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REBELLION & JOHANNESBURG SA premiere at Dance Umbrella 2016 Creative Feel / February 2016 / 1
25 Feb – 6 March
Authorised Financial services and registered credit provider (NCRCP15). The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited (Reg. No. 1962/000738/06). Moving Forward is a trademark of The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited. SBSA 225704-1/16
Detail from the illustration accompanying Joseph Orpen’s article ‘A glimpse into the mythology of the Maluti Bushmen’ (1874). William Cullen Library (University of the Witwatersrand).
Minnette Vári: Of Darkness and of Light
and
On the Trail of Qing and Orpen
Standard Bank Gallery Cnr Frederick and Harrison Streets, Johannesburg 30 January to 26 March 2016 Monday to Friday 8am – 4.30pm and Saturdays 9am – 1pm Tel: 011 631 4467 www.standardbankarts.co.za
Minnette Vári, REM, 2001, Installation view in the Great Hall, Cango Caves, 2005. Courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery. Photo credit: H. van der Veen.
Tickets for JOBURG THEATRE remain available from www.joburgtheatre.com and 0861 670 670, but from 1st January we have introduced the following exciting new options: • Option 1 – BOOK WITH WEBTICKETS at www.webtickets.co.za – patrons can book and pay online; this is ideal for patrons who are already registered with Webtickets. • Option 2 – BOOK ONLINE / PAY INSTORE – patrons can book tickets on www.joburgtheatre.com and pay at any PICK ’N PAY store. • Option 3 – BOOK AND PAY INSTORE – patrons can book and pay at selected PICK ‘N PAY stores (For a full list of stores http://www.webtickets.co.za/pnpoutlets.aspx). • Option 4 – BOOK AND PAY ON YOUR PHONE – patrons can book and pay via the Nedbank App on your Smartphone.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
BYE BYE BABY | THE MANDELA, FEBRUARY 10TH TO FEBRUARY 28TH BYE BYE BABY takes you back in time on a musical journey through the career of The Story of Frankie Vallie and The Four Seasons, whose songs graced such films as The Deer Hunter, Dirty Dancing and Grease. Direct from London, and exclusively at Joburg Theatre, the show will feature classics Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Silence is Golden, The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore and Why Do Fools Fall in Love. MZANSI MUSIC ENSEMBLE | THE MANDELA, MARCH 2ND TO
MARCH 6TH MZANSI MUSIC ENSEMBLE comprises of an 18-piece big band with 12 voices; the ensemble is dedicated to celebrating South African music classics of both past and present composers in an exhilarating contemporary African and Township jazz interpretation of this music. Prince Lengoasa is the Music Director, featuring the legendary saxophonist Barney Rachabane and some of South Africa’s best vocalists.
CELEBRACIÓN FLAMENCA |
THE FRINGE, MARCH 17TH TO MARCH 20TH With swirling skirts and stamping feet, the fire and passion of flamenco light up the stage to celebrate Alianza Flamenca’s 20th Anniversary. Featuring students and professionals who have been through Alianza’s ranks and guest artists from around the country. CELEBRACIÓN FLAMENCA promises to enthral and captivate the audience with all of flamenco’s vibrant elements.
ALWAYS & FOREVER – A TRIBUTE TO LUTHER VANDROSS |
THE MANDELA, MARCH 31ST TO APRIL 3RD The king of croon himself, Luther Vandross, will be celebrated by South Africa’s own “man with the velvet voice” Timothy Moloi in this non-stop nostalgia journey of musical delight. Vocalist extraordinaire Timothy Moloi is backed by some of South Africa’s best live musicians and vocalists Tia Herman, Lelo Ramasimong and Kurt Herman along with Voices Unlimited Gospel Choir. The Music Director is star-on-the-rise Llewellyn George who also penned the musical arrangements done especially for this show.
GISELLE performed by JOBURG BALLET |
THE MANDELA, APRIL 8TH TO APRIL 17TH Joburg Ballet will begin its 2016 performance season with GISELLE, widely acknowledged as one of the most beautiful classical ballets ever created, from April 8th, joining many companies worldwide in marking the ballet’s 175th anniversary. A moving story of a young girl who dies of a broken heart, the title role is regarded as one of the ultimate measures of a ballerina’s greatness.
MOZART’S THE MAGIC FLUTE |
THE MANDELA, MAY 18TH TO MAY 24TH Mozart’s THE MAGIC FLUTE is a celebration of true love conquers all. It’s an opera in two acts, sung in German with English subtitles and English dialogues. It will be accompanied by the German Rhine Philharmonic Orchestra.
For tickets call 0861 670 670 or visit www.joburgtheatre.com For group bookings of 10 or more tickets, contact the Theatre’s ticketing office on (011) 877 6917 / 6853
EDITOR’S NOTE Nothing but the Arts
I
invited to the recent Rolex Arts Weekend in Mexico City.
the challenge of shrinking pages of arts reviews in print
The weekend showcased the work of the 2014-2015 cycle
and the inability to generate income from online media was
of the Rolex Mentor and Protégés Arts Initiative, which pairs
discussed, as was the problem of editorial content versus
leaders in six artistic fields with emerging talents for a year
advertorial content so common to all of us.
t was a privilege and a wonderful experience for me to be
of support, guidance and collaboration. But it was much more, it was a great opportunity to
A weekend completely dedicated to the arts with people of the same mind-set in an exciting place like Mexico City
meet and talk around the clock about ‘The Arts’ with
– one of the world’s most vibrant international arts and
some 30 fellow writers and editors from around the world.
creative centres – what bliss!
To be part of this group and to compare notes about the
Yes it is a long way from Joburg to Mexico City, but
state of the arts with well known writers like the editor-
thankfully Rolex were such generous hosts that the invite
in-chief of Wallpaper magazine in London, dance writer
included a business class ticket on Air France. One can easily
and culture editor of the New York Times, arts editor of
survive a long flight if they are comfortable and relaxed with
the Financial Times, editor of Arte! Brasileiros in Brazil,
culinary delights and good wine.
