Nashen Moodley
Perceived by some as KwaZulu-Natal’s bastion of high art, the Playhouse will do much to alter that perception by hosting the third annual KwaZulu-Natal Is’cathamiya Festival, one of the most prestigious traditional choral competitions in the country. It’ll take place on November 6 and will feature 90 choirs from all over the province.
Is’cathamiya literally means “tiptoe men” and was invented by migrant workers who were forced to replace their stomping dance with a more tentative tiptoe dance that is now so characteristic of the form.
Fusing choral music and traditional Zulu a cappella, is’cathamiya has taken the world by storm through the popularity of Ladysmith Black Mambazo whose greatest hits compilation, The Star and the Wiseman, reached the peak of the British charts earlier this year. Founder member and Ladysmith Black Mambazo frontman Joseph Shabalala serves as a consultant to the organisers of the festival.
Linda Bukhosini, the Playhouse’s director of arts, education and development, describes how the theatre came to be associated with the festival: “Three years ago, as artistic manager at the Playhouse Company, I was tasked with various challenges, including developing an artistic programme that is representative of the demographics and the diverse cultural milieu of South Africa.
“The natural progression of things pointed us in the direction of incorporating into our artistic year plans a variety of indigenous art forms and thereby offering a performance platform to a variety of artists and forms that had not received appropriate acknowledgement in the past.”
The competition offers prizes to the value of nearly to R47 000 and with the close co-operation of the South African Traditional Music Association conducts an extensive selection process that begins 10 months before the festival. Ten regional winners are selected to compete in the main event, the Top 10 Section, while 30 regional runners-up will compete in a section of their own.
In addition there will be an open section in which choirs have five minutes to strut their stuff. Prizes will also be awarded for the best-dressed choir.
The competition begins at 7pm and will go on for a mammoth 12 hours. Last year’s victors, Real Happy Singers and Strangers in Town, will perform as an added bonus for the audience.
Countering claims that the Playhouse is mainly a forum for high art Bukhosini says: “In November 1996 the South African Cabinet passed a resolution that acknowledged the Playhouse Company as one at the forefront of redressing imbalances of the past in the arts and culture industry. There is no ‘window dressing’ or ‘tokenism’ in the selection of our artistic programmes. On the contrary, serious focus is given to equitable distribution of resources available within the company and meaningful balance is maintained to provide performing platforms to artists and art forms that embrace and reflect the artistic integrity of the people of South Africa.”
Tickets cost R15 each and can be purchased at Computicket. Credit card bookings can be made by calling Dial-A-Seat on (031) 369- 9444 or TicketLine (after hours) on (031) 304-2753. Tickets will also be available at the Playhouse on the evening of November 6