Unable to book my own shows for about three days at the start of this year’s National Arts Festival (NAF), because my app was still being set up to work, I initially settled for some low-hanging fruit.
On account of its unavoidability and thoughtful curation, the Aluta Continua exhibition, which took up most of the wall space of the multi-floor foyer of the 1820 Settlers National Monument, grabbed my attention at the beginning of the festival and held it for most of the rest of the week. Its scale and tone resonated perfectly with the rest of the festival’s programming, designed this year to reflect on the half-century of the festival’s existence, as well as 30 years of democracy.
The exhibition takes the Constitutional Court’s art collection out of its Braamfontein setting and arranges it according to theme to tell the parallel story of “art and justice”.
During the festival, I took part in two walkabouts: one with Constitutional Court Trust member Catherine Kennedy, and the other with the founder of the collection, former Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs. The two had contrasting styles of expounding on the collection, with Kennedy focusing on the provenance of the pieces and Sachs speaking to the ones with which he had a personal connection.
While to festival veterans this year’s event looked poorly attended, the pragmatic refrain in response to any talk of attrition was that the festival was still clawing its way back to health after Covid-19
Anxious to see more theatre as the week wore on, Monageng “Vice” Motshabi’s The Red on the Rainbow was on my radar. Motshabi, the Standard Bank Young Artist award-winner for theatre in 2017, makes a strong impression as director. His production’s stripped-down set presents the country as a desolate terror dome, while the play itself questions the limits of theatre as a galvanising force in contemporary society.
Motshabi’s production is just one example of how intentional the programming was in untangling the intertwined threads of the past.
At 90 minutes long, Red on the Rainbow sometimes seems hectoring, but its edges are softened by Motshabi’s considered directorial decisions and his ability to infuse the haunting subject matter with humour.
Two nights previously, another landmark production went back to the dawn of democracy. The theatre adaptation of Can Themba’s The Suit, directed by Billy Langa and Mahlatsi Mokgonyana, featured Sello Maake kaNcube as Philemon (reprising a role he first played 30 years ago) and Didintle Khunou as Matilda. With J Bobs Tshabalala as dramaturge, the play emerged with a new gait, a marginally more vocal Matilda, and several contemporary flourishes. Joburg Theatre’s artistic director, James Ngcobo, praised the play as “taking creative licence while being faithful to the original”.
But conversations among theatregoers centred on how “badly” the play had aged, and whether a present-day Matilda — vengefully tortured by her husband after he finds out she has cheated on him — would put up with that treatment so meekly.
While to festival veterans this year’s event looked poorly attended, the pragmatic refrain in response to any talk of attrition was that the festival was still clawing its way back to health after Covid-19, when artistic director Rucera Seethal and Monica Newton took it over. But there were also questions about whether artists were abandoning the event for other reasons.
Caroline Calburn, the director of Cape Town-based Theatre Arts Admin Collective, said she thought this year’s programme “mirrored the state of the nation” in some ways. “People are preoccupied with the difficulty of existing, and that’s what’s so beautiful about this [the Constitution Hill art exhibition], because it’s transformative. We just don’t have enough transformative spaces.”
The festival’s music programme also told stories of its own. For example, in the performances of crowd-pullers such as Mandisi Dyantyis, Zoë Modiga and Yonela Mnana religious ecstasy was presented as a portal of renewal, or perhaps escape. For Dyantyis, this took the form of a hypnotic performance, held together by his facility for controlling his voice. For Modiga, sonic texturing, costuming and body positivity combined to evoke the divine.
Yonela Mnana used the fervour of the hymn as an act of exorcism, stretching time and then somehow willing it back into orbit in a show that seemed to touch something primal in all those who had gathered to listen. Taking to the stage with drummer Siphiwe Shiburi, bassist Dalisu Ndlazi and trombonist Siya Charles, Mnana pulled the rug out from under us, leaving us suspended in a nether world untameable by circadian rhythms.
Among the first musical acts I caught was Iculo Lika Mama, a series of shows curated by bass player and singer Zuko Yigi, in which jazz functioned as a bridge to Xhosa musical traditions applied anew by a cohort of musicians based mostly in East London. While I missed Qhawekazi Giyose’s set, I managed to catch that of singer Neahtyah Mbuyazwe, a University of Fort Hare alum, who almost overpowered the band with her clear voice and confident presence.
Yigi speaks of his bandmates and their generation as direct descendants of the legendary Komani jazz scene. “[Hotep Idris] Galeta wrote about it — that it was in Komani that South African jazz started developing this distinct form that was very reflective of South African people, or the Xhosa people, to be specific. About 100 years later, we see that movement happening, not in Komani, but rather East London and Gqeberha, though East London is at the centre.”
Giyose, who led a set as part of Iculo Lika Mama, confirms the renewed energy in the Eastern Cape arts scene. “The Mandela Bay Theatre Complex is introducing a lot more projects to support the arts and get people to stay in the Eastern Cape and develop their projects here, rather than everybody going to Joburg,” she says.
In the same Thomas Pringle venue a day later, Darren English played jazz of a different kind with former Standard Bank Young Artist award alumni, including drummer Kesivan Naidoo, pianist Kyle Shepherd, bassist Benjamin Jephta, and saxophone player Miguel Alvarado, who replaced Sisonke Xonti. The intricately composed material was technically astounding. Alvarado provided an energising tension to the tight-knit chemistry between the other four musicians with his slightly off-kilter soloing.
Taking a slightly different tack at the Diocesan School for Girls (DSG), while using some of the same players (Naidoo on drums and Shepherd on piano), was trumpeter Sakhile Simani. With a crisp and powerful tone he seldom overextended, Simani was less showy than he was heartfelt, featuring lovely dedications in the form of ballads, including a brief and touching tribute to his mentor, Lulama Gawulana, at the end of his set.
Speaking about the performance some days later at DSG, director of the National Youth Jazz Festival Alan Webster spoke highly of Simani’s bravery in an environment where players try to impress with their chops.
With the Youth Jazz Festival now funded by the FirstRand Foundation, Webster says the event now focuses development, but is looking forward to boosting the curriculum to include a strong international component, as was the case previously. Presently, 50 teachers interact with more than 250 students, who split up into bands and choirs. However, he stresses that the most important aspect of the programme is participants breaking bread together, which ramps up levels of camaraderie.
Webster says the future of South African jazz is within DSG’s walls when the youth festival takes it over. Indeed, a jam session earlier in the week suggested that some of the younger musicians were more than capable of holding their own when playing with their teachers.
As my 10 days at the festival neared their end, and with my not having attended enough festivals to put my finger on it, the incongruity between the festival’s programme — which was of a standard befitting its milestone year — and its audiences left me with more questions than answers about what the future of the NAF could and should be in a country where sections of society have yet to recover from a range of recent economic challenges.
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