The Sharp! Sharp! festival, South Africa’s democracy celebration of culture in Switzerland, seemed to kick off even before its participants got on the airplane. Attending the opening night of a ballet in Johannesburg, a journalist from a Gauteng newspaper worriedly said: ‘They’re trying to block Tshepang from playing overseas.”
Lara Foot Newton’s imagistic play about the tragedy of child rape is indeed a challenging work to present at an official celebration. Not exactly an upbeat, positive look at the country in its 10th year. But then the notion of official art is changing.
In Berne, late last month, South Africa looked tremendously hip as more than 60 local artists took to two theatres in the historic Swiss capital. As one trod the cobble stones so familiar faces popped up: dancer Vincent Mantsoe, Isidingo‘s Jamie Barlett and poet Kgafela oa Magogodi.
The festival kicked off on October 26 at the Kulturhallen Dampfzentrale, a refurbished powerhouse near the snaking Aare river. In the double-volume foyer, in semi-industrial concrete splendor, Brett Bailey presented his Third World Bunfight troupe, who did a sort of cleansing ceremony complete with burning African herbs and entranced drumming.
South African ambassador to Switzerland Nozipho January-Bardill did a welcome address in which she said, ‘South African society is struggling with political change and economic transformation. While culture is used for entertainment its function is also to heal our souls. The healing of our spirit will take some time. But culture is also social therapy.” Then January-Bardill called on the Swiss public to perform its role as therapist.
There was much anger expressed by visiting South African artists who felt that it was wrong of January-Bardill to suggest that Africans need to travel to Europe to have a consciousness-expanding experience. Word spread that she had been confronted by an irate Bailey together with DJ Dino Moran, who would later provide music for Bailey’s ‘Dadaist ethnoshow” due to take place in a nightclub popular with Africans.
Some days later I caught up with January-Bardill at the ambassadorial residence on Berne’s millionaire’s row.
About the rumour that she had tried to stop the performance of Tshepang she commented: ‘Initially I thought whoever made it was very courageous to do something on such a horrific act of rape. I wondered what sort of theatre could actually be created out of this horror. When I heard that it was coming I asked the same question — is it something that is just going to perpetuate the stereotype of African, black people being horrible rapists? I was committing resources to it. We did contribute quite a fair amount of Swiss francs to the festival. We needed to find out more about it.
‘To suggest that we asked the questions because we wanted to block it was absolutely ridiculous. One’s instinct, certainly for me personally, is to protect my country as its ambassador.”
I asked the ambassador about her now-controversial statement: ‘Art and theatre do not just comment on political-social economic issues,” January-Bardill countered. ‘Art is also therapy. The audience becomes the therapist. For me the therapist is a listener. The therapist is not a judge as somebody suggested.”
But how did January-Bardill feel when she was confronted by Bailey and DJ Moran? ‘I wasn’t offended. I’m a pretty secure person, I’m not easily intimidated. For me what was interesting was that two white men would take umbrage. And I wondered where that came from? For me they were objecting to the fact that South Africa needs therapy. And I’m saying that from your perspective yes, but from mine it does. There’s a lot of healing that’s needed. We still feel — I still feel the pain of apartheid in my heart.”
It’s been a busy year for January-Bardill, planning and staging democracy celebrations across Switzerland. There have been tours and panel discussions. An inner-city tram was decorated with the South African flag and inside it housed a travelling exhibition. There were visits by students and prominent women. Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island cell was reconstructed for the Swiss public in Geneva.
The Sharp! Sharp! festival opened with a specially choreographed dance piece, Identidades, by South African Reginald Dunster and Augusto Cuvilas from Maputo. South Africa’s premier solo dancer Mantsoe did his internationally acclaimed Bupiro Mukiti. Identidades was underworked, lost audiences and elicited criticism. School children were sent in numbers to Swiss playwright Max Frisch’s The Fire Raiser, a collaboration by Cape Town’s Magnet Theatre and Geneva’s Theatre Spirale. William Kentridge showed his animations and there was a spoken word evening with Lesego Rampolokeng and Oa Magogodi.
Hip-hop crew Godessa were in town and on October 29 Bailey and DJ Moran provided a very hot and black nightclub with an Afro-fusion, gospel-type celebration that amounted to some very gyrating therapy. Outside the club the African youth of Berne hung out in their hip-hop gear in an atmosphere alien and threatening.
Festival organiser Sandro Lunin of the Schlachthaus Theatre, where many festival events took place, expressed ambivalence when questioned about January-Bardill’s plea for therapy. ‘What’s clear is that the wounds are still there,” he said. ‘You feel it in each work, in each person. This healing discussion is an urgent one. But I don’t think I can be the therapist of anybody.
‘What we’re doing is to make people aware of how rich South African art is. How advanced, in an intellectual way. You really have top contemporary art from South Africa and that’s what I want to bring to the public. It’s not so much about South Africa but about xenophobia — which is one of the reasons I do these festivals.”
Matthew Krouse travelled to Switzerland as a guest of Pro Helvetia Arts Council, an in-part sponsor of the Sharp! Sharp! festival