(Ismail Mahomed, Artistic Director of the festival. Pic by Suzy Bernstein)
Satire and freedom of
expression will seize centre stage at this year’s National Arts Festival, which
runs from July 2 to 12 in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape.
Responding to social and
political debates currently raging in South Africa, the Festival organisers have
chosen to highlight the genre of satire in place of the usual “featured artist”
category. “In taking a strong advocacy and agitating angle, this year’s
programme not only honours South Africa’s constitutional right to free speech,
but also creates opportunities for South Africans to do what they do best –
engage passionately and honestly about life in our country,” explains Ismail
Mahomed, the Festival’s Artistic Director.
“The arts need to
challenge and provoke,” he says. “South Africa’s satirists, cartoonists,
commentators and court jesters need, now more than ever, to be given the opportunity
to be the public voice, the conscience, of the nation.”
South Africa’s most
acclaimed satirists – Pieter-Dirk Uys, Chester Missing, Loyiso Gola and Iain
EWOK Robinson, as well as works such as Tara Notcutt’s Three Blind Mice – will keep South Africans on their toes,
challenging audiences while helping us to laugh at ourselves.
Now in its 41st
year, the Festival’s Main programme pays homage to some of the country’s most
important living and past legends. “This year’s programme aims to take us
forward into new, exciting spaces while acknowledging the depth of our roots
and our heritage," Mahomed says.
New voices and talents –
especially those created by the Standard Bank Young Artist Award winners – will
invite the exploration of fresh creative territories. The inclusion of women artists
– Thoko Ndlozi, Maralin Vanreenen, Mamela Nyamza, Bronwen Forbay, Faniswa Yisa,
Patricia Boyer, and Nelisiwe Xaba – also serves to underscore the Festival’s commitment
to feature strong and visible women on the programme.
International
collaboration is another undisputed priority, Mahomed says. This year’s
programme demonstrates a deepening of relationships with countries north of our
border, with Botswana (pop band Chasing Jaykb performing on the Fringe) and
Zimbabwe (the extraordinary Tumbuka’s dance piece Portrait of Myself as my Father) represented.
On the programme are
works and artists from around the globe, including Leslie Lewis in Miracle in Rwanda, the incredible story
of Rwanda genocide survivor Immaculée Ilibagiza; Irish comic and writer Dylan
Moran, best known for his sardonic observational comedy (and the BAFTA
Award-winning UK television series Black
Books); and Dutch electric jazz outfit PAND7090.
The Standard Bank Jazz
Festival continues to hold its own as the country’s leading live jazz event,
playing home to African jazz
greats such as Carlo Mombelli, Pops Mohamed and Dave Reynolds, Mandla Mlangeni,
Vuma Levin, and former Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner Kesivan Naidoo. International
acts include Dutch saxophonist Yuri Honing, New York-based Lionel Loueke, Austrian
pianist David Helbock, and the violin-piano duo Chi-pin Hsieh and Kai-ya Chang from Taiwan.
The contemporary music
line-up sizzles with swag, with Ray Phiri in town for a one-night-only solo
concert. Beatenburg, Shortstraw, Thandiswa Mazwai and MiCasa all feature on the
Main programme this year.
Tony Lankester, the
Festival’s Chief Executive, says: “Behind the scenes we’re working harder than
ever to deliver an event that is slicker and more tech savvy. We’re focused on
creating an amazing, hassle-free experience for our festivalgoers. Our other priority
is to deepen our relationship with our host city and we are focused on being a
more visible and relevant part of everyday, year-round life in Grahamstown.”
FESTIVAL FIRSTS:
In their efforts to keep growing the Festival as an exciting
and innovative platform for South Africa, the organisers add new features to
the programme each year.
This year, the Festival will stage a series of productions
that pay tribute to one of our country’s legends – the Arts Icon series will
celebrate the work of 70-year-old master satirist Pieter Dirk-Uys with the
staging of four of his productions: the world premieres of African Times and The Echo of
a Noise; as well as his cabaret, Never
Too Naked; and a once-only presentation of A Part Hate A Part Love. Three of Uys’s films will feature on the
Film Festival: Farce About Uys; Adapt or
Dye; and Skating on Thin Uys, which
will be attended by honoured guest Evita Bezuidenhout.
