Greg Homann and Ralph Lawson’s A Voice I Cannot Silence.
The play, which is based on the life and work of Alan Paton, highlights the invaluable contribution made by the author of Cry, The Beloved Country who was, in the words of Douglas Livingstone, a “lighthouse in the South African twilight” during the dark decades leading up to the country’s constitutional democracy.
Paton’s internationally recognised gifts of lyric verse, evocative prose and vibrant story telling are combined to create a richly dramatic portrait.
The play focuses on his years as principal of Diepkloof Reformatory, the “toughest black borstal in the Southern Hemisphere”, where he introduced daring reforms that brought him into conflict with the architect of apartheid Hendrik Verwoerd, his position as president of the Liberal Party that led to harassment and a 10-year period during which his passport was taken away by the apartheid government, his indomitable belief in and daunting struggle for human rights, and the complexities of his personal relationships.
These weighty themes are explored through Paton’s interaction with Anne Hopkins, whom he employed in 1968 as a secretary shortly after the death of his wife Dorrie.
While trying to come to terms with his loss, the memories of his wife and their love for each other are set in contrast to his difficult days spent at the reformatory some 20 years earlier where he remembers vividly a curious young man called Sponono.
A Voice I Cannot Silence is being staged at the Rhodes Box Theatre at noon and 8.30 pm on July 10 and July 11, and at noon on July 12.
Tickets are R70, with concession tickets at R65.
A post-performance discussion with the director and cast, moderated by an arts journalist from City Press, will take place after the noon performance on July 10.
Bookings are open and can be made via the website:http://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za. Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004
Pick up a Festival programme and booking kit from selected Standard Bank and Exclusive Books. The full programme is online athttp://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
DURBAN actor, poet and spoken-word artist Iain “Ewok” Robinson will star in Yobo: You’re Only Born Once in the Thomas Pringle Hall at 3 pm on July 8, 4 pm on July 9, 4 pm on July 10 and noon and 9 pm on July 11.
Yobo is a spoken-word, audio-visual experience created by Robinson and his wife Karen Logan. It delivers a highly visceral theatre experience using live video projection and an original score created across continents.
Set against the backdrop of the constant construction that is contemporary South Africa, Yobo draws us into the world of a solitary white man living camped beneath a national highway.
Tickets are R70 (concessions R65).
Bookings are open and can be made via the website:http://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za. Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004
Pick up a Festival programme and booking kit from selected Standard Bank and Exclusive Books. The full programme is online at http://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
Iain ‘ Ewok’ Robinson.
THE KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing a number of concerts at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
At 6 pm on July 4, the orchestra will present a Symphony Concert, conducted by Bernhard Gueller and featuring soloist, Joanna Franklin (violin), in the Guy Butler Theatre at Monument.
The programme includes: Hendrik Hofmeyr’s Preludio e Umsindo; Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35; and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8, in G major, Op. 88. Tickets range from R70 to R100.
At 2 pm and 7.30 pm on July 5, in the Guy Butler Theatre, the orchestra will present The (He)art of the Matter.
The concert will be conducted by Richard Cock and features soloists, Magdalene Minnaar (soprano), Timothy Moloi (tenor) and Nicholas Nicolaidis (tenor). The programme includes a tribute to Frank Sinatra, Gershwin’s S’Wonderful, S’Marvellous, A Whole New World, Unforgettable, What A Wonderful World and The Lady is a Tramp.
Tickets are R70 (R65 concessions). A percentage of proceeds from this concert will be donated to the Theatre Benevolent Fund, a charity which provides care and comfort to performers who find themselves incapacitated and destitute through illness.
Cock will also conduct the orchestra in a Gala Concert in the Guy Butler Theatre at 3 pm on July 5.
The soloists are Musa Ngungwana (baritone), this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist for Music, Sorin Osorean (horn), Boris Kerimov (cello) and Magdalene de Vries (marimba). The programme will include Peter Klatzow’s I am an African and Tiniyane — a story for orchestra. Tickets are R70 to R100.
At 5 pm on July 5 the orchestra will be performing Heroes and Villains, a children’s concert, in the Monument Fountain Foyer. This interactive educational concert will feature popular music and famous themes from TV and the silver screen, including Pirates of the Caribbean, James Bond, Star Wars and Superman. Admission is free.
Members of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic — Frankel, Violeta Osorhean (violin), David Snaith (viola), Kerimov, Annelize de Villiers (clarinet) and percussionists, Stephane Pechoux, Jorge Renes Lopez, Joshua Kim and Thando Nkangana — will give a concert celebrating the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. The programme will include Ravel’s String Quartet in F major, Steve Reich’s Drumming (1st movement), and David Bruce’s Clarinet Quintet Gumboots.
