BASA TO BENEFIT FRINGE

Sponsorship from BASA to benefit fringe artists at the National Arts Festival.

Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) have announced that they will contribute R200,000 to the National Arts Festival sponsorship pool for 2009’s Festival, held from July 2 to 11 in Grahamstown.

Founded in 1997 as a joint initiative of government and the business sector, BASA has as its primary aim the promotion and encouragement of mutually beneficial and sustainable business-arts partnerships that will, in the long term, benefit the community at large. To this end, BASA’s Festival sponsorship will be put towards two of the Festival’s projects that mainly benefit the Festival’s Fringe artists, namely the CUE Fringe supplement and the Hands On! Masks Off! programme.

“BASA is committed to ensuring that arts sponsorship is a serious business,” said Michelle Constant, CEO of BASA. “The two projects we are supporting are very much in line with BASA’s vision. I am particularly excited about the Hands On! Masks Off! initiative. I believe that the up-skilling and empowerment of artists is crucial in creating a sustainable arts environment. Having seen it in operation last year, I was very impressed with the goals of these workshops,” said Constant.

The purpose of the Festival’s Hands On! Masks Off! programme, launched last year, is to provide artists at the Festival with a platform to network with other performers, and to acquire and sharpen the skills necessary to conduct their craft as a profession. The programme for this year, facilitated by various professionals in a practical workshop format, will again be focused on equipping Fringe and Main Festival performers with a mixture of hard business / marketing skills and performance / craft skills.

CUE is the festival’s official daily newspaper, published by Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies, with sponsorship by Standard Bank and BASA. The main aim of CUE’s Fringe supplement is to give the artists on the Fringe, who often don’t have the resources to do extensive marketing, a visible and viable platform for exposure. The Fringe supplement runs between 10 and 12 pages daily throughout the Festival, and includes general news, photography, reviews and feature content. All of the Fringe productions, many of whom cannot afford the services of a professional photographer, will also have access to the quality high-resolution photographs taken by the CUEPIX journalists to use for promotional purposes following the Festival.

“I feel that this partnership with BASA strengthens our commitment to ensuring that we provide a festival of excellence with projects like “Hands On! Masks Off!” and CUE, which is the voice of the Festival” said Tony Lankester, National Arts Festival CEO. “This sponsorship will enable these projects to continue delivering on the Festival and BASA’s mutual commitment to the development of the arts in South Africa.”