(Left: Rucera
Seethal)
The National Arts Festival team asked
Rucera Seethal, the Artistic Director of the National Arts Festival, some
questions about how she’s finding her new job in these challenging,
ever-shifting times…
You
are currently in Johannesburg with your family for the lockdown period but you
moved to Makhanda in January. How have you found small-town life? Any surprises
about our little town?
After touching down running, I really did
just about start to settle when I needed to leave for Johannesburg and this is
where I am in lockdown. Part of making home is cultivating small habits. In
Makhanda, I’ve been working on avoiding the traffic lights outside the
Cathedral, which seem to take a particularly long time to change to green for a
hardened Johannesburg driver; catching coffee at Barista Sisa opposite Drostdy
Arch, which also does a fantastic homemade chicken pie; and driving to the
coast – the pineapple beer at the big pineapple in Bathurst was a very
refreshing discovery. I look forward to
expanding my Makhandian experience base when I am able to get back.
What
are you finding the biggest challenges of working at home and telecommuting
between Joburg and Makhanda?
I really like the possibility of having
less division between my work, family and home life, but finding balance of
time and attention for it all takes time, patience and flexibility.
The
demands of the 2020 Virtual NAF must be completely different to curating a
traditional festival – what have you found to be the biggest challenges and the
most interesting aspects of this reconceptualisation of the Festival?
Since we announced, we immediately went
into brainstorming and researching possible ways to host or present the
Festival, while at the same time working out what kinds of content we could be
working with, and how to enable artists to respond to this change, and also
reconfiguring internal working groups, and figuring out ways of distance
working. How we are all still standing is a small miracle. I’m very pleased to
see that a big organisation like the NAF can be flexible and responsive, this
is completely necessary in an invariably volatile future.
What
are you reading at the moment?
The
Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
and Stars in my Pocket like Grains of
Sand by Samuel Delany.
What’s
your favourite stress snack?
5 Roses tea hot milk no sugar, please. But right now, also marshmallow Easter eggs.
What song is on repeat for you at the
moment?
Driving up from Makhanda I had Kyle
Shepherd, Mandla Mlangeni and Kanye West as company. In my current lockdown set
up, my cousin dominates the sound in the house, so far that’s working for me.
What are you most looking forward to doing,
once the lockdown is over?
Drinking wine and hugging.
(To link direct to the NAF site click on
the large banner that runs across the top of this blog or visit
https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za or visit Facebook:
www.facebook.com/nationalartsfestival; Twitter: @artsfestival or Instagram:
nationalartsfestival)
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