The Pyramids of Teotihuacan
Images shot with Canon PowerShot G5X
There was also the common problem of arts funding,
Carlos Amorales, We Will See How Everything Reverberates at the Jumex Museum
The Centro Cultural del Bosque in Mexico City
arts editors of Marie Claire and Paris Match from Paris and
Mexico City – a city with arts centres like the Jumex
others from Europe as well as China, Russia, India and the
Museum, with the current exhibition: Under the same Sun,
Middle East.
Guggenheim Contemporary Latin America Arts Collection, and
How interesting to find out that basically we are all
the Centro Cultural del Bosque providing great performance
experiencing the same problems and that more and more
stages, the wonderful Diego Rivera murals, the Frida Kahlo
great art is being created and performed in just about every
Blue House and, just outside of the city, the Pyramids of
country. Interdisciplinary collaborations are now common,
Teotihuacan – well worth the trip.
such as the greatly admired and talked about collaboration between dancer/choreographer Myles Thatcher and his fellow
A long weekend is just not enough to see it all, to do it all, but there is nothing better than a weekend of Art Pure!
Rolex Protégés, architect Gloria Cabral and lighting designer, Sebastiàn Solorzano Rodriguez during the weekend.
Lore
from JoHanneSBUrG
PARis
7 flights per week
airfrance.co.za
T
We loved this!
E
A
M
PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Lore Watterson; lore@desklink.co.za COPUBLISHER & PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Chris Watterson; chris@desklink.co.za DEPUTY EDITOR Tamaryn Greer; tammy@desklink.co.za DIGITAL CONTENT COORDINATOR Nokwanda Shabangu ; nokwanda@desklink.co.za ADDITIONAL EDITORIAL CONTENT: Natalie Watermeyer Nondumiso Msimanga Ismail Mahomed Michelle Constant Indra Wussow Anastasia Pather SALES & MARKETING sales@desklink.co.za sales@creativefeel.co.za SALES & MARKETING COORDINATOR Oupa Sibeko; oupa@desklink.co.za DESIGN Leigh Forrest; leigh@desklink.co.za Mxolisi Gumbi; mxolisi@desklink.co.za FINANCIAL DIRECTOR Debbi Smith; debbi@desklink.co.za DISPATCH Khumbulani Dube SUBSCRIPTION & CIRCULATION Debbi Smith; debbi@desklink.co.za Published by DeskLink™ Media PO Box 3670, Randburg, 2125 Tel: 011 787 0252 Fax: 011 787 8204 www.creativefeel.co.za www.desklink.co.za
The Canon PowerShot G5 X was used to capture some of the images taken in Mexico City. It was a pleasure to use, delivering superb high-quality images ideal for publishing and is a great addition to DeskLink’s digital equipment. The G5 X was launched in South Africa in December 2015 and features a bright f/1.8-2.8 lens and 1.0-type sensor plus a large, high quality viewfinder for DSLR-like handling. For more information and full specifications visit www.canon.co.za.
8 / Creative Feel /February 2016
PRINTING ColorPress (Pty) Ltd © Copyright DeskLink™ Media The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher.
Funded by Department of Arts and Culture, in association with Gauteng Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture.
Feb 25 2016
Mar 06 2016
Book at Computicket www.computicket.co.za • 0861 915 8000 Call 011 492 2033 for further information
Dance Umbrella Johannesburg
@danceumbrellaSA
Dance_Umbrella_SA
Cover image: Rebellion and Johannesburg choreographed by Jessica Nupen
30
BIGGER THAN ART
Themba Mbuli, Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance 2016, will perform Breaking Borders at this year’s Dance Umbrella in Johannesburg.
cover story 26
DANCE UMBRELLA 2016
34
MAKING AN IMPACT
ImpACT Award winner 2015 for Dance, Letlhogonolo Nche is ecstatic. The award is a
Dance Umbrella 2016 takes place from 25 February to 6 March at various venues across
recognition not only of his work, but of the work
Gauteng, including: Dance Factory; UJ Arts
of dancers in the Northern Cape, a province
Centre; Soweto Theatre and the John Kani
traditionally overlooked in terms of artistic talent,
Theatre (at the Market Theatre).
he tells Nondumiso Msimanga.
contents
arts and culture 22
COMING UP AT THE MARKET
Celebrating 40 years this year, the Market Theatre
24
36 THE ROLEX ARTS WEEKEND IN MEXICO CITY
This year, Mexico City, with its rich and diverse arts
presents a carefully curated programme of superb
scene, was chosen to mark the culmination of the
theatre and musical celebration over the next
2014-2015 cycle of the internationally celebrated
few months.
mentoring programme, the Rolex Mentor and
EXCITING LINE-UP FOR THE PLAYHOUSE COMPANY IN 2016
The Playhouse Company, KwaZulu-Natal’s premier theatre destination, has announced its anticipated line-up for 2016.
Protégé Arts Initiative.
42 SA SEASON IN THE UK SUCCESSFULLY DRAWS TO END The SA Season in the UK, part of the SA-UK Season 2014 & 2015, the cultural exchange partnership by South Africa’s Department of Arts and Culture and the United Kingdom’s British Council, is proud to announce that the final round-up of the SA Season in the UK has again been a phenomenal success.
10 / Creative Feel /February 2016
44 CTEMF AND CONNECT ZA COLLABORATE FOR BASSXCHANGE UK/ZA 2016
56
DIEGO RIVERA
Considered one of the great artists of the early 20th century, and one of the ‘Big Three’ Mexican muralists, Diego Rivera has been credited with
Now in its third year, BassXchange UK/ZA is a search
an important role in changing the way Mexico
for talented up-and-coming UK music producers,
viewed herself.
exposing the winner to SA audiences through the Cape Town Electronic Music Festival (CTEMF).
46
ALADDIN SANE
Reinvention, culling an iconic persona and donning a new mask was a constant cycle in the career of David Bowie. His career was one that circumvented categorisation and definition and instead involved
lifestyle and entertainment
contents almost constant innovation and evolution.
48
OF DARKNESS AND OF LIGHT
CD REVIEWS BOOK REVIEWS
contributors 16
ARTLOOKS & ARTLINES
January 2016, Of Darkness and Of Light presents a
Artlooks & Artlines is a monthly column
mid-career survey of work by Minnette Vári.
by Ismail Mahomed, Artistic Director of the
National Arts Festival.
