Thebe Mabanga
IN YOUR EAR
The convergence of the Internet and radio was an inevitable development in the face of rapid technological advancement. For radio, the need to broadcast over the Net is a logical development from its initial use of the Net to advertise. Once advertisers and listeners start reading about the station on the web, they want to hear what it sounds like.
In South Africa, the Net has not been used as a mass-listenership building outlet, with web audiences accounting for an insignificant proportion of the station’s listenership. Stations aimed at black audiences have little incentive to invest in cyberbroadcasting because their audiences have limited access.
These limitations have not stopped stations like 5fm, Yfm and Metro from experimenting with new technology. All three stations have a webcam (camera), keeping an eye on their jocks during most of their broadcasts. At least the boys can now dress up in their freebies.
Since Yfm lanched its site (www.yfm.co.za), enquiries from outside Gauteng prompted it to add an audio dimension to its site. The station has since merged with other digital technology specialists to improve its content. The most recent addition to its stable is digital cupboard, an African music download website.
The juggernaut of cyberbroadcasters in South Africa, 5fm (www.5fm.co.za), continues to set standards. Its most popular jocks – like Sasha Martinego – have their own websites with specialised content focusing on dance music, F1 racing and other Dj’s pastimes.
With the latest craze in cellphone technology, Wireless Application Protocol, the possibilities of what one can do with one’s cellphone become even broader.
With 5fm, one can actually listen to the station over the phone.
Metro fm’s Wilson B Nkosi has a very interesting jingle in which a lovestruck gay listener is excited about finally getting hold of him. The listener, Walter, then tries to arrange a meeting. When he asks: “Your place or mine?” Nkosi coldly tells him, “In your radio will be fine, Walter.” Drop it, Wilson, the jingle was perfect when you were a weekday-evening romantic hotshot. With your current Sunday- morning slot, it sounds narcisstic and pretentious.
@ Q&A
Hong Kong-born Acty Tang represents a new generation of immigrants who are dealing with assimilation into the way of life of their adopted country through artistic expression. He was recently seen in the First Physical Theatre Company’s touring production Bessie’s Head, and will be presenting his solo performance, and the empty space of his shadow, at the National Arts Festival this week. He has established his own Internet site that is also indicative of the manner in which emerging practitioners are using technology to benefit their work.
What is the point of the Internet site?
Free publicity. It’s great, it’s free, you can post your information on the Net and you don’t have to put up thousands of rands worth of posters. It’s interactive – I have my personal history and I’m telling stories about my life.
There are links on the site: where are these to?
Firstly my dance play is based on the Aids quilt that emerged in America – so there’s a link to www.aidsquilt.org and there are links to the Department of Health and the Beyond Awareness campaign site. There are also links to the First Physical Theatre Company – which is the company I worked with at the beginning of the year.
What is it that you’re trying to articulate about your personal life?
I think it’s more that I am articulating my personal life rather than what I’m articulating. The dance play has two characters and those two characters have certain aspects of me. As the two characters work out their dilemma it’s almost a therapeutic process. It sounds all very heavy but it’s also quite fun. I’m learning to laugh about myself as well.
Who are the two characters in the play?
One is called Jac Wall and the other is called David. Jac is a native American in the original story. On a particular panel of the Aids quilt Jac Wall is the person being remembered, David is his lover who made the quilt to remember him by. In the story I have made David into a Chinese guy. I imagine how these two characters would behave in the face of Aids. I’m playing both characters.
How old were you when you came to South Africa?
I was 11. It was a year after the whole Tiananmen Square thing. So there’s a bit of trane in the background.
How is your Afrikaans?
Ek kan praat a bietjie Afrikaans, maar ek leer … My background is full of national traumas and changes even before I came to South Africa. Then I landed in South Africa and went through another whole upheaval – the breaking down of apartheid. I came here in 1990. So sometimes I tend to take my approach to life quite seriously.
Do you feel more Chinese or more South African?
I feel diasporic and dislocated.
Is any of your work inclined towards feeling diasporic and dislocated?
Yes, and the empty space of his shadow. It has a theme of not really belonging to the main cultural stereotypes you find in South Africa. I try to express my Chinese-ness through music and I use a bit of Chinese text but it’s not the conventional Chinese stereotypes you see and it’s not an endorsement of the traditional Chinese culture. The culture and the language I grew up with are kind of modern.
What language would that be?
Cantonese.
Do you regard that as your first language?
I do.
What language do you think in?
English, and that’s a problem.
Acty Tang spoke to Matthew Krouse; his website can be found at www.geocities.com/robins nesttheatre. See and the empty space of his shadow at the National Arts Festival at the Highlander on June 30 and July 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8