The recital will take place in the Rhodes Chapel at 7 pm on July 5 and 3 pm on July 7. Tickets are R70 (R65 concessions).
Bookings are open and can be made via the website:http://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za. Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004
Pick up a Festival programme and booking kit from selected Standard Bank and Exclusive Books. The full programme is online at http://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
The KZN Philharmonic Orchestra is performing several concerts at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
The Dog Days are Over and Another Great Year For Fishing are to be staged at the National Arts Festival.
Two celebrated Flemish productions will have their African premiere at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. This showcase of Flemish culture and talent is brought to South African audiences thanks to the Government of Flanders and the Flemish-Dutch House deBuren.
“We are proud to bring two incredibly talented artists to South Africa’s premier celebration of creative and artistic talent,” says Dr Geraldine Reymenants, General Representative of the Government of Flanders in South Africa.
Acclaimed choreographer Jan Martens is bringing his production The Dog Days are Over to the festival and producer Tom Struyf will be staging Another Great Year for Fishing.
Jan Martens, born in Belgium in 1984, studied at the Fontys dance academy in Tilburg (Netherlands) and graduated at the Artesis Conservatory for Dance in Antwerp (Belgium) in 2006. In 2009 he began developing his own choreographic works and quickly received critical and popular acclaim. The high energy dance productions grew in popularity and were initially performed mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium before spreading quickly around Europe.
He debuted formally as a choreographer in 2010 with the highly praised i can ride a horse whilst juggling so marry me, a work focusing on a group of women living in a world dominated by social networks.
In 2011 he created two ‘love duets’, both investigating the clichéd portrayal of a male-female relationship: a small guide on how to treat your lifetime companion and sweat baby sweat. The first one was selected for Aerowaves, a European network supporting young choreographers. The work has been performed more than 80 times
The Dog Days Are Over, to be performed at the National Arts Festival on 9 and 10 July, centres on the idea that when a person is asked to jump, they lose focus on the façade they project and the real person behind the mask is exposed.
In the performance Martens forces his audience to reflect on contemporary dance, culture policy, the difference between art and entertainment, as well as why they would want to witness an intensity that is not revealed in daily life.
“The show attempts to put its audience in a trance, yet simultaneously create the aesthetic distance necessary to question why they are in the theatre right at that moment,” says Martens.
All Martens’ works explore the possibility of a perfect balance and symbiosis between story-telling and conceptualism. He does not try to create a new movement language, but instead moulds and recycles existing idioms and places them in a different setting, so a new idea emerges. He maintains that, in his work, the beauty of the incomplete human being is revealed over complex choreography or physical virtuosity.
Tom Struyf was born in 1983, and graduated in 2007 as an actor at the Maastricht Theatre Academy (Netherlands).
His work has won him acclaim and seen him perform at many of the great theatres in Belgium and the Netherlands. His performances The Tatiana Aarons Experience and Act to forget were selected by the jury of the Flemish-Dutch Theatre Festival for Circuit X.
Another Great Year for Fishing, staged at the National Arts Festival on 11 and 12 July, is a performance about the power of stories and images, mass communication and indoctrination. “It’s a play about the question of how to lead a normal life in an ever-changing society and thus constantly requiring a great deal of adoption power. But the show must go on,” says Struyf.
During the show Struyf and dancer Nelle Hens are looking for the fire exit. With the help of a wide range of spin doctors, psychiatrists, journalists, and philosophers they try to unravel what happens in the backrooms of the rat race.
Both Jan Martens and Tom Struyf have recently been acknowledged for their major contribution to the arts. On 2 July, Martens will be awarded the 2015 Charlotte Köhler Prize – a prize that aims to encourage and develop young talent – by the Netherlands’ Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. In May, Stuyf’s Another Great Year for Fishing was also selected for the Berlin 2015 Theatertreffen Stückemarkt – a festival of discovery for young European theatre makers who develop a new theatrical language.
“We are delighted to bring something new to festival goers, and we invite them to explore all forms of art while they are at the festival, such as this mini-Flemish season when it debuts in Africa,” says Ismail Mahomed, Artistic Director of the National Arts Festival. “We are really very proud to bring this standard of performing arts to South Africa.”
Flanders is the Dutch-speaking autonomous region in the north of Belgium, with Brussels as it is capital. The General Representation of the Government of Flanders in Southern Africa is committed to showcasing the diversity and innovative creativity of Flemish arts and culture.