Opening at the Standard Bank Gallery on 29
52
60 62
FRIDA OF BLOOD AND GOLD
18
BUSINESS & ARTS
been two great accidents in her life: ‘One was the
Business & Arts is a monthly column by
train, the other was Diego. Diego was by far the
Michelle Constant, CEO of Business and Arts
worst.’ These ‘accidents’ played an enormous role
South Africa (BASA).
20
LITERARY LANDSCAPES
Literary Landscapes is a monthly column written
by Indra Wussow, a writer, translator and director of
the Sylt Foundation.
Frida Kahlo famously once said that there had
in leading her to art, and shaped the subject matter that she tackled throughout her life.
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 11
The Creative Feel team was saddened to hear of the passing of renowned art auctioneer, Stephan Welz in December last year. We were honoured to have had a close working relationship with him over the years and mourn the passing of this respected figure. We will miss him. auction house established by Reinhold Cassirer and Jane Harraway in Johannesburg. It was a decisive move. Cassirer,
OBITUARY
a German émigré married to novelist Nadine Gordimer, is remembered for overhauling the image of auction houses locally. Welz, his key protégé, inherited the mantle when, in 1980, Cassirer retired to pursue other interests. Welz held the reins until 2006, when he sold the company,
S
which since 1987 had been named Stephan Welz & Co following a management buy-out from Sotheby’s. During this
tephan Welz, the renowned art auctioneer who
26-year period Welz presided over the incredible growth in
passed away on 25 December at age 72, was
interest and value of South African art at auction.
distinguished by his tall, rugby-player physique and air of unforced confidence around art.
Welz also intermittently published. His debut book, Cape Silver & Silversmiths (1976), is now regarded as an authoritative
Welz’s assured and charismatic manner, coupled with his
study of silversmiths operating in the Cape from late 17th to
wide-ranging knowledge of South African painting and
mid-19th century. It was followed by two book-length reviews of
sculpture saw him rise to the top of his profession. Central
the art auction market, published in 1989 and 1996.
to Welz’s decades-spanning success as South Africa’s
‘There are no second acts in American lives,’ wrote the
go-to expert and auctioneer was his long-standing
novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. The same is probably true of
association with the world of art and artists.
South African lives, although not of Stephan Welz. In 2008,
Born in 1943 in the Breede River Valley town of
Welz came out of retirement to head up the new auction
Worcester, Welz was the third of five sons born to émigré
house Strauss & Co. His leadership of the company, which
parents Jean Welz and Inger Christensen. Welz’s father, an
is owned by Elisabeth Bradley, Dr Conrad Strauss and his
Austrian-born architect, excelled as a painter.
colleagues, was marked by a new series of career successes.
Welz’s aesthetic education, the foundation of his
In a mere half-dozen years, Strauss & Co has emerged
professional achievements, was decisively influenced by his
as the largest fine art auction house in South Africa and the
proximity to artists. Speaking in 2007, Welz warmly recalled
global leader in the South African art market. The company
an overnight stay at painter Gregoire Boonzaier’s home, an
holds the records for nine of the ten most expensive paintings
early champion of his father’s austere but lyrical paintings.
ever sold at auction in South Africa. Shortly before Welz’s
Welz’s formal education in the art business began in
death, he knocked down painter Alexis Preller’s oil and gesso
earnest after his decision to move upcountry. During the
work The Creation of Adam I (1968) for R8.5 million. It set a
late-1960s he held an administrative position in Unisa’s
new auction record for the artist.
fledgling art department in Pretoria. He worked alongside Walter Battiss. In 1970, shortly after obtaining a commerce degree
from Unisa, Welz joined Sotheby Parke Bernet, a new
12 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Stephan Welz was a colossus of a figure who throughout his life embodied the spirit of artistic cultivation and fellowship learnt so early on from his parents. He will be remembered for his integrity, humility and brilliant sense of humour. CF
ROMANCE, Rest and Rejuvenation…
O
n the northern slopes of the Magaliesberg you will find the best kept secret in Gauteng, hidden amongst two hectares of lush sub-tropical
gardens: Casta Diva Boutique Hotel. With 27 elegantly decorated guest rooms, this oasis in the city offers more than just accommodation to her guests. You will find several romantic spots to have a dinner for two this Valentine’s Day. If you simply want a little break from everyday life during the romantic month, book a room and enjoy the peace and tranquillity offered by the spacious garden and beautiful scenery. With á la carte menus Casta Diva’s Charisma Restaurant offers a selection of mouth-watering dishes. If you keep an eye on their Facebook page [Casta Diva’s Charisma Restaurant] you might find a night when there will be live entertainment on the grand piano. Often hosting classical concerts on a Sunday afternoon, this is more than just a restaurant. It is a place to unwind, enjoy good food and spend time with good friends. There is also an intimate Theatre/Art Gallery – Casta Diva’s Vissi d’Arte – where there are often shows by local artists. These events are updated on the Facebook page [Casta Diva’s Vissi d’Arte] and are focused on the development of artists and their craft. So, spoil yourself or a loved one and take a break during the month of love to enjoy the things which are important in life – love and happiness. Visit their website at www.castadiva.co.za and view the rooms to find the one that will ‘fit just right’. Casta Diva, the place where you can break away, breathe and simply just… be. CF
14 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Entries are invited for the Barclays L’Atelier art
COMPETITION Enter between 1 January 2016 and 4 March 2016.
B
arclays L’Atelier is one of Africa’s most prestigious art competitions. It rewards young visual artists aged 21 to 35 with the opportunity to develop their
talents abroad. A look through the list of previous winners will testify to this. Building on the platform created in 2015, the competition is continuing to expand across Africa, opening in a number of countries, where Barclays has
Prizes
a presence. Artists who are permanent residents of and
There are five prizes for the 2016 competition; the first
residing in either South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Ghana,
prize, three merit award prizes and the Gerard Sekoto
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Eqypt, Mauritius or Seychelles
Award for the most promising artist.
are invited to enter. The Barclays L’Atelier art competition is run in
The top 10 finalists will all be placed on a two-day art professionalism course to assist them in managing their
conjunction with our partner, the South African National
careers. Each finalist will also be paired with a mentor
Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA).
who will work with them for a year.
