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Looking at just how massive and almost unwieldy the National Arts Festival’s annual programme is, I completely understand why so many people are always looking for recommendations of what to see while they’re in Grahamstown. Since I’m so close to so much of the work on offer, it sometimes feels like having to choose a favourite child.
What you choose to see obviously needs to take a number of variables into account such as what you like, when you’re there and how brave you’re feeling on a given day. As a point of departure allow me to own up to having a pronounced theatre bias - but that’s because theatre is my training and background – and being in the cockpit of this Festival of Amazing I am keenly reminded each day that this is a multi-arts festival! And so – only because it is the largest multi-arts festival of its kind on the African continent – and also because it simply not humanly possible to see everything on offer every day during the 11 days of Amazing – below are my highly subjective top picks for 2018:
1. It’s no coincidence that Mamela Nyamza is this year’s featured artist. She’s certainly earned her stripes on the stages of the world, but, okay, I’ll admit it: I am also her biggest fan! I find her work moving, intelligent and just all-around extraordinary. The way she challenges and provokes audiences on hot topics and is fearless in going for the jugular on serious issues has made me an acolyte at the altar of this awesome choreographer. Provocatively entitled Black Privilege, her newest piece, to debut at this year’s festival, is a commissioned work of the Ruhrtriennale, a German arts and music festival, and is co-produced by PACT Zollverein and the National Arts Festival.
2. Amazing artists abound on this year’s programme and I am thrilled that Igshaan Adams is on the bill as the 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art. His considered and multisensory exhibition When Dust Settles is an eclectic, large-scale installation in the subterranean Gallery in the Round, beneath the Guy Butler stage. This intriguing exhibition investigates the evolution of ideas within the artist’s practice and is underpinned by the questions: How have his personal views and objectives shifted? How has his artistic language evolved? What was overlooked the first time?
3. Presented in partnership with Swiss arts council Pro Helvetia, Johannesburg, as part of their 20-year celebrations at the festival, Basel-based Boris Nikitin’s Hamlet is described as “poetic revolt: raw, confronting, iridescent, antisocial”. Nikitin rewrites what is arguably one of the most famous theatre pieces in history and transforms it into a contemporary performance. In a mesmerising hybrid of experimental live documentary and music-theatre performance, enigmatic actor and electronic musician Julian Meding tackles the role of a contemporary Hamlet in the ultimate revolt against reality.
4. Written and directed by 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre Jemma Kahn, The Borrow Pit is a new work. The description of the piece as “a play about 20th century men told by a 21st century woman” intrigued me. Through the lens of kamishibai (an ancient Japanese storytelling medium that has become Jemma’s signature style) along with fellow performers, Kahn tells the story of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, two of Britain’s most influential artists. This is the first time Jemma is directing and performing her own work. I am edge-of-my-seat excited to see this stunning new play that will transcend culture, gender and genre.
5. Platinum-selling, proudly amaXhosa singer-songwriter and recording artist Amanda Black needs no introduction. Her festival debut this year is as much of a dream for me as festival producer as she says it is for her – but perhaps for different reasons. For Black, the Eastern Cape is home turf. As for me, well I’m just star-struck by this hip-hop, soul and R&B songbird! And the early bird that I am, I already have my tickets!
6. I recall waking up one morning in Grahamstown at the exact moment when the morning television news broadcast in my guest house announced that Mary Watson’s exquisite short story ‘Jungfrau’ had been selected for the Caine Prize for African writing. How uncanny that the publication of her latest novel ‘The Wren Hunt’ coincides with the extraordinary talents of award-winning Jade Bowers and Ameera Patel collaborating to interpret Mary’s Cain-prize winning short story as one-act immersive performance experience under the über-contemporary camel-cased title JungFrau. Following the German world-premiere in mid-June by co-producer Theaterformen who commissioned the work, it comes directly to this year’s National Arts Festival for its South African premiere.
