Fitting programme for 40th fest
[caption id="attachment_36995" align="alignright" width="405"] HOME-GROWN TALENT: East London-born actor Shaun Acker, right, with Zanne Solomon on one of the productions they will be taking to Grahamstown[/caption]
THE 40th National Arts Festival will be both retro and futuristic. The nation's creative outpouring, including best-seller shows on the international fringe brought by the World Fringe Alliance pioneered by festival chief executive Tony Lankester, returns to its rightful Eastern Cape home in Grahamstown on Thursday, July 3 and ends 10 action-packed days later on July 13.
Festival-goers are spoilt for choice with 550 shows and events to chose from in 11 genres on the the pre-selected, pre-bought ("safe") Main, and 13 on the entrepreneurial do-or-die Fringe, where genius first ignites on stage.
Arts lovers will home in like bloodhounds on the new work from their favourite creatives. But many people still need to move beyond the tentative exploration of the Village Green craft market and beer tent, and raunchy stand-up comedy.
In 40 years the festival has morphed through the ages of 1970s apartheid repression to the detentions and killings of the 80s, the 1990 years of transition and the noughties where the nation descended into normality, of a kind. All this was reflected at the festival, which has consistently fought to remain an arena of open expression and democracy and has never failed in its mission to present new, daring works.
This serious contemplation, as well as pure jubilation and hope, have kept South African audiences returning.
Festival creative director Ismail Mohammed, an uncompromising critic of "grumpy Grahamstown", quipped that this year the festival was determined to prove that "life begins at 40". He unveiled a programme which "reaches into our past and launches us into the future" by bringing 65 old and new Standard Bank Young Artist Award winners, the festival's "most accomplished alumni", as well as strong new artistic voices from across the country and, through partnerships, from more than 25 other countries". Despite being pulled in different directions as a result of the "significant histories of the festival and of the country", Mohammed said the programme would again challenge and inspire audiences and artists.
Festival research has shown that many of the 211000 tickets sold last year were bought by the born-free and almost-born free generation, and that the festival was growing "younger".
Among the slew of young artist award winners will be Grahamstown star Andrew Buckland, whose show On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco, carries the programme note that the work marks "a long overdue collaboration" between the 2006 young artist winner Sylvaine Strike and Buckland, the 1986 young artist winner.
Top of the bill for East Londoners is the appearance of local filmmaker Jahmil XT Qubeka, who won a young artist award. His recently banned and unbanned Of Good Report, and A Small Town Called Descent will be screened. He will also be speaking.
This year's young artist winner for theatre, Greg Homann's Oedipus @ Koö-Nú! harks back to ancient Greek philosopher Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus at Colonus, but like many of the festival pieces, is South Africanised and reworked as a playful allegory offering a subversive and satirical take on the past, present and future of South Africa's complex political landscape.
For the beer tent and boobs festival fans (and there are always plenty of both), these serious shows can bring new, untapped and surprising rewards.
They are where creative, even cathartic shifts take place. And, like rugby, but unlike war, nobody dies. - Mike Loewe