‘A
lmost 70 entries were received for the classical and jazz categories collectively, with many Russian and Korean entrants in the classical section, and numerous US-based jazz pianists also applying,’ says Prof Karendra Devroop, artistic director of the 13th Unisa International
Piano Competition. Thirty finalists were subsequently selected from these, including the four South African finalists: Willem de Beer and Megan-Geoffrey Prins (classical); and Lungelo Ngcobo and Kyle Shepherd (jazz) – who were finalists in this year’s 5th Unisa National Piano Competition, and thus gained automatic entry into the international competition. With each category winner set to walk away with R200 000 in prize money, not to mention the opportunity to play in front of a live audience of almost 1 000 people in the ZK Matthews Great Hall in Pretoria, Devroop says that this is the opportunity of a lifetime for many of these artists. ‘Most of these young musicians are just embarking on their careers – and building up their audience and fan base. The competition
Joshua Espinoza
has been designed with a view to help them do exactly that: showcase their talent; share it with others and leave a lasting impression that creates a fan base they can grow around the world. Given the high calibre of finalists, as well as the noteworthy judging panel including jazz pianists Peter Beets (Netherlands) and Kevin Harris
INSPIRING YOUNG ARTISTS COMPETE IN
Unisa International Piano Competition
As interest in the Unisa Music Foundation’s work and competitions continues to grow within and beyond South Africa’s borders, more and more young, up-and-coming artists are vying for an opportunity to showcase their musical talent – as seen by the high number of entries received this year. (US), and classical experts Prof Musa Rubackyte (France) and Prof David Ascanio (Venezuela), all competitors will undoubtedly be motivated and similarly inspired throughout the various rounds as well.’ Each pianist will have the opportunity to prove themselves in the first two rounds (to be held during the week of 26 January 2016) – after which the first elimination round will take place. ‘The semi-final will comprise a recital by each of the twelve remaining competitors, with three jazz and three classical finalists being selected by the jury. They will then each compete in the grand Anna Dmytrenko
finale – complete with jazz rhythm section or full concert orchestra – on 5 and 6 February 2016 respectively,’ says Devroop. Because all of the rounds are accumulative, performances in previous rounds will count towards the end result, making it about consistently exceptional performance. With so much, literally, to play for, Devroop says that pianists in both categories are undoubtedly already hard at work preparing their repertoires for late January. ‘We look forward to the privilege of sharing and showcasing their talent through the competition and encourage music lovers to set aside the 25 January to 6 February to join us for what promises to be an incredible experience,’ he concludes. CF
16 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 17
Artlooks & Artlines Artlooks & Artlines is a monthly column written by Ismail Mahomed, Artistic Director of the National Arts Festival.
T
heatre managements across the globe often present ‘tribute shows’ when they really need to put bums on seats or to bring in much needed cash to keep the lights burning. It is an age-old trick! Tribute shows can also be fun but there is
always a risk with creating and presenting shows that make their audiences go back in time. Tribute shows can either be soaked in melancholy about an overtly romanticised bygone era or they can evoke bitterness because of the the pain, loss and anger that they recreate about the times that they recall. The Baxter Theatre’s recent season of Remembering The Lux was so cleverly conceived. It played to full houses. It recreated an era that was vibrant and colourful. This wasn’t about just plain old melancholy. Nor was it about rekindling the kind of memories that would evoke our anger against those who tried to cheat some of us of lives and our dignity. Remembering The Lux was a celebration of how the human spirit has triumphantly beaten the apartheid system at its own game. It was a celebration of those magnificent artists who performed on the stages of the by-gone Luxurama Theatre and about those loyal patrons who filled its auditorium. It was a bold statement that theatre conquers anywhere, anytime and all the time! The production honoured the artists who used their talents
spraykie van sy Aramis kry. Mens kan nie Mum for Man gebruik vir die Lux nie.’ (Keep Uncle Shoukat busy. I want to get a
to make audiences momentarily forget the separateness that
squirt of his Aramis deodorant. You can’t wear Mum for Men
was legislated outside of the auditorium. It showed how the
when you go to the Lux.)
music of the time brought audiences of all races together. It
At that moment that little memory brought a smile to
celebrated the power that music had to defy the Group Areas
my face. I thought, ‘Hell! Why am I wearing Issey Miyaki
Act; and to unite its audiences to sing from the same hymn
tonight! For old time’s sake I should have worn some Aramis
sheet that a better future was within reach of all South Africans.
or Old Spice tonight!’
The first half of Remembering The Lux joyfully rekindled
So too, when I bought my packet of Samoosas and
those memories about dressing up. The rituals of walking
Daltjies in the foyer little did I realise that it was that sub-
into a darkened theatre were humorously parodied. The
conscious part of my brain telling me, ‘maar dis hoe ons dit
act of packing food baskets to take with to the theatre were
gedoen het by die Lux’ (that’s the way we did it at the Lux).
brought to life with absolute jest. As I waited in the foyer of the theatre, my thoughts went
As my teeth sank into the aromatically spiced Daltjies many more memories came flooding back. I waited with
fleeting back to my first visit to the Luxurama Theatre when
anticipation. I wanted to once again experience the
I was still a wet-behind-the-ears teenager. I can recall my
fountained proscenium arch of the old Luxurama Theatre.
cousin saying to me as we dressed up for our visit to the
The second half of the production did not disappoint. It just
Luxarama Theatre: ‘Hou vir Oom Shoukat besig. Ek wil net ‘n
brought the Lux to life again in all its glory!
18 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Loukmaan Adams, Kashiefa Blaauw, Alistair Izobell and Nur Abrahams. Photograph by Mark Wessels
“As I waited in the foyer of the theatre, my thoughts went fleeting back to my first visit to the Luxurama Theatre when I was still a wet-behindthe-ears teenager” While the first half of Remembering The Lux was a
The cast from Remembering the Lux. Photographs by Andrew Brown
Remembering The Lux was more than just a night
playful and delightful walk back in time with some really
of superb entertainment. It inspired a sense of hope in
colourful characters, the second half of the show was a
the resilience of the human spirit. It made one understand
glorious celebration of that wonderful era of the 60s and
why theatre is always that blessed thread that weaves us all
70s, its music, its flamboyant costumes and performances. Every
together with our past and our present. It made us understand
part of that second half rekindled everything as it was then. It
each other so much better. It offered us healing because it
strength rested in how it showcased that our artists then and now
made forgiveness and remorse meet each other. It inspired us
still are so absolutely world class!
with hope. It reminded us that we are survivors! CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 19
Business & Arts Business & Arts is a monthly column by Michelle Constant, CEO of Business and Arts South Africa (BASA).
