There’s an ad that tells a proudly South African story. An international audience is watching a contemporary dance performance. There is wild applause at the end, and the camera pans to a young man. His face is painted in the colours of the South African flag. He is clapping wildly and sports a smile the size of the arms deal. The advertisement celebrates contemporary South African dance and declares that its primary local sponsor, First National Bank, is a proudly South African company.
Proudly South African week has ended and we’ve been reminded of the many reasons to be proud. The world gets drunk on our wines. We produce top-of-the-range cars for all international right-hand drive markets. And we created the Kreepy Krauly. We’ve also given the world kwaito, the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice in JM Coetzee, and Evita Bezuidenhout.
South African artists have been flying the flag with great effect on the world’s stages in the past year. Damon Galgut’s The Good Doctor has just been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and he is following where other writers have been this year. André Brink’s The Other Side of Silence was the regional winner (Africa) of the 2003 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, while Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award.
The Sky in Her Eyes, a short film directed by Madoda Ncayiyana and Ouida Smit, and produced by Julie Frederickse, walked off with the Djibril Diop Mambety Prize for African Film at the recent Cannes Festival. South Africa’s first digital film, Promised Land, produced by Film Afrika, received a special mention at the Milan Festival where the SABC’s Yizo Yizo won second prize in the short film category. Takalani Sesame won the Grand Award at the International World Media Festival in Hamburg for its special HIV/Aids episode broadcast on World Aids Day last year. Meanwhile, fourth-year students at the AFDA National School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance produced a short film, Stof, that won the Best Overall Film Award at the IBDAA Dubai Media Film Festival.
Some of the country’s photographers and visual artists have also been fêted internationally. Brent Stirton had his work selected from 53 000 entries and is being exhibited as part of the World Press Photo Exhibition. James Beckett, a graduate of the Natal Technikon’s fine art department, won an international art competition, and with it, a three-month residency in The Netherlands. Zeno Writing, a short film by our world-famous artist, William Kentridge, was selected for the 49th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
The Making of Princess Magogo, a radio documentary by WFMT on the creation of this local opera by the Durban-based Opera Africa, won a Lisagor Award in Chicago for being the best cultural production of the year. Vuyane Mlindi won a scholarship to receive further operatic training in Brisbane, Australia. For her consistently outstanding performances — in Austria — during 2002, the South African mezzo soprano, Michelle Breedt was awarded the Eberhard Waechter Medal this year.
The cutting-edge Robyn Orlin beat off many leading lights in contemporary dance in Europe to claim the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance. Other South African dancers continue to make their mark in Europe as reflected in an article in this newspaper of April 25: “All over Europe, in dozens of dance companies, from the great and established to the small and interesting, South African dancers are making their mark with their own special brand of enthusiasm and energy.” The ad referred to at the beginning is indeed reflecting reality.
But as we bask in the reflected glory of the artists whose originality, innovation and technical excellence have gained some form of international recognition, we would do well to consider how we may better support them and other outstanding local artists who emerge and practise against overwhelming odds.
The Proudly South African campaign is also about creating sustainable local jobs. Yet so many of our country’s top dancers, choreographers, opera singers, visual artists and others are plying their trade abroad, unable to sustain a living for themselves here.
Let us export our art, not our artists.