NAF EXPLORES EDINBURGH

A National Arts Festival Grahamstown delegation heads for Edinburgh.

A National Arts Festival delegation heads for Edinburgh, Scotland, to share South Africa’s top festival with the best of the global arts-world, and to see what can be brought back to Grahamstown from this internationally renowned arts-embracing city.

Edinburgh is known as the world’s Festival City, playing host to 12 major festivals throughout the year. Seven of these festivals run concurrently during the month of August, earning Edinburgh the title of being the largest most respected arts festival city in the world.

Tony Lankester, National Arts Festival CEO, will present a paper on Fringes around the World as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme on August 22. He will be joined in Edinburgh by National Arts Festival Fringe manager Kate Axe-Davies, and the Festival’s media liaison, Gilly Hemphill. “Our aim in Edinburgh is to expose the National Arts Festival and Grahamstown to wider audiences and to the media that support festivals around the world, promote collaborative exchanges with other festivals internationally and develop audiences,” he says.

There are seven South African productions that are part of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme, which fills 200 venues across the city of Edinburgh which runs from August 7 to 31. South African favourites on the Edinburgh stages include the acclaimed Soweto Gospel Choir, the African Children’s Choir from Nkomazi, and SA guitar legend Tony Cox.

South African authors that will form part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival (August 15 to 31) programme include South African born Gillian Slovo (Black Orchids), Joel Joffe (The State vs. Nelson Mandela) and Alistair Morgan (Sleeper’s Wake).

William Kentridge, previous Standard Bank Young Artists Award winner, will also discuss his work, and particularly his collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s workshop programme.

Tony Cox will perform after a function hosted by the National Arts Festival for the Scottish media. This event will be held on August 24 with the purpose of discussing the impact of the FIFA World Cup on the 2010 Festival, how the Festival is opening its stages for the world’s performers and to discuss opportunities for the international press to cover the 2010 Festival.

The National Arts Festival is sponsored by Standard Bank, The Eastern Cape Government, The National Arts Council, The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, The Sunday Independent and M-Net.