Another innovation is the Featured Young Curator. This year
it’s Johannesburg-based curator Lerato Bereng, who works at the Stevenson
Gallery. Her hand can be seen in Simon Gush’s show, Red, and also in Standard Bank Young Artist Kemang Wa Lehulere’s
showcase, Dreamer Imaginist: History will
Break Your Heart.
STANDARD BANK YOUNG
ARTISTS:
A keystone of the
Festival programme for more than 30 years, this year’s Standard Bank Young
Artist Award winners continue to raise the bar of artistic excellence. The
Festival provides a showcase for new works by the six artists: choreographer
and Vuyani Dance Theatre Artistic Director
Luyanda Sidiya (Dance) presents Siva
(7); director, actor and writer Christiaan
Olwagen (Theatre), who will present Doll’s
House; boundary-breaking artist Athi-Patra
Ruga (Performance Art), who will present The Elder of Azania; baritone Musa Ngqungwana
(Music) and pianist Nduduzo Makhathini (Jazz) will both be in concert; and Kemang Wa
Lehulere (Visual Art), whose exhibition Dreamer
Imaginist: History will Break Your Heart is curated by Lerato Bereng.
THEATRE:
3 x
world premieres: Prolific writer, actor and satirist
Pieter-Dirk Uys’s African Times as
well as the Echo of a Noise;
and award-winning author and playwright Craig Higginson’s haunting
production, The Imagined Land.
3 x South African premieres: Another Great Year for Fishing, an intriguing ode to slowness by and with Flemish actor Tom Struyf and dancer Nelle
Hens; Hirsch, the touching tribute to Canadian theatre genius John
Hirsch; and Miracle in Rwanda, a
one-woman show from the US.
5 x new South African plays:Three Blind Mice, a gritty journey
into the heart of South Africa’s judicial and penal systems directed by Tara
Notcutt; A Voice I Cannot Silence, a play by 2014 Standard Bank Young
Artist Award winner Greg Homann and Ralph Lawson that pays tribute to poet and
author Alan Paton; the
Dutch-South African collaboration Masote's
Dream, about the life of South Africa's black classical music legend and
composer Michael Masote; YOBO by spoken word activist Iain EWOK Robinson; and
Missing, the personal story of satirist
Conrad Koch told with the help of his more famous associate and free-speech
advocate, Chester.
3 x adaptations: Doll’s House, adapted by Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner Christiaan
Olwagen from Henrik Ibsen; Woman Alone, adapted by Christo Davids from
Dannelene Noach’s novel Arabian Nightmare;
and I Have Life, the story of rape survivor Alison Botha adapted by
Maralin Vanrenen from the book by Marianne Thamm.
3 x revivals: Born in the RSA, Barney Simon’s classic play brought back to the
stage to mark the 20th anniversary of his death is directed by Thoko
Ntshinga and stars Faniswa Yisa and Emily Child; the
Brazilian satire Miss Margarida's Way,
performed by Patricia Boyer and directed by Pieter Bosch Botha; and The Cenotaph of
Dan Wa Moriri, Tony Miyambo’s
triumph of collaborative engagement and performance.
And, of course, 1x Shakespeare: Fred Abrahamse and
Marcel Meyer’s inspired adaption of The
Tragedy of Hamlet.
MUSIC:
The classical music
programme celebrates voice with a delightfully loaded operatic and choral
line-up: Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner Musa Ngqungwana in Concert; Romantic Songs of Love; Nocturne; Not Just
Another Night at the Opera, the Soweto-based Songs of the Harvest Choir; and War & Peace. A 70th birthday tribute will honour
South African composer Peter Klatzow. This year’s Gala and Symphony concerts
will be presented by the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra. The Gala
Concert will be under the baton of South Africa’s favourite conductor, Richard
Cock.