A
few months ago, I attended an M&G
most apparent is the access to imagination, dreaming, to
Thoughtleader Forum, supported by Nandos,
paradigm shifts and opportunities. Access to dreaming a new
which took place at the fabulous Central
story for myself, allowing myself to be the artist, imagining
Kitchen in Lorentzville. The ‘hot’ topic (OK
what the artist is in the global environment, and seeing
I couldn’t resist that) was Transformation in
myself in that role; access to imagining and ultimately
the Arts, importantly focusing on ‘reimagining the narrative’. In addressing the topic, one speaker described the need to
knowing that I can succeed. In celebrating the end of 2015, and as quickly as we’ve
graduate through the tiers of experience. I heard something
moved into 2016, I would like to pay tribute to the extraordinary
different. I heard her say we need to graduate through the tears
organisation that I work for – both my colleagues in the business,
of experience. Perhaps it was my state of mind, at the end of a
and importantly the Board that advises us. The extremely
gruelling (and sometimes tearful) year, but nevertheless…
high level of engagement, guidance and support they offer, at
“As we try to reimagine a different narrative in South Africa generally, but specifically in the arts sector, we are indeed graduating through the tears”
no cost, has meant that BASA remains an efficient, resilient and agile animal. In the last year we have been able to really provide greater access, drilling deeper into what this means with regards to research, and validating the arts on various levels. Our Education Programme expanded exponentially into all provinces, with thanks to the support from our partner the NAC. Access is also an interesting concept when one addresses it from the private sector point of view. One of the valuable initiatives that we drove last year, and continue to expand on this year, was the opportunity to get the private sector to engage with the working artist. So spending an evening at the
In many ways I believe that as we try to reimagine a
Workhorse Foundry with some of our clients was an exciting
different narrative in South Africa generally, but specifically in
learning and gift; in February some of our clients will get to
the arts sector, we are indeed graduating through the tears. It’s
experience Conducting an Orchestra; the opportunity to see the
not easy. It means pain, sadness, grief, tears of anger, but on
artists at work at Artist Proof Studio, to see the printing press
occasion there are tears of joy – the blurring of light providing a
being inked, squeezed and rolled (my apologies, I’m not sure
rainbow of colours and images.
what the actual terms are, and now I’m making it sound like the
2015 highlighted so many organisations that have
baking of bread) is an opportunity I believe that everyone should
graduated through the tears. They have measured up against
have. To see an artist at work, is to demonstrate much of what
these emotions, deepening public understanding of the value
should be in the South African narrative – passion, discipline,
of the arts – it’s intrinsic and economic success, and most
leadership and team work, attention to detail, goal orientation,
valuably, demonstrating the importance of access.
inter-generational skills transfer and governance. Business and
In the current lexicon of change, ‘access’ has been the word that has most intrigued me. Like transformation it
Government could learn a lot from this. Through the arts we continuously seethe shifting narrative
appears within a narrow band of understanding. So when we
of the country. It is a perfect example of how we, as South
talk of access, we are thinking access to skills, to markets,
Africans, can and must ‘graduate through the tears’ if we are
to geographies. But during our Education Programme
to find a way forward. Let’s take our lessons from the success
workshops nationwide, the access (or lack of it) that becomes
stories in the arts, instead of the failures elsewhere. CF
20 / Creative Feel /February 2016
#
Anastasia Pather, project manager for the 2016 ACT | UJ Arts & Culture Conference, reflects on the planning of the conference.
#creativeintersections
A
s an artist, one often encounters multiple
the intersection between action, innovation and outcomes,
‘intersections’ with perception and reality –
as a result the programme has been deliberately split
Parisian garret as a studio as opposed to the
into these three streams. This year’s programme offers
actual wall in your parent’s garage you work from,
presentations and practical tools that provide delegates
gainful employment after an honours degree versus working
individual experience through workshops and brainstorming
for ‘exposure’ or ‘experience’. Thus frantically applying for
sessions and a networking party that is designed to produce
internships outside of the shelter of academia becomes
tangible outcomes and inspire collaborative thinking
regular routine until finally someone bites.
and action. Delegates will work on personalized project
At the beginning of 2015 I was lucky enough for that bite to
proposals during the conference and have the opportunity
come from the Arts & Culture Trust where I jumped on board
to learn how to cultivate themselves as a brand or undertake
as one of the conference interns for the ACT | UJ Arts & Culture
strategic resource planning to stimulate critical thinking
conference– Creatives Make it Happen. Needless to say, after
around the development of innovative business strategies
considerable efforts, an expansive and valuable conference was
including the fostering of partnerships, collaborations and
presented. The conference focused on the creative economy and
project proposals to create income-generating streams.
showcased examples of inspiring projects and individuals from
Alternatively there will also be a watercolour painting
a local and global perspective, attracting close to 400 delegates
workshop available just in case you want to redesign your
from emerging creatives to established industry stalwarts.
business card and add illustrator to your title.
Dauntingly, by the end of 2015 I was sitting in a familiar chair concentrating on familiar objectives. #creativeintersections will examine interdisciplinarity and look at the impact interdisciplinary engagements have on modern culture, exploring the value that derives
In a sense #creativeintersections will be about takeaways, what you can reference and take home after the conference be it a business plan, a new skill, inspiration or a new contact in your network. We are asking delegates to enrol in a programme that
from these interactions and the contemporary effect
showcases and teaches a way of thinking outside of your box,
interdisciplinarity has on the notion of identity and the
but at the same time equipping you with the resources to
construction African expressions.
sustain and enhance ‘your current box’.
