National Arts Festival Programme launch
TJ
Celebration as the 30th National Arts Festival Programme is announced
The milestone 2004 National Arts Festival opens in Grahamstown on 1 July
with an extensive line-up of South African and international events
capturing the spirit of the moment for a broad spectrum of audiences.
The programme was introduced at a series of media briefings round the
country this week and Festival Committee chair Mannie Manim was quoted
saying "it is appropriate that the Festival's 30th birthday should coincide
with South Africa's tenth year of democracy - a social miracle in which the
arts played a central role". A number of the main events from the Rhodes
University Centenary celebrations have been timed to coincide with the 2004
National Arts Festival, making Grahamstown the place to be in the first week
of July for everyone who is truly proudly South African.
Theatre
Tragedy has always made for great theatre and the 2004 National Arts
Festival programme promises a hefty dose of thought-provoking catharsis.
Sean Mathias (director of the movie Bent) uses Sophocles' Antigone as a
contemporary meditation on political will versus tradition-based conscience
with John Kani playing King Creon in this Baxter Theatre production.
Breathing In, Reza de Wet's latest visitation from the Anglo-Boer War
period, calls up the darker instincts that lurk in the recesses of the human
psyche.
A new production by Young Artist Award Winner Mncedisi Shabangu dramatises
the bleak poetry of Cold Stone Jug, Herman Charles Bosman's prison
chronicle. 'Happy Endings' Are Extra by Ashraf Johaardien evokes the hubris
of suppressed sexuality that sets a rent-boy, a bisexual man and his fiancée
on a collision course.
Betrayal is the fulcrum in two other pieces of contemporary social
commentary. Bongani Linda's Skin Deep adds two teenage daughters (one on
either side) to the comic 'Madam and Eve' scenario and fault-lines yawn
beneath the routines of washing-up and shopping. Pieter Toerien's production
of Honour by Australian writer Joanna Murray-Smith, subverts the wronged
wife/unfaithful husband theme with a refreshingly novel outcome.
Going straight to the heart via the funny-bone, a number of Festival 2004
theatre works use humour as the medium for tough messages.
Those irresistible rubber men, Andrew Buckland and Lionel Newton, have
cooked up a new romp-with-a-message, Fuse, that takes you places other
comics fail to reach. The protagonist's of Braam van der Vyver's Straties
are homeless 'poor whites' - down but not out thanks to the phenomenal
energy and originality they bring to informal Afrikaans - laugh while you
wipe away a tear!
Craig Freimond's King of Laughter has an emphatically un-amused laugh-track
technician speak lines so articulate and witty he tickles ribs as he
searches for his own elusive chortle. Pieter-Dirk Uys's The End is Naai puts
the ten-year-old New South Africa in the hot seat with Evita, Bambi and co.
as chief interrogators.
Sara Matchett of the Mothertongue Project takes audiences for a joy-ride
(literally) with Uhambo (the journey) which uses stories collected in
minibus taxis to show how South African life has changed since 1994.
Pulsing with delight at the potential of multi-media, 40 000 Sublime and
Beautiful Thoughts from the Netherlands uses texts, actors, a video beam and
a DJ to create a high energy event that stimulates new ideas about everyday
assumptions. Jerry Mofokeng's Mpolelle (Tell Me About It) celebrates the
culture of the Basotho in song, dance and storytelling with lashings of
emotional colour.
Emerging artists from their Eastern Cape chosen for their talent and
professionalism keep The Studio venue jumping with song, dance, drama and a
delicious traditional Xhosa kos - a firm Festival favourite.
And for festinos who like their theatre laced with risk and hormones, the
Student Theatre Festival's eleven productions hot from South Africa's
leading tertiary training institutions are essential viewing.
Street Theatre
Out in the streets five zingy troupes make theatre that's free for all.
Ellis Pearson and Bheki Mkhwane play three of their golden oldies in
rotation: Boy Called Rubbish, Squawk and iLobola. Alfred Hinkel's Jazzart
and Mark Fleishman's Magnet Theatre collaborate in Rain in a Dead Man's
Footprints to invoke in sight and sound the histories and myths of the /Xam,
defying reality with their use of fire, dance, music, puppets and illusion.
The Odd Enjinears in Ten Two One will erect their 'Mobile Odd Tower', a
mind-boggling six-metre high musical thingamajig powered by people,
machinery contraptions, compressed air and water.
Cherryco and Tekweni Puppetplays alternate two shows: African Fables and
Pet's Tale which both feature puppets, mime, magic and mask work. The Art of
the Street sees the youngsters from Grahamstown's Eluxolweni street
children's shelter back in action with redoubled vigour under project leader
Alex Sutherland.
