With the myriad cultural choices at the Festival this year, we’ve selected a spectacular six in each discipline

Dance

1. Nederlandse Dans Theatre 2: Go Dutch this fest as the NDT2, under the artistic direction of Jiri Kylian and Gerald Tibbs, features 14 young dancers who bring breathtaking athleticism and expression to inventive choreography in a range of of challenging contemporary works. Founded in 1978 as the NDT2, the NDT2 is renowned for its conceptual sophistication and technical bravura.

2. And Then She Blew In: Set in a contemporary pub, this dramatic dance theatre narrative is danced by the Siwela Sonke Dance Company. Choreography is by Jay Pather – one of South Africa’s most exhilarating talents currently exploring the body-politic.

3. Junction: Choreographed by Alfred Hinkel, who won a Standard Bank Special Award for dance, Junction is danced by the Jazzart Dance Theatre and provides a uniquely South African fusion of traditional and urban African dance, spiced with Western condiments.

4. Resting in the Trees: The founding ”father” of the First Physical Theatre Company, Gary Gordon provides a collaborative danced theatre work recreating dreams, desires, visions and revisions through movements and words. David Dorfman does the music and Michael Mannion provides the lighting design.

5. Do or Die: Selected for the Best of the Fest at the Johannesburg Arts Alive Festival in 1995, this work is presented by the Johannesburg Dance Theatre. Choreography is by Jeanette Ginslow, with music by George Crumb.

6. Boys will be Boys: It’s definitely a guy thing in this Pretoria Technikon contemporary dance production, as choreographer Debbie Rakusin explores men’s thoughts, fantasies, relationships and other testosterone traumas afflicting the weaker sex.

Film

1. Rue Princesse: This Ivory Coast movie tells the story of a street of prostitutes in a small town. It’s a delightful comedy that deals pertinently with issues from romance and sex to Aids and government corruption. Make a point of catching it.

2. Touki Bouki/Hyenas: Visionary Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambety’s two films complement each other. The first is an African Bonnie and Clyde tale of two young lovers, while the second sees the young woman of the first movie returning to her home town to exact revenge. Filled with incredible imagery, humour and a sense of African myth, they are both unmissable.

3. Sweetie: Jane (The Piano) Campion’s debut feature is the surreally comic tale of a crazy teenage girl, her seemingly well-adjusted sister and the bizarre undercurrents that lie beneath family suburban life.

4. To Sleep With Anger: Charles Burnett’s superb blend of folklore and family tradition has Danny Glover as a brooding, malevolent charmer who comes to visit his relatives. Dealing with mystical fantasy and family melodrama, this film is filled with magic and poignancy.

5. When We Were Kings: The Academy Award-winning documentary that traces the fame and fortunes of leading boxers like Mohammed Ali and George Foreman is reportedly a stunning evocation of a time when pugilist greats ruled. Filled with ghetto-macho fight sequences, the film bursts the bubble that makes myths out of men.

6. Catch Tim Burton’s zany sci-fi send-up called Mars Attacks, which excels in special effects and space cadets, at His Majesty’s, or take in the touching low-budget comedy about Aids, called simply, Jeffrey.

Music

1. Pops Mohammed. Armed with his Electric Band and singers from Lady Frere in the Eastern Cape, this multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger presents a tasty marakalas stew of old and new South African music, incorporating Xhosa split-tone singing, which is often used to communicate with the ancestors.

2. Sacred Bones. Capab Opera presents the world’s first safari opera, a passionate exploration of love and betrayal, magic and violence, set in the African bush. Directed by Fred Abrahamse and written by Roelof Temmingh, the production includes the vocal talents of Marita Napier and Fikile Mvinjelwa.

3. Tu Nokwe. From KwaMashu to New York and finally to the city of gold, this acclaimed singer/guitarist is sure to get more foot-stomping success at this year’s fest.

4. Standard Bank Jazz Festival and Martell Blues-Rock fest: A full spectrum of music styles, from New Orleans to Next Wave is on stage this year at the jazz fest, featuring the talents of Clarence ”Gatemouth” Brown, The Cape Goema Orchestra and Boereqanga, to mention a few. And the testosterone kings of cock-rock will get the groupies grooving with their hard-edged, pulsating and libidinal sounds. Bands include The Springbok Nude Girls, Squeal and Just Jinger.

5. Sibongile Mngoma: Winner of the 1997 Standard Bank Young Artist award for music, the 25-year-old Mngoma is already renowned countrywide for her operatic prowess. Her programme includes negro spirituals, opera arias and traditional African songs.

6. Stimela and Magic Cactus. We Are Rising is the name of this non-sop African pop concert featuring two groups at the forefront of the local music scene.

Theatre

1. Ubu and the Truth Commission: The grotesque persona of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu meets the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in this multi-media theatrical masterpiece. A collaboration between William Kentridge and the Handspring Puppet Company, with script by Jane Taylor and choreography by Robyn Orlin, it is the undisputed highlight of the festival.

2. The Game. Written and directed by Duma KaNdlovu, the play focuses on the lives of nine black women in the maximum security prison at Middelburg.

3. Madame de Sade. Directed by Geoffrey Hyland – winner of the 1997 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for drama – this play, by Yukio Mishima, explores the S&M master’s impact on the decadent French aristocracy during the 19th century.

4. Homegirls. A lively workshopped musical directed by Aubrey Sekhabi, the play explores the showbiz shmoozes confronted by an all-girls band, incorporating the amazing sounds of reggae, kwasa-kwasa, mbaqanga, gospel and Afro-pop.

5. iMumbo Jumbo. Directed by Brett Bailey, this community project is presented by The Other People Theatre Company and interweaves ancestor worship, Eastern Cape township anecdotes and Xhosa folklore into a richly entertaining tapestry. The cast has been drawn from the greater Grahamstown area.

6. I Do Times 22: A new creation by husband and wife team Mark Fleishman and Jenny Rezneck – including Mark Hoeben – this Magnet Theatre production revolves around the true story of the most married woman in the world. This sensitive exploration of the mating game uses trapeze, dance and mime.