DANCE PROGRAMME:
This year’s dance works don’t shy away from the tough
topics: arts funding, demographics and political correctness (The Last Dance / Pointe by Mamela Nyamza
and Nelisiwe Xaba); community, power
and masculinity (Moving Into Dance
Mophatong’s Ngiswize); and human
trafficking (MIDM’s Man-Longing). Zimbabwean
dance company Tumbuka explores fatherhood and identity in Portrait of Myself as my Father. Cape Town City Ballet will present
two works by world-renowned choreographer John Neumeier – Spring and Fall and Le Sacre.
VISUAL ART:
Works by Standard
Bank Young Artist Award winner Kemang Wa Lehulere, as well as those by Themba
Shibase, Keith Dietrich, Jodi Bieber, Monique Pelser and Michael Godby
highlight the engagement between artist and contemporary issues – political
conflict, race, colonialism, identity, war and terror.
PERFORMANCE ART:
Standard Bank Young
Artist Award winner Athi-Patra Ruga expands his fantastical Future White Women of Azania series with
The Elder of Azania;
while Gavin Krastin explores what it means to be human in his “performance
cabaret”, On Seeing Red and Other Fantasies.
EASTERN CAPE SHOWCASE:
Devised and compiled by the Eastern Cape Department of
Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, this showcase comprises an indigenous
music and dance ensemble, visual arts exhibition, a craft exhibition, as well
as an Eastern Cape Provincial Arts and Culture Council theatre showcase.
FILM:
The Film programme will explore limits of expression
and liberty, and features, among many others, the work of Afrikaans
screenwriter and director Jans Rautenbach, whose films (Die Kandidaat, Katrina) made in 1960s and 70s South Africa were
seen as bravely critical of the apartheid government.
FAMILY
FARE:
There are three family fare
productions on the Main programme this year presented through collaborations
between South Africa and international partners: True Confusion (Danish company ZeBU & ASSITEJ SA); Red Earth Revisited (Speeltheater Holland
Studio & ASSITEJ SA), and Tea
(Dutch performance company Poolse Vis & Twist Development Trust).
THE ARENA:
The Arena Programme hosts eight South African award-winning
companies and three international works that have won fringe awards. Theatre
productions grapple with controversial issues such as sexual identity (Horses Heads’ Similar To) and cultural divisions (Lentswe Art
Projects’ Boy). Jori Snell captures a
younger audience with her interactive installation The Paper Den, and KMAD examines the language of dance in Lyftaal. Joanna
Wicherek presents the South African premiere of Poems – a recital of work by renowned Polish composers.
THE FRINGE:
While the vibrant 400-production strong
Fringe programme still has Theatre as its mainstay, there’s a bumper bunch of
comedy (56 productions), physical theatre (41), poetry and storytelling (11),
illusion (7), visual art (57 exhibitions) and dance (34) to shore up the open-access
platform this year.
STUDENT THEATRE:
Presented by third-
and fourth-year performing arts students at 14 South African tertiary
institutions: the universities of Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal, Stellenbosch,
Johannesburg, Wits, Rhodes; the Tshwane University of Technology; the Market
Theatre Laboratory; Oakfields College; Durban University of Technology; AFDA;
the Waterfront Theatre School; and City Varsity.
THINK!FEST:
A series of debates and discussions will
see South Africa’s thought leaders, trendsetters and provocateurs grappling
with issues around satire and freedom of expression, secrecy and surveillance,
non-racialism, and a range of other socially relevant themes.
PUBLIC ART:
A street parade and three
public art productions, including Richard Antrobus’s Suggestion Box, which will see the performer trapped in a
transparent box into which festival goers will be invited to post suggestions
and comments about the Festival;
and Francois Knoetser’s public art installation The Cape Mongo, which will challenge the viewer to rethink
recyclable materials.
The National Arts Festival is grateful to its presenting
sponsors: Standard Bank, the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, the Department
of Arts and Culture, and the Eastern Cape Department of Sports, Recreation,
Arts and Culture. City Press and M-Net are our media partners.
Bookings open on May 8, 2015, and can be made via the
website: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za.
Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004
Pick up a Festival programme and booking kit from selected
Standard Bank and Exclusive Books branches. The full programme will be online
from April 30 at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
or click on the Festival’s banner at the top of this page.
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