Creative puppetry at the Out The Box Festival is on the menu, along with fine wine and cuisine at the Botriviera Spring Pink Festival.
■ The annual Out The Box Festival of Puppetry and Visual Performance provides a platform for local and international performing and visual artists to collaborate, push the boundaries and blur the lines of their disciplines. This sixth edition of the event is the largest festival of puppetry and visual theatre in Africa.
Highlights include Neville Tranter, considered one of the world’s finest puppeteers, with his Punch and Judy in Afghanistan. It preserves the fun and directness of Punch and Judy plays while exploring a more profound theme — what happens when a BBC foreign correspondent meets a host of characters in war-torn Afghanistan.
The Strings of Music will be performed on the family festival programme by Greek theatre company Antamapantahou. It is an entertaining and funny music concert performed by 11 marionettes and two marionette players/actors. The music ensemble includes a folk- music percussionist, an Asian belly dancer, an accordion player, a Romany singer, a traditional ud player, three classical violinists, a guitarist and a drummer. On September 11 are the the Handspring Awards, launched in 2010 by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler.
Hiddingh Campus, Orange Street, at various venues from September 9 to 11. All live-show tickets at Out the Box are R50 from Computicket (online and at the Little Theatre box office). For more information call: 021 462 5811; or visit: www.outtheboxfestival.com.
■ Wineries of the Bot River (75 minutes from Cape Town) present the Botriviera Spring Pink Festival, which draws together wine lovers, nature lovers and families to celebrate the season with food, wine tastings and entertainment. The event kicks off with the Winemakers’ Selection at the Kol Kol Mountain Lodge, which gives an insight into the Bot River terroir. Participating wine estates and restaurants declare their involvement by placing pink barrels at their entrances. The entertainment includes horse-riding, fly fishing, wine and olive oil tastings and blending, good food, live music, and pottery and art exhibitions. The entertainers include Heather Waters, the Gian Groen Band, Mika van der Merwe, Piano Ben and the Miso jazz duo.
Bot River district from September 9 to 11. For more information, go to: www.botriverwines.co.za.