National Arts Festival directors have gone big and brash, writes Matthew Krouse.
Alan Coxon’s commitment to South Africa’s eating habits has taken him to the playing field writes Matthew Krouse.
Men in the kitchen will benefit from renowned chef Peter Goffe-Wood’s recent book <i>Kitchen Cowboys</i>, but this is no manual for health-conscious sissies, writes Matthew Krouse.
<i>Hard Copy</i> is shot on a reconstructed newsroom set in the disused Rissik Street post office donated as a location by the city of Johannesburg. In a month, production designer Emelia Weavind and crew created a busy, layered working space where issues and temperaments can play themselves out to the full. Matthew Krouse saw the first episode.
Be afraid, be very afraid. Your future is unsafely in the hands of your security company. A conference in Johannesburg made it clear that South Africa is one of many countries where security is increasingly provided by private rather than public actors. And with the global, multibillion-rand sector virtually unregulated, shady elements have stepped in where states can no longer protect citizens.
A place of passage: that is what the newly opened Origins Centre at Wits University could well be called. It’s a place where urbanites go to understand how our ancestors empowered themselves — not through work but through religious trance. But this site, has been a place of passage for some decades.
In an edited extract of an interview with Matthew Krouse, Out in Africa film festival director Nodi Murphy speaks about the hazards of programming gay, lesbian and transgender content.
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/ 17 February 2006
Matthew Krouse speaks to Preetesh Hirji, one half of the dub duo Mattafix.
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/ 17 February 2006
Number four: The Making of Constitution Hill written and edited by Lauren Segal, Karen Martin, Sharon Cort (Penguin Books) Researchers who were first enlisted by Johannesburg’s innovative Ochre Media to conceptualise Constitution Hill’s public spaces, and draft histories and programmes for them, have now put the whole saga under one cover. Number Four: The Making […]
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/ 3 February 2006
Friends and colleagues of former <i>Mail & Guardian</i> chief photographer Kevin Carter, who committed suicide in 1994, were overjoyed this week that a low-budget documentary about his life has been nominated for an Oscar. <i>The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club</i>, garnered a nomination for best short documentary.
This year’s Encounters South African International Documentary Festival traverses the globe, writes Matthew Krouse.
<b>CD OF THE WEEK:</b> To love <i>Extensions</i> you have to be into that overproduced Latin whispering, a sound that is pretty enough to sell expensive cars in commercials, writes Matthew Krouse.
The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project spent more than R40 000 on a billboard advert intended to promote the idea of same sex marriage at a cricket match in Centurion. The expenditure has been cited as an example of the alleged misuse of funds by South Africa’s major gay organisation, whose work has been put on hold until the findings of an internal audit have been made public.
The film industry has accused the Department of Trade and Industry of reneging on a pledge of R250-million to promote South African film. In a recent letter, the Independent Producers Organisation wrote to acting Director General of Trade and Industry Tsidiso Matona complaining that a motion-picture rebate scheme "launched with much fanfare" last year has not materialised.
The success of South Africa’s film industy will hinge on managing expectations, writes Matthew Krouse.
Art imitated art this week when an unknown painter tried to sell a copy of one of Irma Stern’s most famous works from the foyer of a Johannesburg art cinema complex.The copy of the 1943 oil <i>Watussi Queen</i>, of a regal African tribeswoman, has been on sale at Rosebank’s Cinema Nouveau for R4 200.
This month local soap opera literally jumped the reality gap. The glitz and glamour of the multimillion-rand soapie industry was upstaged by real life. Precious Simelane and Lindiwe Chibi fought for their lives while media focused on their mothers’ grief. With the actresses absent, plot lines in <i>Muvhango</i> and <i>Generations</i> ground to a halt.
An academic has come forward with what appears to be the first Mandela art fraud.
