The National Arts Festival is taking place amid uncertainty, but major works show cultural maturity
Thebe Mabanga
The 27th edition of the Standard Bank National Arts Festival survived its tacky motif and lived to fight another year. The image used to promote the festival in print adverts, that of Ellis Person and Bheki Mkhwane clad in leopard-print vests, is hardly indicative of the fare dished out at this watershed instalment of the country’s most important cultural event.
The first half of the festival was characterised by thin audiences and one couldn’t help but think that things could be better. Though most of the festival blockbusters pulled in substantial crowds, there were other shows with worrying gaps in the galleries. Major successes on the main have been characterised by the deconstruction of Eurocentric themes, transplanting them into local settings.
The first of the festival’s major productions to roll out was the Swedish-South African collaboration The Blacks. Featuring some big names of South African television and film such as Nthati Moshesh, Motsabi Tyelele, Rapolane Seiphemo and Fezile Mpela, this witty, sometimes confusing look at how colonised nations view their colonisers offered a mildly entertaining first day to travel-worn audiences.
In this play within a play, a group of natives in a colonised state split into two and put on a hilarious, eye-poking interpretation of the relationship between the colonial powers and the savages. Most brilliant is a chorus of natives in masks portraying a monarch, a judge, a missionary, the governor and a footman. Their mastery of the English accent has dissolved the African accents belonging to familiar voices such as those of Moshesh and Kenneth Nkosi. When they make it clear to a predominantly white audience that “we want you to see how you look at us”, it strikes with resonance.
Yael Farber’s SeZar has worked well. Here William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar has been reset in a fictitious African state known as Azania. Sprinter Sekgobela does a sterling job in his portrayal of one of history’s most tragic heroes. Tumisho Maja falls back on his Wits Drama School training to enhance a repertoire that includes pantomime (Turkish Delights) and comedy (Deep in the Coca Lala) to take on the role of Kassius.
Renaissance English is fused with the beauty and richness of African languages. William is given a hand by Sol Plaatje’s Tswana adaptation of the classic, Dintshontsho tsa Kesari, and Siyabonga Twala (Sinna) and Menzi Magubane (Brutus) bring to the production a rich, rigid Zulu.
The success of SeZar lies in its sincerity. When Azania finally degenerates into chaos and lawlessness a news clip unapologetically declares: “Azania has gone the way of other African states as it witnesses one of the worst genocides in history”. The state is simply a product of its times on a continent riddled with conflict.
The educators who want to remove Shakespeare from the South African school syllabus must be urged to watch this show.
No festival would be alive without a healthy street vibe. Grahamstown gets its own from the township kids who sing on pavements. There were years when they used to perform the New Zealand rugby team’s battle cry, the haka. This year their repertoire was peppered with Xhosa classics, gumboot dancing and reinterpreted struggle songs.
The Kutcha Marimba Band provided the soundtrack to the festival. They made their first appearance at the Potjie Grahamstown, a traditional dance and cultural fair showcasing elements of Xhosa culture. From there they took to the street to play for donations.
The band consists of five members who are led by a 14-year-old girl, Zukiswa, who has been playing the marimba for five years.
The band’s interpretation of songs like Give Me Hope Joanna is hard to miss and lingers long after you have moved on. But they are not the only kids who grabbed the limelight.
A cast of about 20 children put up a memorable show in Oliver, an adaptation of yet another European masterpiece into an African idiom. Choreographer Marie Bolin-Tani’s production is imbued with youthful exuberance and brims with childish, gregarious charm. It succeeds primarily in its simplicity. The show might not have us begging for more, but these children have announced their presence.
A portion of time between two points is Tracey Human’s impressive effort, having won this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist award for dance. The segment called It helps to have the right accessories has the fingerprint of long-time collaborator PJ Sabbagha, also featured in this work. It uses the multimedia technique that the two have developed in previous collaborations such as Probes and Dis-location.
This time the piece works a treat because the video images, echoing the theme of love and marriage, have comprehensible dialogue. Its treatment of the theme is a brilliant send- up of the institution of marriage, as well as the means people use to find partners, such as dating services. The cast has featured some of the country’s best young dancers: Shannell Winlock, Gregory Maqoma, Deidre Wood, Gladys Agulhas and Timothy le Roux.
Much expected has been the premiere of Love and Green Onions, the jazz opera based on Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying, featuring Gloria Bosman and Fikile Mvinjelwa. The opera, under the baton of Graham Scott, is superb. Bosman’s vocals feed off the jazz slant very well.
The production’s major undoing is its glaring rough edges in areas such as the children’s singing. The dialogue comes as a harsh reminder that one is dealing with opera singers. Then there was Luvuyo Mgweba, a member of the chorus who sought to steal the limelight when, in portraying a community leader, irresponsibly changed into the Madiba voice causing slight embarrassment all round. At the time of writing he still had his job.
One of the earliest beneficiaries of word-of-mouth was Andrew Buckland’s Makana. And so it was among the very few shows to be sold out. Buckland continues his fascinations with Xhosa historical figures following Brett Bailey’s re-enactment of the search for King Hintsa’s skull in iMumbo Jumbo.
One of the highlights has to have been the French street theatre production of 360 degrees in the shade. Departing from the premise that “Here to see is to create”, the magical transformation of images into a captivating fusion of colours is untouchable. The performers, Amoros and Augustin, draw inspiration from diverse sources such as sand paintings of the Navajo desert and the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In their show they construct a giant audience portrait, fusing the use of shadows with digital cameras. They are worth the one extra show booked by popular demand.
In the year when the festival bids farewell to Standard Bank as its principal sponsor, the fact that no new sponsor has made a commitment, at least in principle, to step into the breach is symptomatic of a deeper underlying problem of perception and uncertainty.
Festival committee chairperson Mannie Manim said that the festival would be hosted in 2002 but will “have to find a new form”. Manim mooted the idea of forming a Section 21 company to run the festival and rent venues from the Grahamstown Foundation.
The available funding from Standard Bank would form the basis of planning next year’s edition before additional funding is sought. Manim also hinted at a possibility of increased government support and emphasised that the festival would continue in Grahamstown.
The festival deserves to thrive. As for Standard Bank, which will remain a niche sponsor, the festival will miss the big money but please do not take away the cushions at venues.