The Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) claims to be the ‘biggest national arts festival in South Africa”. Owing to its Afrikaans flavour, its claims of ‘biggest” and, especially, ‘national” are constantly being debated.
This year, ‘serious” stage productions concentrated on recent South African, especially Afrikaans, histories or existing work adapted to this theme. Shakespeare was echoed in Romeo en Julia: Studie van ‘n Verdrinkende Liggaam — an adaptation by Belgian writer Peter Verhelst — and Uys Krige’s Afrikaans translation of Twelfth Night, while early 20th-century South African writer Eugene Marais was the focus of Prophet of the Waterberg and Verleiding.
Plays such as Saartjie Botha’s 1975, Deon Opperman’s Boesman, My Seun and Charles J Fourie’s Vrededorp cut closer to the bone and dissected the role of the media in Afrikaner ideology, the influence of Calvinist paternalism and the broader experience of apartheid South Africa from a youthful white Afrikaans perspective.
Elsewhere artists, academics and journalists gathered in stuffy venues for debates, lectures and discussions on topics such as multilingualism and mother-tongue education, South African identities in 2005, Afrikaans music today, Afrikaner dissidents and from armblankes (poor whites) to the previously disadvantaged.
This is all very interesting, and undoubtedly part of an ‘Afrikaner catharsis” stemming from the radical political changes since 1994. But as one ponders these issues over breakfast on a restaurant stoep in Baron von Reede Street, one inadvertently wonders where the constant stream of people on the sidewalk is flowing.
Festival attendance has exceeded the 150 000 mark for the past two years. But apart from sold-out venues for big, star-studded productions such as Twaalfde Nag and Romeo en Julia, ticket vendors everywhere else are happy when just 100 people pitch for a show. This year ticket sales at official venues amounted to 185 000, roughly one ticket per visitor over the full festival period of nine days.
So what are visitors up to for the remainder of the day?
Follow the crowds. The truth is that the KKNK has become more of a popular music event than it is an arts festival with theatre, dance, classical music and visual arts.
Performers such as Amanda Strydom, David Kramer and Jennifer Ferguson are there, and their shows are well attended. Concerts such as Klein Karoo Hot Pops, with Afrika Mamas, Sibongile Khumalo, Nianell and others, are highlights, as well as the rock show Kaktus Oppi Vlaktes with the likes of Karen Zoid and Fokofpolisiekar.
But there’s more. In recent years observers of the festivals in Oudtshoorn and Potchefstroom (Aardklop) noted the disturbing growth of a phenomenon called feestente (festival tents). Official sponsors of the festival further their interests by creating special enclosures where people can enjoy a full day’s entertainment, including food, drink and popular music, at a nominal fee or for free. Thousands of people gather daily in these tents, creating their own mini festivals. From morning till noon, a constant stream of popular Afrikaans bands and singers, as well as myriad aspiring hopefuls, perform here and in numerous makeshift open-air restaurants. This is where the action is.
The experience of a bustling feestent in the late afternoon can be disturbing, especially if you are here primarily to observe perhaps the quietest and most obscure discipline of the entire festival — visual arts.
One of the least-attended venues is the run-down building of the Principia College, home of the festival’s visual arts offering. However, over the years the KKNK has evolved into an event of note on the South African visual arts calendar. Thanks to Clive van den Berg’s three-year visual-art directorship, succeeded by that of Lucia Burger, the KKNK has offered work by some of the country’s most revered artists, in innovative and often ambitious exhibitions. This year the dis-play was less inspiring, although the engaging video projections of official festival artist Minette Vari made up for some of the less inspiring work.
The visual arts programme offered a mere seven solo exhibitions, very little new work and a group exhibition spoiled by too many ‘curators”. As usual, a limited budget gets the blame. One wonders what could have been accomplished with the budget of the Huisgenoot feestent …
There is a growing critical consensus that the ‘arts” in the KKNK are taking a backseat in favour of popular feestent entertainment. Karen Meiring, MD of the festival, puts it into perspective: ‘Serious art remains the backbone of the festival. Without it, everything else will fade away.”
But how important has ‘everything else” become? After all, the festival is a business venture. The KKNK, regardless of its Afrikaans nature, may not be much different from the broader Western cultural landscape, where popular mass entertainment triumphs over ‘high art” and its content.