The 2014 ACT Awards is fast-approaching and Young Professionals
and Lifetime Achievers in the arts will be honoured on November 25 in a night
of entertainment.
For the past 16 years, the Arts & Culture Trust (ACT)
Awards have recognised and celebrated luminaries who have made outstanding
contributions in the arts. The 17th annual ACT Awards is also in celebration of
the Trust’s 20th anniversary. This acknowledgment presents Lifetime Achievement
Awards to honour arts professionals whose extraordinary careers have had a
profound and lasting impact on arts, culture and heritage in the country.
Previous winners include Miriam Makeba, Nadine Gordimer, Pops Mohamed, Eskia
Mphahlele and Gcina Mhlophe, among others.
KZN theatre personalities, Themi Venturas and Caroline
Smart, are among the Trustees of the Arts & Culture Trust.
This year, co-founding trustee Sun International has come on
board to make this event even more memorable by hosting it at The Maslow Hotel,
and Nedbank Arts Affinity, also an ACT founding trustee, will be sponsoring the
event. The Awards also commend young professional artists who have
significantly contributed to the industry in the first five years of their
careers. Previous winners include The Muffinz, Bambo Sibiya, Blessing Ngobeni
and Ozlo Clothing.
Pieter Jacobs, CEO of ACT says: “It is our collective
responsibility to acknowledge and celebrate the work of individuals and groups
who have a positive impact on arts and culture in South Africa. It is vital to
the health and wealth of an industry that excellence is benchmarked and we are
tremendously grateful to our generous sponsors of the ACT Awards for allowing
us to honour the standard-bearers in the arts since inception of the Awards in
1998."
The awards ceremony promises an evening of entertainment as
emotions run high and winners are announced.
The ImpACT Awards for Young Professionals support talented
and emerging artists at a time in their careers when they have shown commitment
to, and reached some professional standing in their chosen discipline. These
are young professional artists, up to the age of 30 years, who fall within the
first five years of their professional careers. Each winner will receive a
feature in ClassicFeel Magazine to the editorial value of over R25,000 and a
cash prize of R1,500.
Maseda Ratshikuni, Head of Cause Marketing at Nedbank says:
“As a bank we are committed to supporting both young, up and coming arts
professionals as well as honouring people who have worked tirelessly within the
arts sector over a long period of time. Lifetime achievement awards are
bestowed on a few people who in their own rights leave legacies within the arts
and culture sector.”
The Arts & Culture Trust honour arts industry achievers,
who have made a significant impact, by awarding them with the ACT Lifetime
Achievement Award. These awards cover the categories Music, Theatre, Visual Art
and Literature, and for the first time this year an Arts Advocacy category,
launched in partnership with ClassicFeel Magazine, has been created to honour a
patron of the arts. The Lifetime Achievement Award winners are given R30,000
each, totalling an impressive R600,000 since 2008.
The 2014 ACT Awards ceremony is sponsored by Nedbank Arts
Affinity, hosted by Sun International and presented in association with the
Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organisation (DALRO), Media24 Books,
Classicfeel Magazine and is supported by the Distell Foundation and Business
and Arts South Africa (BASA).
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