Sometimes it all gets a bit much. The sledgehammer transformation thought police who play their formulaic colour and numbers games, more often than not resulting in politically correct mediocrity. The spurious, superficial gestures towards rainbowism that are geared more towards the public purse than to artistic or creative integrity. The defensive — and sometimes offensive — products that get churned out simply to assert an ideological position that locates itself at the chauvinist ends of the spectrum. The tired, boring debates about Afrocentric versus Eurocentric forms of art.
And then, along comes a production like Guardian of the Flame.
The music was all South African, with composers ranging from Gibson Kente to Tony Cox, Bettina Schouw, David Kramer, Tandile Mandela and Neo Muyanga. Songs were sung in indigenous languages as well as English by some of the country’s top divas such as Sibongile Khumalo, Heather Mac, Tina Schouw and Stella Magaba, who, in another place, would probably be household names for being the stars they are. Traditional African musical instruments such as the mouth bow and other home-made instruments played effortlessly alongside their contemporary counterparts: the violin, guitar and keyboards. Guardian of the Flame, a production by Jazzart Dance Theatre that ran for an all-too-short season at the Artscape Theatre recently, highlighted what the arts can do both as a symbol of, and as a contributor towards, a vision of our country today.
Eighteen dancers in Jazzart’s Young Adult Training and Job Creation Programme worked alongside their more experienced colleagues, juxtaposing their contemporary dance styles with the dance of Savitri Naidoo, founder of the Vadhini Indian Arts Academy, who is currently teaching Indian dance to the Jazzart learners. What once might have been considered “other”, belonging to another group, foreign and unknown, is now being integrated into the contemporary dance experience, sometimes being celebrated in its own right, and at other times being fused with other traditions, creating something new.
Tshepo Mngoma enthuses the audience with his outstanding renditions on the electronic violin. The versatile and excellent Neo Muyanga blows them away with his interpretation of David Kramer’s song, Skipskop. Black dudes play classical instruments and sing Afrikaans as naturally as anyone, with the enormously talented Janine Neethling providing overall musical direction. Again, one is struck by the world-class talent, by young people learning their craft and gaining experience alongside veteran performers, by the respect the artists clearly have for each other and by the artistic possibilities that are now ours to harvest with the advent of a post-apartheid order.
If Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Chicago showed just how well we can do other people’s musicals, Guardian of the Flame pointed to the potential for us to create our own, uniquely South African and utterly world-class musicals.
There’s no quota system. No forced affirmative action. No politically correct pressure. Just artistic vision. Artistic integrity. Artistic excellence, practiced in the context of contemporary South African experience.
Instead of millions of rands being poured into official musicals about the New Partnership for Africa’s Development that fail to inspire, it is the Jazzarts of our country — under the leadership of Alfred Hinkel — that should be supported and recognised as our contemporary national treasures.