Creatives often wear multiple hats not only to help
The ACT | UJ Arts & Culture Conference takes place on
augment a usually meagre bank balance but mostly because
16 and 17 March 2016 at the UJ Arts Centre, University of
our interests lie in multiple domains. The conference
Johannesburg Kingsway Campus. Tickets are available on
celebrates the ‘multipassionate’ thinker that has recognised
www.creativeconference.co.za. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 21
Literary Landscapes Literary Landscapes is a monthly column by Indra Wussow a writer, translator and director of the Sylt Foundation.
A
Refugees in transit from the border with DRC to Rwamwanja Uganda Photograph by Andy Wheatley for DFID Licensed under Creative Commons
bbas Khider is a soft spoken but dedicated man.
enemy of the regime in his homeland. It documents Hamid’s
His is the first story of success in terms of literary
various attempts to leave Iraq, tracing his journey across
production in response to the recent migrational flow.
north Africa and Europe and is in turns both funny and sad,
Born in Baghdad in 1973, Khider leafleted
for various communist and Islamic opposition parties as a
offering credible insight into the lifecycle of travel, infiltration, discovery and deportation of the modern refugee.
teenager in Iraq, unaware that his activities were drawing the
Migrational processes have been in existent throughout
attentions of Saddam’s regime. He was arrested, tortured, held
time, but they are particularly prominent in today’s society – a
for two years as an enemy of the state and released to find his
society that has created migration flows on so large a scale
chances of attending university in Iraq destroyed by his status
and reinvented them. Literature plays an important part in
as a political detainee. He resolved to leave Iraq to obtain an
scrutinising this process. Literature does not only record
education and so his very own journey began; an exemplary
traumatising experiences that come alone with the change
one for so many.
into another culture, it also rewrites the defining power of the
Khider arrived in Germany in 2000, this journey of his being
dominant culture. This new hybrid literature inscribes itself
a catalogue of displacement, illegal immigration and frequent
into its traditional lines to reinterpret them or even to let them
incarceration. As a native of Iraq, Khider’s first language is
be the playground for itself.
Arabic. His first novel is, unusually, written in German. The
These writers generally live between at least two different
Village Indian is the story of Rasul Hamid, political prisoner and
cultures and have formed a new identity out of this tension.
refugee, and is fuelled by Khider’s own experience of life as an
This hybrid world literature is no longer a niche, no longer at
22 / Creative Feel /February 2016
the fringe of literary production, but rather the main current
Adouani was born in the south of Tunisia in 1956. The Arab
of today’s culture. Its sources might be decolonisation, as
Spring did not offer her more but less freedom and the poet
well as the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fate
left her country in 2012.
of refugees of civil wars like Abbas Khider. It seems Ulysses
The Salafists increasingly shape the public discourse
has become the role model of new writing that tells us what
and blacklisted Adouani because of her critical texts and
it means to inhabit a world of profound homelessness. It
poems that stand for freedom of speech and women’s
emphasises the transitional and painful of borders and
rights. Hastily – and secretly – she departed. ‘I packed a
boundary dissolutions, of flight and the abandonment of a
small bag. Sat paralysed on my bed for some few hours
former identity.
before my departure,’ she says. ‘I did not say good bye to my
In the political trouble spots in the Mediterranean region,
mother or my sons. They thought I [was] going on holiday.
more and more writers are among the refugees leaving their
In my head there was only emptiness. Coldness. My eyes
countries. Tunisian poet Najet Adouani is one of them.
were blind.’
Refugees on a boat
Kurdish refugees travel by truck, Turkey, 1991
Journey My passport is a green revolver A bell tied to my body I move into a land out of the ashes of myth Blogger Aboud Saeed now lives in Berlin and escaped Mother demands
the war in Syria. ‘In Syria I lived in my own small universe
Me to return
as a blacksmith. Now, there is a door opening to something
Those years lost.
greater, to the world of culture. But this is not the reason
Father demands
why I stay, I cannot go back as my city is under control of the
Me returning
Islamic State. When I was a boy I [ran] around barefoot and
The dolls
without trousers. My favourite play was digging. I dug with
I was given at the feast.
my naked hands many tiny pits… now I am grown up and
Whom should I sell my life to
have two hands of iron, but a storm came and flood all these
Under this sky of nocturnal jasmine?
tiny pits.’
Seagull, you who are burnt by the descending sun
Islamic State persecutes writers like Saeed as their
In your joints nests the cold
enemy as he likes to write about women, sex or drugs. Or
Camels whom storm brought to their knee
makes fun of religion. It is his sardonic smile that is his
between one mirage and the next.
strongest literary weapon against war, death and the loss of
oh, you little home of mine.
his home. ‘He who cries is weak. Laughter turned into the
Najet Adouani
surreal is originated from strength.’ CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 23
Coming up at the Market Celebrating 40 years this year, the Market Theatre presents a carefully curated programme of superb theatre and musical celebration over the next few months. A Raisin in the Sun A family in Southside Chicago is going through its everyday struggles in the squalor it calls home. Walter Lee Younger, the eldest son of the family knows that he wants far more than life has offered him and feels trapped in this whirlwind of an existence. He knows that if things don’t change, he will not be able to even catch a breath. Writer Lorraine Hansberry explores the pain of this man, and instils the play with a sense of pathos in all the scenes between Walter and Ruth, his wife. It is also a piece that deals with how people change with each generation, a historical document that articulates the fact that not much has changed in life, and that the questions posed a couple of decades ago are still unanswered today and the walk of those who asked those questions is not done yet. A Raisin in the Sun, directed by James Ngcobo and written by Lorraine Hansberry, is produced by the Market Theatre, in association with the US Embassy SA, and will be showing at the John Kani Theatre from 3 to 28 February 2016.