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/ 18 February 2005
<b>CD OF THE WEEK:</b> <i>Genius Loves Company</i> scooped an impressive list of Grammys last week: album of the year, best recording, best collaboration with Jones, best gospel collaboration (Gladys Knight), best pop vocals, best engineered album and best surround sound. Matthew Krouse finds out why.
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/ 18 February 2005
Two etchings by celebrated South African artist Diane Victor have been removed from public view at the University of Pretoria, amid a row over alleged censorship. The etchings form part of a series of 16 titled <i>Disasters of Peace</i> — a reference to Goya’s <i>Disasters of War</i> — on the theme of crime in South Africa. They were loaned by Sanlam late last year.
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/ 28 January 2005
Aids activists have removed some of the glitter from the first Oscar-nomination for a South African feature film, complaining that the movie lacks nuance, is sentimental and comes "10 years too late". In what has been hailed as a major coup for the local film industry, the Darrell Roodt film <i>Yesterday</i> was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film.
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/ 26 November 2004
<i>The Number</i> is dubbed "One man’s search for identity in the Cape underworld and prison gangs." Jonny Steinberg’s life story of a career gangster makes a distant madness very human. He spoke to Matthew Krouse about writing his latest novel.
Siven Maslamoney, head of programmes for SABC1 <i>Ya Mampela</i>, answers questions about television’s influence, what viewers really want, freeing up young filmmakers and then lets off steam about equating ‘accomplished’ with ‘award-winning’.
"If Israel can boast of anything in the human rights arena, it is its treatment of lesbians and gays, whose activities were decriminalised in 1988." Israeli culture subsists on the theme of passion in a time of war, writes Matthew Krouse.
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/ 23 January 2004
Crossover crew Saharadja hail from Indonesia with a sound that is led by classically trained Australian violinist Sally Jo. They have arrived in Johannesburg for a run in dowdy Randburg, having done a couple of gigs in Cape Town. And their sound is pretty and infectious, writes Matthew Krouse.
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/ 19 December 2003
In its eighth year the Spier Summer Arts Festival takes some unexpected turns, writes Matthew Krouse. Patrons can look forward to a star-studded lineup including Pieter-Dirk Uys and Vusi Mahlasela.
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/ 15 December 2003
Chief Rabbi Elect Warren Goldstein will spend 2004 in the office of the outgoing Chief Rabbi, Cyril Harris, learning the ropes of religious diplomacy. Not bad for the 32-year-old Pretoria-born lawyer and co-author of the book <i>African Soul Talk</i>. Matthew Krouse speaks to him about anti-semitism and "the wall".
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/ 28 November 2003
There isn’t much indication in the recent Taxi art book of who the author Kathryn Straughan is. But it is evident from the text that, as a writer she has sat with artist Noria Mabasa for long hours listening to and then reducing a complex biography, writes Matthew Krouse.
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/ 28 November 2003
Three decades on it’s apparent that the legacy left to the youth by the pioneering comic artists Jack Jackson, Fred Todd and Dave Moriarty is alive and well and living in Cape Town. This month sees the release of two well-produced books devoted to South African youth culture, writes Matthew Krouse.
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/ 14 November 2003
<b>CD OF THE WEEK:</b> Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band: <i>A Special Album</i><br>
When Norwegians Röyksopp released <i>Melody AM</i> last year one wondered whether there could possibly be such a stab at life again. Well, in Norway they must be putting something in the snow, reckons Matthew Krouse, because this is a special album.
<b>CD of the week:</b>
<i>The Thula Project: An Album of South African Lullabies</i>
This week’s best buy is The Thula Project: <i>An Album of South African Lullabies</i> (Worldgoround). Produced by Philip Miller, it achieves what it sets out to do — a rich evocation of the childhood experience seen through adult eyes, writes Matthew Krouse.
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/ 26 September 2003
Controversy is alive and well in the local fine art industry. In one incident artists have taken issue with a major new art award. And in another, a curator of a digital arts exhibition at Unisa protested against what is considered to be an act of censorship by the university administration. Matthew Krouse and Makgwathane Mothapo investigate.