The National Arts Festival at 50 years: What to look forward to

For its 50th edition, The National Arts Festival’s (NAF) curated programme reflects on universal themes that came together at its founding and all subsequent editions, and interrogates urgent, distinct challenges of the now.

With the 2024 theme: Bridging Generations, Celebrating Creativity, the curated programme is a “dialogue of ideas in a restless era as world orders shift, violence escalates and uncertainty prevails on the cusp of a post-truth world”.

About the 2024 programme curation, artistic director Rucera Seethal said, “In creating this programme, we have played with the juxtaposition of old and new and the emergence of ambitious ideas that bring the festival into a new era of cross-border and international collaboration.”

Here are a few highlights from the curated programme:

Innovative new works from the 2023 Standard Bank Young Artists

Always something to look forward to, the 2023 Standard Bank Young Artists’ works highlight art’s role as a progressive force for growth.

For dance, Lorin Sookool will present Two Sides of Skollie’s Coin, a double bill featuring the solo work, Woza Wenties, previously shown at the Liverpool Biennale; and the new dance production, 3 Mense Phakathi. The two works expand Sookool’s personal-as-political approach while introducing workshopped strategies to dance-making. The title refences the government-commissioned R5 coin designed by visual artist, Lady Skollie, in 2019, offering two perspectives of the SA dancing body.

For theatre, Momo Matsunyane explores love, deceit and sexual violence in Ka Lebitso La Moya. Zoë Modiga will present a sacral, ceremonious and cinematic production of her new body of work, Nomthandazo. For jazz, Darren English showcases original material in The Birth. Originally a title for a composition on his debut album, Imagine Nation, the work has been broadened to include collaborations with musicians in the US, Europe and SA. For performance art, Angel-Ho will showcase a multisensory experience rooted in queer identity in Dis My Kant. Known for her bricolages assemblages and research work that make sense of her social and economic “situatedness” in the SA context, visual artist Stephané Conradie will exhibit Weg Wysers Deur Die Blinkuur.

Continental and transcontinental collaborations

Third Space is a series of collaborative creative dance artworks brought together by NAF, the French Institute of SA (IFAS) and the embassy of France to SA, Lesotho and Malawi. The project sees three arts organisations in SA communities collaborating with African choreographers and set designers in creating works. Coming out of the Gompo Community Arts Centre in East London, the new dance work Golden City is choreographed by Mozambique’s Panaibra Gabriel Canda, one of the most influential choreographers in Africa with over 25 years of international experience. From George in the Western Cape, new dance work Bond-Edge features creatives and dancers from the Kubu Collective working at The Market Community Theatre under the facilitation of local creative producer Heloïne Armstrong.

The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative is an independent dance company based at the Ebhudlweni Arts Centre in Emakhazeni, Mpumalanga, led by award-winning choreographer PJ Sabbagha, known for creating issues-based dance theatre. Dancers from the company Phumeza Damane, Kaldi Makutike, Promise Mosoma and Promise Magopa worked with Mozambican choreographer Janet Mulapha and South African Jenni-Lee Crewe to create the new dance work In(Visible).

The story of Zambia’s Edward Nkoloso and his famous space programme that attempted to send a Zambian to space at the height of the space race, has been the subject of contemplation in various artworks and documentaries. Most notable is the 2014 short film Afronauts by Nuotama Frances Bodomo; and theatre maker Mwenya Kabwe’s different views of the man, in the stage productions, Astronautus Afrikanus and A Zambian Space Odyssey.

The exploration continues now at NAF with Afronauts, a new theatrical show by Circus Zambia, Wake The Beast and Barefeet Theatre.

Research-based theatre

Empatheatre is a Durban-based theatre company by award-winning theatre makers Neil Coppen and Mpume Mthombeni with educational sociologist Dr Dylan McGarry, which produces theatre productions based on research and engaging with grassroots issues from communities on the ground. The company is the recipient of the 2022 Bertha Artivism Award for their social justice activism driven by empathy. They present two works at NAF. The Last Country, starring Mthombeni, Faniswa Yisa and Sibulele Gcilitshana, is a play whose text is drawn from the 30 oral histories of migrant women collected as part of a greater research and advocacy project. Lalela uLwandle (isiZulu for “listen to the ocean”) is one of the company’s most acclaimed and longest-running productions which brings to the surface the lived realities of people directly and indirectly involved with the ocean. The work creates a new social platform for public dialogue on the pressing concerns for the health of our oceans.

Immersive poetry performance

Award-winning poet and percussionist Modise Sekgothe creates layered poetic performances that have the contemplative qualities of sound and paintings with intellect immersed in a soulful output. This can be experienced live or in his audio productions: a poetry and music EP, Dipoko tsa Dipoko and a solo album, Meera Me.

For NAF he presents Metropolar, a collaborative multimedia endeavour with guitarist and visual artist Jotam Schoeman and producer/sound designer James Robb. Together they operate as the collective, IIIFoet (Drie Foet). Metropolar is inspired by Schoeman’s earlier exhibition, Johannesburg 01, an illustrated documentary exploring the city’s defining moments and monuments. Sekgothe works with this as a foundation to narrate the city’s contrasting lives and history; and Robb conducts a sonic world-building experiment, reconstructing reality through sound.

Special mention

Two performance drawcards include new work from playwright, artist and designer Brett Bailey, The Stranger — a meditative, ritualistic performance work based on the myth of Orpheus.

1789 is a new cutting-edge performance by Sibikwa Arts Centre and IFAS. Named for the year of the French Revolution, the production is about liberty, equality and fraternity. It is co-directed by Phyllis Klotz and Small Ndaba; with collective creation by Theatre du Soleil, musical direction by Joel Zuma and movement direction by Toni Morkel.

Don’t miss this from the Fringe programme:

Not part of the curated programme, The Fringe features works by independent artists from which gems pushing artistic, thematic and aesthetic boundaries can always be found.

In the spirit of our uncertain political climate with ongoing coalition government talks, be sure to catch Mike Van Graan’s satirical play, My Fellow South Africans. It’s a multi-sketch, one-woman show that takes after Graan’s award-winning political commentary shows such as Bafana Republic and State Fracture.

The National Arts Festival takes place at Makhanda from June 20 - 30.