24 / Creative Feel /February 2016
International Jazz Day The Market Theatre is proud to be a partner of International Jazz Day South Africa, an initiative to establish South African and Continental Chapters of this global event that draws on the power of jazz to foster unity. Every year on April 30, jazz is harnessed to promote peace, dialogue among cultures, diversity, respect for human dignity, freedom of expression, gender equality and to reinforce the role of youth in enacting social change. International Jazz Day will host a variety of activations including talks, lectures, broadcast and literature. The music concerts will be rolled out as follows: Yonela Mnana directs the IJD SA youth band on 17 April 2016, The KV Mngoma Tribute lecure and Gala on 22 April 2016 an the Siya Makhuzeni Big Band Explora on 30 April 2016. CF
Tobacco, and the Harmful Effects Thereof ‘Take a fly, put him in a snuff box. It will die… probably from nervous exhaustion.’ Ivan, who is not a professor, is instructed by his wife to give a lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco, even though he himself is only a small smoker. This is a hilarious and deeply poignant journey of a man trying to be heard for the first time. Following sold-out, critically acclaimed seasons at both the Baxter Theatre and the Grahamstown National Arts Festival (2014 and 2015), Tobacco, and the Harmful Effects Thereof has just returned from a highly successful run at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival 2015, as part of the Best of Fringe programme. Tobacco, and the Harmful Effects Thereof is presented by Fortune Cookie Company and is written by William Harding and Sylvaine Strike, with direction by Sylvaine Strike. Starring Andrew Buckland and Toni Morkel, Tobacco, and the Harmful Effects Thereof will show at the Barney Simon Theatre from 10 February to 6 March 2016.
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 25
The Playhouse Company, KwaZulu-Natal’s premier theatre destination, has announced its anticipated line-up for 2016.
‘W
e are delighted to announce The Playhouse Company’s plan for 2016, and cordially invite you to visit the Playhouse this year. On the programme is a wide variety of productions that are often thought-provoking and
challenging, but all the while entertaining and informative,’ says CEO and Artistic Director, Linda Bukhosini. From 15 February to 11 March 2016, The Playhouse Company’s 2016 Schools Programme will feature I Am, an environmental education production for primary schools performed by the Playhouse Dance Residency (PDR) and choreographed by the PDR’s Sandile Mkhize. The production will tour to schools in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as playing two shows per day at The Playhouse Company. To book a performance for your school either on tour or in the Playhouse Loft Theatre, telephone Dawn on (031) 369 9407. Hosted by The Playhouse Company, Othello will also be presented for schools in February/March. This year’s exciting Ingoma Competition will take place at the SJ Smith Stadium (eWema) in Lamontville on 19 March. This exhilarating competition of traditional Zulu dance styles is one of the highlights on The Playhouse Company’s calendar, and draws thousands to the stadium each year. Entry is free. Especially for Easter, The Playhouse Company will present Songs of Praise, featuring the KZN Philharmonic, leading soloists and the Playhouse Chorale for two performances only over the Easter weekend. In May, New Stages, the Company’s annual cutting-edge festival of dance and drama, will feature several compelling works. This exciting annual season is unique and relevant as most of the productions carry a profoundly powerful message for South Africans, touching on such pertinent themes as transformation, race relations, social cohesion and the experience of exiles returning to new challenges in our promising democracy.
Exciting Line-up for the
Playhouse Company in 2016
26 / Creative Feel /February 2016
individuals who are wrestling with their pasts and with how they fit into modern-day South African society. Drawing on echoes from the lives of Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer, the play tells of a well-known female writer (Fiona Ramsay), her daughter (Janna Ramos-Violante) and a Doctor of Linguistics (Nat Ramabulana), whose inspiration comes from the pages of the author’s books. Directed by Malcolm Purkey, The Imagined Land is a new state-of-the-nation play for our troubled, troubling times that looks at how we represent ourselves and others through narrative. It is gripping, witty, sexy theatre that evolves into a timely meditation on some of the central dilemmas of our time. Choreographed by acclaimed choreographer, Sean Bovim and featuring dancers from both the Playhouse Dance Residency and Bovim Ballet, Romeo and Juliet tells Shakespeare’s age-old story of star-crossed lovers and family feuds in a dance work set to delight lovers of ballet and contemporary dance. Audiences can expect an exciting fusion of classical music and well-known hits from The Beatles. For Women’s Month in August, The Playhouse Company will present its famed South African Women’s Arts Festival (SAWAF). The Festival will feature drama, music, slam poetry, open mic and intergenerational dialogue sessions, a Children’s Day, an Open Day and a number of exhibitions. This Festival is an annual must-see! In September, The Playhouse Company will once again host its annual Iscathamiya Competition, which sees hundreds In A Voice I Cannot Silence, South African theatre giant Ralph
of performers from around KwaZulu-Natal converge on the
Lawson plays celebrated South African author, Alan Paton in a
Playhouse to compete for various prizes and, especially, the
play that movingly and empathetically examines the life of Paton
honour of winning this national contest. Beautiful voices,
through his own words, stories, poems and autobiographies.
swanky costumes and slinky moves are the order of this all-
Exploring weighty and often controversial issues such as Paton’s
night annual spectacular.
position within the Liberal Party, his years as principal of the
September is also Shall We Dance time. This
Diepkloof Reformatory, his belief in and struggle for human
overwhelmingly popular dance spectacular draws capacity
rights, and the complexities of his personal relationships, A Voice
audiences every year, so early booking is advised.
I Cannot Silence is written by Lawson and Greg Homann, directed
Just in time for the festive season, The Sound of Music
by Homann and features Lawson, Claire Mortimer as Paton’s
will open in the Playhouse Opera Theatre on 24 November
second wife, Anne and Menzi Mkhwane as Sponono, a former
and feature some of South Africa’s best-loved performers.
Reformatory inmate. Set design is by Nadya Cohen, ‘soundscape’
Directed by Ralph Lawson, this much-loved family
by Evan Roberts and lighting design by Michael Broderick.
favourite will also star the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra,
The Cenotaph of Dan Wa Moriri is a cleverly-constructed one-hander examining the intimate story of a father-son relationship recalled and reconstructed through memory,
the Playhouse Dance Residency and many more. Patrons are advised to book early at Computicket. Every month The Playhouse Company features up-and-
snippets of conversation, musical excerpts, truths and
coming performers in its free lunchtime Test-Driving the
half-truths. The sincerity of this highly personal narrative
Arts programme, while its Sundowners concerts showcase
explores themes of relationships, loss and longing. Directed
more established musicians and poets one Friday evening
by Gerard Bester and starring Tony Miyambo, The Cenotaph
each month, once again free of charge.
of Dan Wa Moriri leaves audiences reflecting on their own lives and individual histories. In The Imagined Land, written by South African playwright Craig Higginson, we witness the story of three dynamic
For a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the world of live theatre, why not take a tour of the Playhouse complex. Bookings can be made by calling the Playhouse Box Office on (031) 369 9540. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 27
Nelisiwe Xaba and Memela Nyamza’s The Last Attitude
UMBRELLA
DANCE 2016 Dance Umbrella 2016 takes place from 24 February to 6 March at various venues across Gauteng, including: Dance Factory; UJ Arts Centre; Soweto Theatre and the John Kani Theatre (at the Market Theatre).
