(Abel
Selaocoe, 2017 Standard Bank Young Artist for Music)
For 11 days Grahamstown will become the
cultural mecca of South Africa when the National Arts Festival draws artists,
dancers and musicians from around the world to perform on its stages from June 29
to July 9.
The National Arts Festival has become a homecoming
pilgrimage for many South African artists living and working abroad and this
year is no different: Cellist Abel Selaocoe, the 2017 Standard Bank Young
Artist for Music, returns from the UK to present an excitingly diverse recital
at the Festival as well as to perform as a soloist at the Festival Gala Concert on July 8.
Soweto-born dancer and choreographer
Vincent Mantsoe returns from his home in France to perform KonKoriti. Described by The Guardian’s dance writer Sanjoy Roy as a
“magnetic soloist”, Mantsoe is best known for his work around spirituality and
African and indigenous heritage. In KonKoriti,
he takes on the foolishness of pride and arrogance.
UK comedian Stephen K Amos is including
Grahamstown in his World Famous tour
with two unmissable shows. “I want you to laugh and then I pull the rug from
under your feet by making you think about quite important points,” Amos has
said of his brilliant brand of observational comedy.
The fascinating It’s Only Birds is another sure-fire Festival hit. Comic Louise
Reay, fresh from the Adelaide Fringe (Best Emerging Artist 2017) and Edinburgh
Fringe (Groundbreaker Award 2016), performs the play in Mandarin. The artist’s
challenge to her audience is that they will still understand the play through
non-verbal communication, with astonishing results.
Excavating history, faith and cultural
integration, the one-woman show from the UK, The Crows Plucked Your Sinews is performed by Subaan actress Aisha
Mohammed, with the accompaniment of Oud musician Abdulkader Saadoun. The play
weaves the narrative of a young Somalian woman living in London in 2011 with
the war in Somaliland in 1913. Described by North West End press as “an
important piece of theatre that needs to be seen”, the production runs from July
5 to 8.
In partnership with Business and Arts South
Africa and the World Fringe Alliance, Macho
Macho (Best of Amsterdam Fringe 2016) will be presented as part of the
Arena programme, a collection of works that have won a Standard Bank Ovation
Award, a Cape Town Fringe Fresh Award or a jury award at an international
fringe festival. Macho Macho explores
ideas of masculinity – from bromance to beer drinking – through intensely
physical and vibrant stagecraft.
With sell-out runs at London’s Soho Theatre
and at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival,
Police Cops is a slightly
different spoof on masculinity – and epic cop movies. This highly entertaining
and energetic piece has taken home a string of theatre awards, including the
Cape Town Fringe’s Best International Show Fringe Fresh Award in 2016.
Performance art lovers are in for a treat
with a double bill by Swiss choreographer Philippe Saire. Neons and Vacuum form
part of a series called Dispositifs,
where the visual concept leads the creative process. Neons tells of the intensity of a relationship through contrasts in
light, while Vacuum is an interplay
of black holes and dazzling lights.
International guests on the Think!Fest
programme include Galen Bresson (CEO of Creative Industries and National Events
Agency in the Seychelles), Natalie Kombe (Shoko Festival Coordinator in
Zimbabwe) and Jiggs Thorne (Director of the Bushfire Festival in Swaziland).
They will be participating in several events including #ArtOut and a panel
discussion on curation. Professor Emmanuel Dandaura vice president of the
International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) will be attending the Festival
for the launch of a local chapter of IATC and, along with dancer/choreographer,
Hannah Ma from Germany, all of these international guests will participate in
an International Arts Symposium open to artists to be held at NELM on July 6.
The Standard Bank Jazz Festival will
present an array of international artists including Australia’s James Morrisson
Quartet, Brazilian bass prodigy Michael Pipoquinha (performing solo and with
Swiss pianist Malcolm Braff) and US steel pan master Andy Narell. A hallmark of
the Jazz Festival is the SA/international collaborations. Among those on the
bill this year are former Standard Bank Young Artist winners Shane Cooper and
Bokani Dreyer performing with phenomenal international musicians Christoph
Iringer (CH) and Ziv Ravitz (US).
In a first for the Festival, Grahamstown
audiences can attend screenings of two of the UK’s National Theatre
productions; Twelfth Night and Amadeus.
According to National Arts Festival
Executive Producer Ashraf Johaardien, it has been particularly tough to
programme international work in the current economic climate. “The Festival is
very fortunate to have a network of strong diplomatic relationships who along
with the World Fringe Alliance, have stepped up once again this year to help us
bring some of the best of the world to the Festival’s stages and platforms,”
Johaardien said. “In addition to bringing this work to the Festival audiences,
we are particularly keen for our artists to meet artists from around the world
as the Festival has an important legacy of forging opportunities for artists to
create incredible work together,” he added.
The National Arts Festival is grateful to:
the Department of Arts and Culture, Eastern Cape Department of Sport,
Recreation, Arts and Culture and the Office of the Premier, and Standard Bank
of South Africa. Media partners include MNet and City Press.
The National Arts Festival’s programme is
online and available for booking on the site www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
– or click on the banner advert at the top of this page.
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