Have you ever had the painful experience of visiting someone in hospital, someone who has been there a while and you both know they are unlikely to leave through the front door?
That is how Makhanda has felt to me during my visits over the past few years.
The streets have been quiet. Almost suspiciously so.
Yet inside the venues, something is happening. The theatres are full. Audiences are showing up. The performances are alive.
Maybe my reading of the room is wrong. Maybe my fear is misplaced. There will be no pathologist’s van parked outside the Makhanda Monument any time soon.
Even as National Arts Festival CEO Monica Newton steps down after 5 July 2026.
“I am headed back to Gauteng to take up a new role. But processes are at an advanced stage for the appointment of a new CEO who will be announced soon,” Newton said.
Since arriving in Makhanda on Monday, the streets have felt calm. Even at night. The weekends are different. Perhaps it is the weather. Perhaps people are arriving specifically for the shows and leaving
afterwards rather than ambling about town.
The Village Green market, however, tells a different story, with 11000 people attending over the past weekend.
The theatres have also enjoyed strong audiences, with several sold-out performances.
“As always, some shows are busier than others. Over time younger and budget conscious audiences are joining us at the festival, so behaviours and spending patterns are changing,” Newton said.
The changes are visible.
One of the biggest shifts this year has been seeing more black audiences, black artists and black productions taking up space.
Transformation at the festival no longer feels like a future promise. It feels present.
The National Arts Festival increasingly reflects the country it exists in. The diversity is not only on paper. It is visible in the rooms, on the stages and among the audiences.
A perfect example of this is the Black Power Station.
Not far from the monument sits an old ugly building that, from the outside, looks forgotten. It is an unlikely place for a cultural movement. Yet inside, something powerful is happening.
What was once an unused power station has become one of Makhanda’s most exciting artistic spaces.
“We asked the occupants at the time to give us space to use for arts and they refused. But things changed around 2013, when we presented the idea to the former National Arts Festival CEO, Tony Lankester.
“He was able to secure the management of the old power station as part of Creative City.
He then called us to take up the space to build up the art space,” says Xolile Madinda, a long-standing Makhanda social activist who has tried to bring multiple concurrent impoverished community projects alongside the main festival, even once staging the Fingo Festival.
While attending Asanda Mqiki’s jazz performance, I bumped into Lankester, also at the Black Power Station. He had just arrived from Scotland, where he is CEO of the world’s largest performing arts festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
“I always make it a point to come back to South Africa at least once a year!” Tony said, unable to contain his excitement to be at the Power Station and see it packed. He did a book reading on the stage, just before Mqiki’s performance.
“I look forward to seeing many of the shows here. I also have to see Kafka’s Ape. It has received positive reviews from as far as Scotland and I will make time to see it too! And the many other great shows here in Makhanda!”
The Black Power Station has become a place where artists can meet, experiment and feel like they belong. It is not simply a space where people arrive, perform and leave.
You can even pay for entry with a book instead of the usual R200 or so for a show.
This year the space honoured Mam’ uMadosini and featured Kids Love Jazz, Internet Athi, Dumza Maswana, Asanda Mqiki, Jabulile Majola, Andile Yenana and many other local acts.
It has become the place I keep returning to in between shows and for shows.
I also managed to catch the much-talked-about Kafka’s Ape by Phala O. Phala, performed solo by Tony Bonani Miyambo. Humanity is presented back to us through the eyes of an ape. We are an embarrassment to ourselves. We are a problem as humans.
Miyambo is exceptional. He does not simply perform the character, he becomes it. The performance is gripping, uncomfortable and emotionally haunting.
The production is a stage adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story A Report to an Academy.
Noma Yini, who produced Kafka’s Ape, also has Commission Continua, which has received an Ovation Award this year.
Theatre old-timers Seputla Sebogodi, Jerry Phele and Sanku Bokaba presented Black Moon, a production exploring pain, pride, religion and South Africa’s difficult history. Seeing the old-timers on stage made me realise that television does not do actors any justice. Live theatre is where they belong. Effortless. Natural. Beautiful.
