AWARD-WINNING ARTISTS FOR NAF ARENA

This year’s National Arts Festival Arena programme will feature new productions presented by winners of the 2011 Standard Bank Ovation Awards.

Also on this platform, will be two award-winning productions invited from World Fringe Alliance member festivals. The 38th National Arts Festival runs from June 28 to July 8 in Grahamstown this year.

From the Perth Fringe World Festival and with support from the Australian High Commission, Hope is the Saddest, devised and directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler is a bittersweet story of falling in love, bicycles, death and Dolly Parton. Hope is a childlike, eternally optimistic young woman who takes all her life lessons from Dolly Parton’s lyrics and is not afraid to go to extreme measures when fate makes true love land/collapse at her feet.

The Amsterdam Fringe’s winning 2011 production will be presented with support from the Royal Netherlands Embassy. Performers Anne Gehring and Vera Ketelaars reconstruct an upheaval in the perfectly normal lives of two ordinary women in Bye Bye World! - a transparent parable about living today.

Written and directed by Janna Ramos-Violante, Callum’s Will by the Thin Skin Collective takes audiences on an almost filmic journey, offering a quiet window into the tiny intricacies of human behaviour, as they watch the unlikely relationship between two men evolve from an awkward first encounter to a deep and lasting friendship which neither expects nor understands.

The Three Little Pigs is a taut psychological thriller set in a world where Animal Farm meets Reservoir Dogs to deliver a dark and unexpected take on a classic children’s story. A delightfully twisted collaboration between multi award-winning artists Tara Notcutt (…miskien, Mafeking Road), James Cairns (Dirt, Sie Weis Alles), Albert Pretorius (…miskien) and Rob van Vuuren (Rob van Vuuren - Live!, The Most Amazing Show).

Sylvaine Strike-Nakar directs Greg Melvill-Smith and Craig Morris in ReVerse – an intricate interdisciplinary exploration of the evolution of Homo sapiens; and the complex interaction between words, mind and body. A visual/verbal interpretation of humankind’s ascent, descent and the complex interactions between modern people and their divergent beliefs.

Inspired by Claudio Stellato’s L’Autre, choreographer Nicola Elliot’s Fragile explores performer presence and the performance of the moment; combining theatre and dance, realism and abstraction into philosophical collage.

Under the musical direction of SAMA award-winning musician Tlale Makhene, the Sibikwa Indigenous Orchestra re–invents the sounds of traditional instruments for the 21st century, in Ekugaleni.

Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company will offer a double bill of resident choreographer Lliane Loot’s most recent two works - a solo work that takes a look at contemporary black womanhood which still bears the definitions of paternal culture; and Mapping Nostalgia - a journey into a remembered South Africa, almost 18 years after the turn to democracy.

Bookings for this year’s “11 Days of Amaz!ng” is now open at Computicket. Booking kits are available from selected Standard Bank branches, selected Exclusive Books and Computicket branches. For more information on the programme, accommodation and travel options visit www.nationalartsfestival.co.za. Also join the National Arts Festival group on Facebook for all the latest news, or follow on Twitter.

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