View video clips of the productions here: www.tomstruyf.be and www.janmartens.com
The ASSITEJ Family Fare Platform returns to the National Arts Festival for a 4th consecutive year to promote rich and diverse theatre for young audiences and their families.
Since its inception, ASSITEJ Family Fare has provided a unique platform dedicated entirely to the needs of families experiencing the festival. The venues provide theatre which caters to the whole family, while Oatlands Prep, where the ASSITEJ Family Fare Platform has its base, specifically provides interactive, creative and stimulating Family Fare activities run by artists and ASSITEJ staff. ASSITEJ has built relationships within the Grahamstown family community, with local families returning each year. Denese Palm, a local mom and entrepreneur, has for the last three years provided wholesome and nutritious catering for audiences visiting the Oatlands venue.
The Family Fare Platform has successfully gained recognition within the framework of the National Arts Festival. Of the handful of prestigious Silver Ovation Awards issued at National Arts Festival since 2012, the ASSITEJ Family Fare programme has already been awarded two: the first for Jori Snell’s critically acclaimed “Kitchen Fables in a Cookie Jar” in 2012 and the second to international ASSITEJ theatre company, Batida from Denmark, whose production “A Man Called Rolex” heralded in a new category of award for Family Fare in 2014. Many other productions on the platform have been awarded Ovation awards in recognition of their quality.
The ASSITEJ Family Fare Platform has now extended across the festival, with performances at Oatlands Prep, Memory Hall, Glennie and Centenary Halls. 2015 presents a rich diversity of 14 productions – entertaining, thought provoking and engaging – giving families the opportunity of “growing up and growing together through theatre”.
On the Main Programme, two international collaborations are featured – “Red Earth Revisited” and “True Confusion”:
The theme of Dance for Young Audiences is continued with an exciting local productions
There are also a number of performances which address issues like social injustice, crimes against humanity, disability and inclusivity in exciting and challenging ways, providing the opportunity for starting conversations with young people around important issues:
Clowning for Young Audiences:
Visual Theatre for Young Audiences:
Music for Young Audiences:
For more information visit www.assitej.org.za or visit www.nationalartsfestival.co.za for bookings.
Questions around African identity and belonging are woven into this year’s programme for the National Arts Festival, with continental representation from countries such as Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
This year’s celebration of Africa Day takes on special significance in South Africa, where a recent upsurge in xenophobic violence has affected the country’s relationship with its neighbours and friends across the continent.
As South African struggle veteran Ahmed Kathrada said at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in Qunu in the Transkei, ‘Xenophobia, racism and sexism must be fought with tenacity, wisdom and enlightenment. Anything that defines someone else as “the other” has to go. Tolerance and understanding must flourish and grow.’
And it is these bridge-building questions of identity, belonging and what it means to be African that artists from around the continent will bring to the stage during this year’s National Arts Festival, which runs from 2 to 12 July in Grahamstown.
Issues of reconciliation and forgiveness are at the heart of the remarkable one-women show, ‘Miracle in Rwanda’. Co-created and acted by Leslie Lewis Sword, it tells the story of Rwandan genocide survivor Immaculé Ilibagiza, a 22-year-old Tutsi who hid with seven other women in the bathroom of a local Hutu pastor’s home.
Despite the tragedy and horror, Ilibagiza’s life remains one of personal empowerment and of finding peace of mind despite unbelievable hardship. “It’s completely revolutionary to go through a genocide and forgive the people who massacred your family,” Lewis has said of Ilibagiza, who now lives in New York City. “It’s a quiet revolution.”
Zimbabwean identity will be explored through dance, movement and space by Tumbuka, who will present ‘Portrait of Myself as my Father’, an interrogation into masculinity, performance and the ‘Zimbabwean self.
But it is in music where Africans seem to most easily find common ground. Madagascar’s Eusèbe Jaojoby brings his country’s unique salegy sound to the Grahamstown stage. The singer – dubbed the King of Salegy – is known for his willingness to experiment, blending the Malagasy genre with soul, rock, funk and other Western musical styles.
Watch Eusèbe Jaojoby on tour in New York in 2012: https://youtu.be/02lXAjnhkk8
Also mixing it up will be Botswana’s Chasing Jaykb. Trans vocalist Kat Kai Kol-Kes heads up this funky post-folk African pop group, who will be performing in South Africa for the first time.