Ebhungeni, performed by Walter Sisulu University Butterworth students, was also a strong production, although it sometimes leaned too heavily into teaching rather than artistic exploration. This is a challenge often seen in some Eastern Cape productions, where the pressure to “address social issues” can sometimes overshadow creativity.
Khanyisa Bunu was a surprise highlight. Her deadpan humour and clever delivery in Life is Not Fur have made her impossible to ignore. She even scored an Ovation Award.
Conrad Koch also impressed. I have never been the biggest fan of ventriloquism and find constant Chester Missing “Gqeberha!” jibes excessive. Introducing new characters has brought fresh energy. It is when he uses human beings as puppets that kills me.
“Audiences enjoy being surprised so it works for Chester to have friends!” Koch said.
Every night at 10pm, Stuart Taylor hosted The Last Laugh at the Graham Hotel, with rotating comedians. It was funnily solid.
Msaki and ALTBLK>>Africa Collective filled every seat. The 2026 Standard Bank Young Artist for Music, Manana, also delivered. Soweto String Quartet and The
Bala Family added to the strength of the programme.
I am looking forward to Nomfundo Moh and Gabi Motuba.
Thandiswa Mazwai’s Saturday performance has been sold out.
And, of course, the Black Power Station continues to do what it does.
The Art Talk programme has also been strong, combining serious conversations with accessibility. One of the most interesting discussions came from publisher and researcher Themba Ngada at the Victoria Hotel, which is for sale.
Ngada spoke about how missionaries and white writers contributed to erasing Maqoma’s memory from black historical narratives.
“Maqoma was the most feared man in this country. Hated by all whites, yet his legacy is hidden.
‘Strangely today, history begins with Mandela. Mandela was in Robben Island from 1963. Maqoma was a regular at Robben Island from as early as 1873! When Maqoma died, from alleged ‘despondency’, which is a lie, newspaper headlines around Grahamstown at the time headlined with “The deed is done!”.
The East London or kuGompo Walter Sisulu University student art exhibition at the Albany Museum takes the cake.
The Rhodes students exhibition is strong too, albeit too cluttered and usual. Lovedale TVET college students need new art teachers.
At the monument, Bronwyn Katz, my former student and 2026 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Arts, takes centre stage with her strange, yet visually grappling, Ta a-b kobab ada kāxu-da, ti khoe-du’e! (Do not let our language be lost from us, you my people!) exhibition. It features intimate cartographies translated into metal scaffolds that hold resonant forms, horns and cavities filled with healing herbs, beeswax and conductive wire circuits.
There is a lot more to say about this year’s festival. Too much for one article.
A 2am bar conversation with 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist winner Chuma Sopotela raised another interesting point: there seemed to be more Johannesburg productions this year and fewer Cape Town ones.
The numbers confirmed this. Eastern Cape productions made up 28%, Gauteng 21.6% and Cape Town 20.6%. The rest being split among the other provinces. With Limpopo, Northern Cape, KwaZulu Natal all standing at 3.9%. International productions also stood at 3.9%
“It is money!” said UCT drama lecturer and artistic director Mandla Mbothwe last month after I asked him why he was not bringing any shows to the National Arts Festival this year.
“Remember that Grahamstown [Makhanda] used to have money to subsidise the school programmes and shows. Now it only subsidises the curated programme, the main shows. Fringe ke yona uyazibhatalela [you self-fund] and you bet on door takings. You register with your own money, find your own accommodation, all your own marketing and publicity yourself. And that is expensive for the individual!”
Sad. There is something beautiful and human about the arts. I look at the artists and the many talents going up and down, preparing for their shows and my heart breaks for them. It goes back to that hospital visit. How are we letting down so much talent? Why is the National Department of Arts and Culture not coming to the party?
Art has always had the power to challenge society, preserve memory and create change. The day South Africa takes the arts seriously might be the day we begin addressing many of the problems we continue to debate. Perhaps the change begins exactly where it always has: through the artists.