NAF OVATION AWARDS

Standard Bank Gold and Silver Ovation Awards announced on final day of National Arts Festival.

The Standard Bank Ovation Awards were introduced this year to recognise excellence on the National Arts Festival Fringe programme, and aimed to seek out those productions that stand out from the crowd and are innovative, original and creatively outstanding.

"The Standard Bank Ovation Awards have raised the bar for Fringe performers in a significant way,” said Festival CEO Tony Lankester. “For the first time in a long while we have an awards programme at the Festival that acknowledges and rewards those for whom the annual pilgrimage to Grahamstown is an often unrewarded labour of love," he added.

Nominations for the awards came from any of the approximately 500 journalists who were accredited for this year’s Festival. When the production received sufficient nominations, members of the judging panel went to see it. Winners were announced every day in Cue, and the wining productions were given Ovation Award stickers to display on their posters and marketing material for the remainder of the Festival.

Today, the winners of each of the categories were announced, and the Gold winners received a prize of R5,000, while the Silver winners received a R1.000 each.

The 2010 Gold Award winners are: Theatre - London Road (KBT Productions); Physical Theatre - Butcher Brothers (Dark Laugh Theatre); Dance - Graduation Rites (Tshwane University of Technology); Comedy - Dekaf (David Newton Productions), and Music - Guy Buttery.

The 2010 Silver Award Winners are: Theatre - Karoo Moose (Baxter Theatre Centre in association with MOPO Productions), Miskien (The Pink Couch) and Breed (Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company); Physical Theatre - Elev(i)ate2 (Athena Mazarakis); Inua (Baba Yaga Theatre – Denmark), and Liquid Project (for Bloodshot and System Dop); Music - Nibs van der Spuy and Meri Kenaz.

The Encore Award, awarded to a young company performing at the Festival for the first time, which shows great promise for the future and which the Festival hopes will return in years to come went to The Soil (Vumile Nomanyama).

The Standing Ovation Award, presented for a company that has over a sustained period of time, contributed to the overall standard of excellence on the Fringe, went to Theatre for Afrika (Nick and Luke Ellenbogen)

The complete list of 2010 Standard Bank Ovation Award winners includes: Ama-No-Gawa; Beauty Therapy; Big Boys Don’t Dance; Blood Orange; Boston Marriage; Breed; Butcher Brothers; Convincing Carlos; Deep Freezing; Dekaf; D-Seven: Fresh A Capella; Elev(i)ate2; Extra-Ordinary; Graduation Rites; Guy Buttery; High Diving; I love you, you’re perfect, now change; Inua (Denmark); Karoo Moose; London Road; Mein Soldat; Meri Kenaz - in a moment; Miskien; Ncamisa! The Women; Nibs van der Spuy; Outside the New; Pictures of You; Rumpsteak; Same but not Different; Sitting around the fire; Steve Newman, Ashish Joshi, Greg Georgiades & Marc Duby; System Dop; The Eye Of The Storm; The Soil, and Tin Bucket Drum.

2010 Standard Bank Ovation Awards Panel included Adrienne Sichel (Theatre Journalist); Mary Corrigal (Sunday Independent); Karabo Kgoleng (SAfm); Laetitia Pople (Die Burger); Mary Jordan (Business Day); Cornelia le Roux (Herald); Robyn Sassen (Jewish Report); Caroline Smart (artSMart); Zingi Mkefa (Sunday Times & Radio Today); Siyabonga Mposula (University of Johannesburg Observer); Illa Thompson (Publicity Matters); Sharlene Versveld (Sharlene Versveld and Associates); Atiyyah Kahn (Argus Tonight); Theresa Smith (The Star Tonight); Yvette Hardie (ASSITEJ SA); Tony Lankester (National Arts Festival (Comedy/Music)), and Michelle Constant (SAfm (Music))