Bedevilled by the increasing empty seats in its theatres, Cape Town’s Artscape has embarked on an audience education programme that’s beginning to bear fruit.
The key, it seems, is to target school-going youth with arts education as a future investment in a society appreciative of its heritage. An incidental benefit is that children in impoverished communities are drawn away from the scourges of crime and gangsterism.
Merlene Le Roux, Artscape’s Audience Development and Education Department director, believes the tide is already turning with the few programmes already under way.
‘The unit started over five years ago and already we have schools lobbying the government for more funding directed towards arts education. We are starting to have more previously disadvantaged people coming to arts events. We now have a black opera company and the youth orchestra has a strong composition of previously disadvantaged groups,” she says.
A healthy argument can be made that not enough government spending is going to all Western Cape schools in arts. According to Le Roux the unequal education spending under the many different education departments under apartheid is partly to blame for the poor appetite for the arts in the country.
Says Le Roux: ‘The privileged schooling systems had the arts as a subject while the poor departments had it on the periphery. If children had a choice of what art discipline they wanted to learn about, they might grow up appreciating the arts and even pay for a seat at the theatre. We need to create a legacy of pride in our heritage.”
In encouraging learners and teachers to embrace their heritage, Artscape presented three set works as plays in the three official Western Cape languages, English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa.
Artscape’s School Arts Festival in late August was themed ‘Democracy through the eyes of the youth” and showcased various art disciplines that included choral music, poetry and bands. In September high school learners have an opportunity to develop and present their own plays on a professional stage.
Another highlight for Western Cape schoolteachers has been an African music project where successful implementation of African Heritage as part of the arts and culture curriculum is taught. This project, which has been running since April, ends in September.
Le Roux has been at the forefront of Artscape’s collaboration with local communities that want to introduce the arts as a youth alternative to crime, drugs and gangsterism.
‘Cape Town’s suburb of Manenberg is notorious for violent gangsterism. I was a teacher in Manenberg and I know that gangsters are in the minority, but because what they do is always in the news kids see them as role models. We support the Mamela project in the community because it gives the youth an alternative through music,” she explains.
The Mamela Manenberg Music Project, started in 1992, promotes music as an alternative creative medium for youth as opposed to gangsterism, drugs and other vices of popular gang culture. The participants are exposed to a world of success away from drugs and violence.
Charles Louw, Mamela co-ordinator, believes the project has been an excellent medium for youth development and community empowerment in the Manenberg and the Cape Flats areas through music. Louw can be found on most Saturday mornings passionately teaching piano and music theory in Manenberg’s Edenvale Primary School but he still faces many uphill battles.
‘The main problem now is funding. Donor funding now gets directed to government and we have to approach the government for access. This is not easy. Artscape has helped us with administration facilities and helps us in getting funding,” said Louw.
The tide might be turning but it seems there is still some way to go before government spending on arts manages to do more than stimulate temporary interest.
‘The education department is not tackling the shortfall. We cannot function if the department does not realise that every primary school child needs access to arts education,” says Le Roux.