Music
Combining drama and music, the opera programme features two exotic pieces
steaming with love and death. The Cape Town City Opera with the
KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra present Angelo Gobbato's production of
The Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet set on a beach in ancient Sri Lanka. For
Marthinus Basson's production of Maria de Buenos Aires with a score by that
high priest of tango, Astor Piazolla, audiences sashay off to Latin America.
The 2004 symphony concert sees the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra
(KZNPO) under the baton of Justus Frantz, director of Germany's Philharmonie
der Nationen. The KZNPO, resident orchestra of the National Arts Festival,
will also accompany the ballet Giselle.
For the Rhodes University Centenary Concert, the East Cape Philharmonic
Orchestra performs under the baton of David Scarr with pianist Catherine
Foxcroft.
Music at Versailles is the theme for two concerts by the 20-strong ensemble,
Baroque 2000 presented in association with the KZNPO. The lively cello
sextet, I Grandi Violoncellisti, will also play two programmes.
Two quartets will perform during the National Arts Festival: the Cape Town
based Sontonga Quartet, with two concerts, and Germany's acclaimed Kuss
String Quartet. In addition, both groups feature on the New Music Indaba
line-up and the Sontongas also form the core of the orchestra for the tango
opera Maria de Buenos Aires.
The Kerimov Trio (Boris and Elena Kerimov and Christopher Duigan) will
present two recitals of masterpieces from Russia and Eastern Europe.
Two novel duos offer audiences the treat of hearing Anneke Lamont and
Christopher Duigan playing one piano and cellist Peter Martens musically
tête-à-tête with double-bassist Leon Bosch. A piano recital by Inette Swart
gives audiences the opportunity to catch this prodigious young talent as she
enters the international arena.
To celebrate the 50th birthday of the International Library of African
Music, director Andrew Tracey will stage a festive concert. Rare and
sometimes ancient indigenous instruments still played in corners of the
Eastern Cape beyond the commercial mainstream will feature in more intimate
recitals. A choral spectacular will see the SAPS choir from Gelvandale and
the Joy of Africa group from Port Elizabeth sing along with jazz musicians
from East London.
Charles Ives, frontiersman of the experimental, is honoured during the fifth
New Music Indaba. The line-up includes choral, vocal, chamber, instrumental
and electronic works and, by popular demand, a reprieve of the Bow Project 1
& 2 with uhadi bow-singer maestra Madosini.
Jazz
United in swing, The Standard Bank Joy of Jazz incorporating The National
Youth Jazz Festival under director, Alan Webster, will see workshops,
concerts and performances, and the line-up will include both the outgoing
and incoming National Youth Big Bands.
The programme features a bouquet of song by South African Netherlands-based
Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner Tutu Puoane and a star-spangled
tribute to the late keyboard virtuoso Moses Taiwa Molelekwa, recipient of a
posthumous Standard Bank special award.
The Blue Heads play a concert of easy-listening jazz written in Paris in the
1950s by renowned visual artist Gerard Sekoto.
The international contingent includes the UK sax legend Dave O'Higgins and
vocalist Lee Gibson, Frode Nymo's Trio from Norway, the USA's Brubeck
Brothers and the Groove Troopers Big Band from Holland.
Winston 'Mankunku' Ngozi, Feya Faku, James Scholfield, Lulu Gontsana, Zim
Ngqawana, Marcus Wyatt, Carlo Mombelli, Kevin Gibson and Andile Yenana are
among those playing for the home team.
Dance
Two foreign companies feature on the dance programme. Pride of the
Netherlands, home of great European dance, Introdans presents Emotions, a
programme of five works by choreographers of different nationalities who
combine classical lyricism with contemporary moves. Breezing in over the
Indian Ocean, Rèunion's Pascal Montrouge Company brings a package of fresh,
light-hearted pieces under the title L'Histoire des Enfants des Voisins d'
ā Côté (The Story of the Nextdoor Neighbours' Children).
The classical ballet for Festival 2004 is Giselle presented by The South
African Ballet Theatre Company with the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic
Orchestra. In high Romantic style, it tells of murderous jealousy and a
young heroine who makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the perfidious man
she loves.
The contemporary dance component is headed by Young Artist Award Winner
Portia Mashigo with a virtuoso performance highlighting her prowess as a
dancer and choreographer.
2002 Young Artist for dance, Gregory Maqoma of Vuyani Dance Theatre, is back
with Ketima, a dynamic discourse on the way we humans race into the
unpredictable.
An important page in South Africa's dance history is dramatised in another
Maqoma production: Sylver Synergy with Moving into Dance Mophatong
revisiting 10 seminal works by Sylvia Glasser as a tribute to her 40 years
of cultural activism.