Listen to Chasing Jaykb sing ‘My Body’ here: https://soundcloud.com/afropop-worldwide/kat-kai-kol-kes-and-chasing-jakyb-my-body
Malawi will be represented by Masauko Chipembere, whom South Africans will recall as a member of the 1990’s acoustic duo Blk Sonshine.
Watch Masauko Chipembere perform ‘Soul Smile’: youtu.be/MG-9zn6WRuU
More traditional African music will be celebrated when Rhodes University’s International Library of African Music (ILAM) marks its 60th anniversary with ‘Celebrating African Music’. Expect fascinating music performed on a wide range of traditional and contemporary instruments, accompanied by spectacular dance by local groups. Prof Emeritus Andrew Tracey, ILAM’s retired director, will make a special appearance.
The Standard Bank Jazz programme expertly creates the space for some of Africa’s top musicians to collaborate with their South African counterparts. Playing with Dave Reynolds and Pops Mohamed are Sylvain Baloubeta (bass – Congo), Frank Paco (drums – Mozambique). Also in the line-up are Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi, Benin-native guitarist and vocalist Lionel Loueke, Botswanan-born Bokani Dyer and Nigerian guitarist Kunle Ayo.
Watch Lionel Loueke perform Nonvignon: youtu.be/vYeno9Y1G1Q
Challenging transnational collaborations are on the Festival’s Film programme too: ‘The Gods of Water (Los Dioses de Agua)’ is the first-ever Angolan-Argentinian co-production. Directed by Pablo César, the film tells the story of an Argentinian anthropologist who travels to Africa to understand the origins of the secrets held by the Dogon, a Malian tribe.
Watch the trailer for The Gods of Water: youtu.be/PtCV36u9qFg
And, as always with film, it’s just a small skip from there to murder and mayhem in a Nigerian jungle with ‘Bleeding Rose’. Director Chucks Mordi’s film about a group of botany students searching for a healing plant in an evil forest, offers South African audiences the chance to see the kind of film wildly popular in the West African country. It won Best Feature Film at the 2007 International Film Festival in Lagos.
‘Miracle in Rwanda’ is at the Hangar on 4 July at 4pm, 5 July at 10am and 7.30pm, 6 July at 5pm and 9.30pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/miracle-in-rwanda/
Tumbuka performs ‘Portrait of Myself as My Father’ at Alec Mullins on 3 July at 12 noon and 4pm, and on 4 July at 12 noon and 8pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/portrait-of-myself-as-my-father/
Eusèbe Jaojoby at the Transnet Great Hall on 7 July at 8pm and at Fingo Square on 8 July at 2pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/jaojoby-king-of-salegy/
Chasing Jaykb at The Vic on 6 July at 10pm, 8 July at 8pm, 9 July at 9pm and 11 July at 6pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/chasing-jaykb/
Masauko Chipembere of Blk Sonshine at The Vic on 3 July at 7pm, 5 July at 10pm, 6 July at 8pm and 7 July at 10pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/masauko-chipembere-of-blk-sonshine/
‘Celebrating African Music – A 60th Anniversary Concert’ is at the Transnet Great Hall on 4 July at 8pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/celebrating-african-music/
Dave Reynolds and Pops Mohamed (with Sylvain Baloubeta and Frank Paco) at the DSG Hall on 7 and 8 July at 5pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/dave-reynolds-pops-mohamed/
Oliver Mtukudzi performs at the DSG Hall on 10 July at 5pm and 11 July at 9pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/oliver-mtukudzi/
Lionel Loueke in Concert with Concord Nkabinde (bass) at the DSG Hall on 3 July at 7.30pm.Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/lionel-loueke-in-concert/
Lionel Loueke in collaboration with Siya Makuzeni (vocals), Marcus Wyatt (trumpet), Shane Cooper (bass), Ayanda Sikade (drums) at the DSG Hall on 4 July at 10pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/lionel-loueke-in-collaboration/
Bokani Dyer Quintet at the DSG Hall on 2 July at 5pm and 4 July at 5pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/bokani-dyer-quintet/
Kunle Ayo at the DSG Hall on 11 July at 5pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/kunle-ayo/
‘The Gods of Water’ will be screened at Oliver Schreiner Hall on 8 July at 7.30pm and on 9 July at 7.30pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/the-gods-of-water-los-dioses-de-agua/
‘Bleeding Rose’ will be screened at Oliver Schreiner Hall on 10 July at 5pm. Book here: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/bleeding-rose/
Bookings are open and can be made via the website: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za. Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004
Pick up a Festival programme and booking kit from selected Standard Bank and Exclusive Books branches. The full programme is online at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
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Website: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za and www.youthjazz.co.za
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