7. In a way that words are simply unable to do, collectively, the powerful and compelling photographs of TJ Lemon along with his peers such as Louise Gubb, Themba Hadebe, Alf Kumalo, Peter Magubane, Greg Marinovich, Gideon Mendel, Santu Mofokeng, Ken Oosterbroek, Jurgen Schadeberg, Joao Silva, Guy Tillim, Paul Velasco, Paul Weinberg and Graeme Williams document a history of South Africa from the harrowing 16 June 1976 photograph of Hector Pietersen captured by Nzima, to the dawn of the democratic South Africa. Having worked as a photojournalist throughout the South African struggle, Lemon developed the skills of performance photography and an eye for aesthetic detail and intimate moments in the midst of documenting violence. His exhibition for the 2018 National Arts Festival entitled, Comrades, Warriors and Volkstaat Kommandos celebrates that unique skill.
8. Set against the backdrop of a farm in desolate ruin, Reza de Wet’s iconic African Gothic tells the story of the complicated, passionate and troubled relationship between two siblings. Directed by Alby Michaels, the University of Johannesburg’s production is the culmination of a process that involved more than 300 students and lecturers from different departments in the faculty of art, design and architecture.
9. Wajdi Mouawad is the playwright who penned the multiaward-winning Scorched (National Arts Festival 2016). He is an Academy Award nominee and one of Canada’s most acclaimed contemporary playwrights. In the dazzling solo play Alphonse, Mouawad contemplates a meeting between the grown-up Alphonse and the child Alphonse on a journey that provokes reflection about the loss of freedom and imagination for the sake of reason. With the impeccable delivery of Mouawad’s writing, Alon Nashman delivers storytelling at its best.
10. Since snatching independence from Portugal in 1975, Mozambique has been a land of social and political rifts which have seen an inflexible communist model gradually make way for a fragile democracy. Panaibra Canda’s Time and Space: The Marrabenta Solos is a dance performance that explores the idea of today’s African body – a postcolonial, plural body that has absorbed the ideals of nationalism, modernity, socialism and freedom of expression. The performance is accompanied by a guitarist who explores marrabenta, a musical form born in the 1950s from a mix of local and European influences.
11. When I saw Monsieur Ibrahim en die Blomme van die Koran presented by Kunste Onbeperk and performed by the inimitable Dawid Minnaar with direction by Phillip Rademeyer, I was blown away by the power and simplicity of this beautiful play. Set in the Jewish quarter of Paris in the 1960s, Moses (Momo) finds an unlikely friend in a lonely Muslim shop owner, Monsieur Ibrahim. Although the production is in Afrikaans, I encourage English-speaking audiences to stretch themselves and see it because you definitely don’t need to understand the language to understand this deeply moving performance.
12. This year marks the centenary celebration of Nelson Mandela, and the Odeion String Quartet will honour the late statesman with a musical juxtaposition on the combination of the prison number 46664 in Reflections on a Legend. This retrospective amalgamation will comprise a musical juxtaposition of chamber works in an ensemble pairing attributed to each number, namely a quartet, triple sextet and a quartet. This concert has been programmed in lieu of the festival’s traditional symphony concert during the first weekend in the Guy Butler Theatre because we’re sure it’s bound to be that popular with audiences.
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time, directed by Marianne Elliott, is one of three national theatre live entries. Based on the novel by Mark Haddon, adapted by Simon Stephens and captured live from the National Theatre in London, this critically acclaimed production has received seven Olivier and five Tony awards. This groundbreaking initiative to broadcast productions from the London stage to cinema screens worldwide means you can experience some of the best of London’s West End right here in Grahamstown. Be sure to have look at this year’s festival film programme to explore similar options.
14. Drawing its title from the Swahili word for thirst, Kiu is presented by the SA State Theatre and is inspired by the ancient African rain dance. Written and directed by Mduduzi Vincent Nhlapo, this dance work is a poignant plea for rain and a metaphorical quest for redemption to quench the thirst that seems to be destabilising humanity. Nhlapo is a playwright, performer and choreographer known for his controversial and cutting-edge political content and resistance theatre work.
15. Last but certainly not least, Theatre in the Backyard is a definite must-see. A concept pioneered by Cape Town theatre director Mhlanguli George, it is the outcome of a radical shift in focus from trying to get new works into standard theatres, to taking those works into people’s yards. Each story is inspired by the unique traits of each yard. The two works being presented at the festival are Wait ... Linda and Is He Mad? This is a unique and highly recommended performance experience.
- The National Arts Festival takes place from June 28 to July 8 in Grahamstown. To book your tickets and browse the programme, go to nationalartsfestival.co.za
