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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

WOMEN TAKE CENTRE STAGE AT NAF



(“I Have Life” –Alison, as played by Suanne Braun, crawls to the road to save her life)

This year's programme features more women in an effort to amplify female voices in the theatrical, performing and visual arts.

This year's National Arts Festival - which runs from July 2 to 12 - not only features a number of strong and visible women in most genres, but also numerous productions and exhibitions that interrogate and question fixed thinking in relation to gender more broadly.

At the closing of the recent PEN World Voices Festival in New York, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke out against the 'codes of silence' that govern American life. 'The fear of causing offence, the fear of ruffling the careful layers of comfort, becomes a fetish,' Adichie said.

Practicing what she preaches, the award-winning writer recently spoke out against the criminalisation of homosexuality in her home country. But, she told The Guardian: 'I have often been told that I cannot speak on certain issues because I am young, and female, or, to use the disparaging Nigerian speak, because I am a "small girl". I have also been told that I should not speak because I am a fiction writer ... But I am as much a citizen as I am a writer.'

Adichie's critique could equally be levelled at South Africa's slow burning culture of consent in relation to everyday gender inequities and the often unspoken violence that plagues the lives of many South African women. This year, the National Arts Festival tackles this seam of gender inequality head-on.

This focus forms part of the overall thrust of this year's Festival to bring urgent social matters to light and present material that explores the limits of expressive liberty, provoking audiences and taking them beyond their comfort zones.

“The arts need to challenge and provoke,” says the Festival's Artistic Director, Ismail Mahomed - and that includes provocation in relation to the most intimate questions of gender identity, sexuality and power relations.

More female artists have been consciously featured in the 2015 programme in an effort to amplify female voices in the theatrical, performing and visual arts. Among the many female writers, directors, performers, curators and trailblazing artists across all genres appearing at this year's National Arts Festival, some of the leading lights include:

- Tara Louise Notcutt is involved in seven productions at NAF2015, not least Three Blind Mice. Notcutt directs James Cairns, Albert Pretorius and Rob van Vuuren in this unforgiving journey into the dark heart of South African justice, which looks to the horrific and barely believable narratives (Pistorius, Dewani) that have dominated our media recently.

- Thoko Ntshinga directs the Baxter Theatre Centre's revival of legendary South African theatre-maker Barney Simon's hard-hitting 1985 docudrama Born in the RSA. Having performed the role of Thenjiwe in the original production, Ntshinga is the lifeline connecting the 1985 staging to this current revival.

- Patricia Boyer: Miss Margarida's Way. Audiences and critics in over 50 countries have cheered this allegory about totalitarianism, which uses as its central metaphor a classroom. Also Florence: A Script Reading (as part of Think!Fest 2015) exploring the life of Lady Florence Phillips and the circumstances that led to the creation of the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

- Nelisiwe Xaba and Mamela Nyamza: The Last Attitude. After years of not dancing together, two female choreographers/dancers meet up on stage again to do a ballet. The piece will interrogate the politics of this ancient art form: including the male posture and the relationship between the male principal dancer and the ballerina.

- Jolynn Minaar: Unearthed. A young South African filmmaker swallows her optimism on the potential shale gas could bring to her people after travelling to ground zero and uncovering the dirty secrets of the fracking industry.

- Jodi Bieber: Between Darkness and Light is this internationally acclaimed photographer's first major mid-career retrospective and includes a selection of her work from 1993 to the present. The show has been exhibited at Stadhaus Ulm and Museum Goch in Germany as well as the Wits Art Museum.

- Monique Pelser: Conversations with My Father is a continuous dialogue (2011 - to date) between the artist and the objects, images, sound recordings and documents she inherited after her father died of a rare motor neuron disease which rendered him unable to speak for the last year and a half of his life. Her father was 'a good man, a good father'. As a member of the South African Police force, he was also a product of his environment.

- Thandiswa Mazwai. The Guardian recently called her 'South Africa's finest female contemporary singer'. One of South Africa's most influential musicians, her music defies categorisation, but reflects elements of African traditional, jazz, Afro-soul and house.

- Thandi Ntuli. Captivating young pianist Thandi Ntuli is making waves in the contemporary South African jazz scene and rapidly earning the admiration of the industry's most respected musos. She has performed on various local and international stages including the Calabar International Jazz Festival, and recently returned from a national tour promoting her solo album, The Offering, which has received high accolades.

- Also catch pianist Kai-ya Chang and gifted vocalists Nomfundo Xaluva, Lindiwe Maxolo, Auriol Hays and Siya Makuzeni (vocals/trombone) at the Standard Bank Jazz Festival.

Lerato Bereng is this year's Featured Young Curator. Having graduated with a Masters in Fine Art (with distinction) from Rhodes University, she will be returning to her stomping ground. Bereng, who is a curator at Stevenson gallery in Johannesburg, has curated Nine O'Clock, an exhibition featuring a selection of works by Simon Gush, including elements from his project, Red (2014), and administrator.

For gripping theatre based on harrowing true stories about women rising up against the odds, see:

- I Have Life: Alison's Story: Based on the true story of a woman who, 20 years ago, was raped, stabbed multiple times and then had her throat cut, SAFTA Lifetime Achievement award winning theatre director Maralin Vanrenen's adaptation of Marianne Thamm's book, is a tribute to one woman's remarkable journey from her ordeal, through her recovery and on to becoming an inspiration around the globe. Featuring Suanne Braun as Alison Botha.

- Woman Alone, Christo Davids' adaptation of Dannelene Noach's autobiographical novel Arabian Nightmare tells the story of a woman working as nursing co-ordinator in one of the large, modern hospitals in Riyadh who ends up being abducted and incarcerated in a Saudi Arabian jail. A Muslim woman comes her rescue in a poignant tale about personal courage in the context of current-day religious conflicts.

Bookings are open and can be made via the website – click on the festival banner at the top of this page or visit www.nationalartsfestival.co.za Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004

Festival programmes and booking kits are available from selected Standard Bank and Exclusive Books. The full programme is online at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za