40 years of Standard Bank Young Artist Awards

This week South Africans heard the announcement of 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist award recipients. The celebrations mark four decades of the Young Artist awards as a key marker of the country’s creative excellence. Since its inception, the awards have not only sought to affirm talented young artists but helped to signal a dependable creative future for a country striving to form itself anew.

A glance through the history of the award recipients reads like a roll call of exceptional creative South Africans. This reflects how the SBYA awards have been a crucial facilitator of visibility and success for some of our most notable artists. Titans such as Sam Nhlengethwa and Helen Sibidi, Jerry Mofokeng and the late Johnny Clegg are only a few in an ever-growing pantheon of previous recipients.

To be sure, when people think about what they love most about South Africa, they are often thinking about the work of one SBYA or another, such as Sello Maake Ka-Ncube, a 2002 theatre awardee who did amazing work in The Lion King. Think of Clegg who got it for music in 1989, and the work he did with Juluka on their breakout tour with Paul Simon’s Graceland.

The Young Artists awards were launched in 1981 by the National Arts Festival in Makhanda (then Grahamstown), with winners selected by the festival's artistic committee. They’re presented annually to relatively young South African artists. Initially they only included honours in three categories: music, visual art and theatre.

In 1984 Standard Bank came on board as title sponsor. The bank injected a new enthusiasm and support in the mission to highlight and celebrate our great young artists. The awards now include five more categories: dance, jazz, performance art, film and poetry. In 1985 a positive leap beyond racial segregation lines was made with the recognition of playwright and poet, the late Maishe Maponya, for theatre as the first black SBYA.

This was a good five years before the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, a cornerstone of apartheid legislation in South Africa, was repealed on October 15 1990. Maponya was followed by the now late Mbongeni Ngema in 1988. Their respective impact on the texture and trajectory of our shared cultural identity as a new South Africa would be undeniable. One only needs to remember Ngema’s epoch-marking production Sarafina!

Over the past 40 years, it's become clear that once recognised and affirmed by the award, young artists often gain a new confidence to take their place in the cultural life of our nation. Perhaps more importantly, the nod avails them to previous recipients as potential worthy collaborators, thereby making new courageous and groundbreaking work possible.

Consider how the late great Sibongile Khumalo who was awarded for music in 1993 went on to build a long productive partnership with young saxophonist, Shannon Mowday, herself a 2007 recipient. Though Khumalo was better known for her work in jazz, it’s her work in classical music, like the first Zulu opera Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu, that would exemplify the versatility that's come to define the SBYA awards.

Some of the most imaginative creative partnerships have included SBYA alumni working across the genre lines. A notable example is the meeting of 1987 recipient for visual arts William Kentridge, now a global titan, with piano protégé Kyle Shepherd, who received the jazz award in 2014. Kentridge also collaborated with 2020 SBYA for dance Lulu Mlangeni and prodigiously with the late dancer Dada Masilo, who was awarded for dance in 2008. Together they made some of the most iconic works in recent memory. Jazz pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, a 2015 alumnus, together with ballet dancer Kitty Phetla, a 2019 honoree, produced a notable cross-genre collaboration mixing improvised music with classical dance.

It's perhaps in the world of dance that the Standard Bank Young Artist award has made the most consequential difference in the visibility and sustainability of artists’ careers and entrepreneurship. Dance, unlike the other art forms, often goes underreported  and struggles to gain popular purchase. That's why the attention and support that comes with the award has been invaluable — not only for the awarded individuals, but for the sector at large.

The impact of the 2002 recipient Gregory Vuyani Maqoma is an example. He kicked off his illustrious professional career at Moving Into Dance in the Newtown Precinct, later launching Vuyani Dance Theatre, which has been instrumental in the shaping of other amazing talents. Maqoma was stepping into a trail blazed by earlier luminaries such as Vincent Mantsoe and Boyzie Cekwana, respectively 1995 and 1996 recipients. The convergence of these SBYA alumni has helped generate a tradition of excellence that continues to open doors for more budding dancers.

As Bonga Sebesho, Standard Bank's group head of sponsorship puts it, “Supporting the arts is a long-term investment, one that serves as a powerful stimulus for growth, creativity, and cultural enrichment.” He adds that the bank is “proud to contribute to the success of South African artists, helping to position them among the best on the global stage. This builds a bankable future for young artists and our country.”

Over the years, the Standard Bank Young Artist Award recipients have stood as a constant symbol of creative excellence and the importance of creative industries as drivers of social transformation and economic development. The only negative is that there are other amazing young talents who go unawarded. However, this only points to a national deficit of more credible platforms to celebrate our creative visionaries.

The Standard Bank Young Artists Award has shown over the past four decades, that by rewarding and nurturing our artists, we invested in the health of our shared culture, wealth and fostered a positively productive national unity.

The 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist Award recipients were announced this Thursday:

Already lauded both at home and abroad, this year’s recipients are bold, boundary-breaking voices, shaping South Africa’s creative narrative on a global scale.

Asanda Ruda (dance): From the community halls of Soweto to performing internationally, Ruda’s choreography is steeped in history, movement and myth. A member of the Pina Bausch Foundation, she's captivated audiences with Kemet (Black Lands), her acclaimed solo work that earned her the 2025 Choreographers Research Residency Award in Paris.

Siyasanga “Siya” Charles (jazz): A magna cum laude Juilliard-graduate trombonist, Charles’s career is already a global story, shaped by collaborations with luminaries like Hugh Masekela and Grammy-winning artists. Through her Siya Charles Sextet, she’s redefining South African jazz, layering the country’s rich musical traditions with a fresh, fearless sensibility.

Muneyi (music): Limpopo-born Muneyi’s music pulses with memory, myth and meaning. His lyrics, inspired by his makhulu (grandmother), explore love, loss and identity, transcending language while remaining deeply rooted in the cadences of Tshivenda storytelling.

Modise Sekgothe (poetry): Sekgothe isn’t just a poet — he’s a shapeshifter of sound, rhythm and form. From Washington DC to Gothenburg and Brussels, his words have reverberated on global stages, bending the boundaries of spoken word into new realms of performance art.

Calvin Ratladi (theatre): Ratladi’s interdisciplinary vision is unapologetically expansive. A Safta-winning artist, he garnered Ovation Awards at the National Arts Festival and showcased his work at festivals in Germany and Luxembourg, pushing South African theatre into new, immersive dimensions.

Nyakallo Maleke (visual arts): Maleke’s drawings are journeys in and of themselves — maps of migration, vulnerability and spatial memory. With exhibitions across Europe and an MA from Switzerland’s Edhea, her work expands the conversation around drawing as both medium and metaphor.