Gary Gordon's First Physical Theatre Company and PJ Sabbagha's Forgotten
Angle Theatre Collaborative both stage exciting physical theatre and mixed
media events. Sabbagha's There's No Room In This Bed played to acclaim at
the Dance Factory last year.
Continuing a popular Festival tradition, The Eastern Cape Cultural Ensemble
presents a feast of sound, colour and dance from different traditions.
Exhibitions
Young Artist Award Winner Kathryn Smith's Euphemism acknowledges the secret
histories and unspoken desires that exist between private and public space,
and flirts with the meeting of reality, fiction, fantasy and desire. The
work is innately tied to the romantic notion of the art of murder.
Through the Looking Glass, curated by Brenda Schmahmann, features
self-representations by women artists who go beyond the mirror's reflection
in a critical response to the traditional genre of self-portraiture.
A heroic act of printmaking, Paul Emmanuel's site specific The Lost Men
comprises 21 silk organza panels a metre wide and two metres long. The work
will be installed on the Monument hill. Another challenging installation -
Frances Goodman's David - uses sound as its medium to reflect on the
difference between the outer and inner worlds.
Initiation, part of growing up for many South Africans, is the subject of a
thought-provoking multi-media event curated by Frank Ledimo of the Wits Art
Galleries. Nguni cattle, central to South Africa's indigenous culture, are
celebrated in a monumental tapestry from the Keiskamma
Art Project. The same size (70 m by 50 cm) as the Bayeux Tapestry, it shares
a space with Leigh Voigt's original oil paintings for Marguerite Poland's
seminal book on these fabulous cattle.
Still on home ground, a dedicated show introduces the work of East Cape
artists in many media. The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port
Elizabeth, presents the work of studio potters from Madiba Bay. Individual
potters will demonstrate.
The artist-in-residence programme gives festinos another chance to get up
close and personal with artists. This year Gauteng-based sculptor Peter
Schutz and textile artist Daina Mabunda from Durban will set up temporary
studios.
Film Festival
JM Coetzee and Jean Cocteau are both given special focus in this year's film
programme. Mel Gibson's controversial The Passion of the Christ is one of a
selection of films portraying Christ's life.
There is a host of New Releases including a Special Première Screening, a
programme of Japanese Classics and an array of New South African Cinema
along with gems from South Africa's Avant Garde. The Film Resource Unit will
once again collaborate on a free programme at Nombulelo and popular film
critic Leon van Nierop will be in attendance.
Winter School
Lively debate and fresh perspectives will stimulate new insights at the 2004
Winter School. Writer Elinor Sisulu, Judge Dennis Davis, theatre man
Pieter-Dirk Uys, marathon man Bruce Fordyce, literata Prof Isabel Hofmeyr,
SAfm music presenter Richard Haslop and physicist Prof Justin Jonas are
included in the cast of speakers.
The Jane Austen/Bridget Jones phenomenon, representations of Christ in
cinematography, JM Coetzee's novels, trends in organised crime in South
Africa are among the topics covered.
The Fringe and so much more!
The open invitation to the Fringe Festival sees a host of events packing
every available venue - exhibitions, cabaret, theatre, dance created by
established names and feisty newcomers.
The Children's Arts Festival offers youngsters an enriching action-arts
experience in a secure environment with a boarding option. Adult handcraft
workshops are offered by skilled teachers every afternoon. Guided walking
tours of historic Grahamstown and golf at the city's 18-hole course are
among a number of options for active visitors.
Browsing through the many craft stalls that pack the Transnet Village Green
and Clover Square, hobnobbing with artists in one of the various pubs and
eateries that spring up all over Grahamstown, or bumping into old friends at
a late-night venue are all part of the liberating fun.
This wonderful 30th anniversary feast is all part of the 2004 programme
line-up and booking kits will be available at the beginning of April in time
for the opening of the booking on 10 May 2004. For further information
please visit the website or phone 046 603 1121.
About the National Arts Festival:
Proudly brought to you by the Eastern Cape Government, Standard Bank,
National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, SABC and the National Arts
Council. The Festival began in 1974 as a project of the Grahamstown
Foundation and has since grown to be one of the leading arts festivals in
southern Africa. In 2002, the Festival was renamed the National Arts
Festival, Grahamstown and is now an independent Section 21 company.
ENDS
Picture: No
Submitted by Gilly Hemphill
PR Company: GR Communications
Telephone Number: 021 886 7743
Cellphone Number: 082 820 8584
Client's name: National Arts Festival
Website: http://www.nafest.co.za