B
orders exist at every level of each human being’s societal existence. Some boundaries are political and enforced by law. Other restrictions can take various forms: physical; psychological; emotional;
and so on. These limitations inevitably place blocks against certain movements; these movements can be small gestures that are disallowed in certain circumstances or they can be as visible as the mass movement of a group of people. For collections of people prohibitions are historically created to protect the group against perceived external threats. Recent histories have shown that barriers can also be internally
28 / Creative Feel /February 2016
destructive when fear governs actions and determines identities as oppositions. The 27th instalment of the Dance Umbrella sees issues of identity as a set of restrictions. These limitations are explored and toyed with, dissected and documented, memorialised and written and even eulogised. It is a programme full of a variety of ways to tackle the sociopolitical and intrapersonal problems that affect the global community that is identity. South Africa has been shaken by the resurgence of a wave of Xenophobia in the past year. The nation was forced to re-examine its identity and the unity that defines its democratic years. People who were not born into the country’s citizenship feared their neighbours; as the bonechilling images of foreign nationals burning were replayed on television screens. The response was visceral. Something had to be done. It was a moment when action was needed where words had fanned a flame of fear and the nation of the 1994 elections seemed lost. With the pictures of men wielding machetes filling the newspapers’ front pages there was also a need for the interrogation of the violence that hyper-masculine identity perpetuates. Dance Umbrella 2016 hosts a number of protest pieces in its programme. Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for Dance 2016, Themba Mbuli, presents a work called Breaking Borders, in collaboration with Zimbabwean choreographer Anna Morris. It is a work that dissects the Southern African identity and tries to uncover the causes of the xenophobic response. The collaboration is a gift of creative conspiracy that joins dancers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana to document the root of the actions that lead people away from their common humanity. Makwerekwere, by 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist Bailey Snyman, is a collaboration with Ashley Churchyard that holds nothing back in memoriam of those who have suffered and died in the name of identity. The derogatory term that gives the piece its title refers to ‘foreign Africans’ and is commonly used in the everyday speech of South Africans with the sharp effect of defining the boundaries of an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ sentiment. The word writes a harsh distinction of oppositional belonging into the language of its users and has been in use since the apartheid era. The vocabulary that has proceeded from the apartheid years is also physical. Research done by the Centre for the Study
Gregory Maqoma in Ketima. Photograph by John Hogg
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 29
Toyi Toyi by Hors Serie Company/Hamid Ben Mahi. Photograph by Pierre Planchenault
Rebellion and Johannesburg by Jessica Nupen. Photograph by Kopie
of Violence and Reconciliation has found a connection
are internationally renowned in their own right. What
between protest action that has been ignored and instances
is intriguing is that even in the light-hearted manner in
of xenophobic attacks in certain areas.
which they portray their investigations into the masculine
In South Africa, the Toyi-toyi is the dance of protest.
identity there is a particularly pointed look at the violence
Via Katlehong Dance with French choreographer Hamid
that accompanies the borders of the image. It is perhaps
Ben Mahi showcase a dance called Toyi Toyi inspired by the
Portuguese choreographer Nelia Pinheiro’s ode to poet
movement of protest. This playful and skillful work of Via
Florbela Espanca that offers the most solemn vision of
Katlehong will bring a unique tone to the themes of Dance
masculinity as ‘the void, the silence, a sense of togetherness
Umbrella artists this year, and to the festival as a whole.
and of loneliness. Extremes and their limits’. Indeed, the
Playfully, is how The Last Attitude, Rebellion and
boundaries placed against the freedom of movement which
Johannesburg, Ketima, and Lucky Jim tackle the issues
the restrictions of identities can create are at the heart of
surrounding the masculine identity in different ways.
the life-visas that people operate in. Visas, as No There, Yes
Choreographed by Nelisiwe Xaba and Mamela Nyamza;
Maybe Here shows, are legal documents and mental barriers
Jessica Nupen; Gregory Maqoma; and PJ Sabbagha and
of selfhood.
Ivan Estegneev, respectively, these are the works of the
Dance Umbrella 2016 is funded by the Department of
‘heavyweight choreographers’. The list includes three
Arts and Culture, in association with Gauteng Department of
Standard Bank Young Artists and all choreographers
Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture. CF
30 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Ketima
K
etima is a popular work from Vuyani Dance Theatre Project’s established repertoire, which debuted at the New Dance Festival in Johannesburg in mid 2003. In developing the work, Maqoma ‘sat observing human nature, [and] realised that the predominant factor in
life is haste,’ notes the repertoire’s description. ‘Ketima examines phases of development from crawling through toddling to the time when human thoughts, feelings and actions get hooked to the mainstream existence.’ The work is partly autobiographical, linking the artist’s experience with the stories of others. Some critics saw it as the
Having ended 2015 with Gregory Maqoma & Friends playing to a packed and wildly enthusiastic audience, Vuyani Dance Theatre Project looks forward to an exciting new year. For the 2016 Dance Umbrella in March, the company revisits Ketima, a meditation on human development.
beginning of a shift in Maqoma’s artistic evolution: Andrew Gilder wrote that it marked ‘a transition out of the autobiographical phase. The piece finds Maqoma looking back at the innocence of childhood and the wonder of first encounters.’ Ketima continues Maqoma’s interrogation of his place in society, tradition and contemporary culture. Following its debut, the work quickly evolved into a quartet accompanied by live percussion. It became one of Maqoma’s most popular creations at the time, touring across South Africa, as well as England, Switzerland, Holland and Mexico. In its original incarnation, Ketima won praise from several critics. This Day’s Zingi Mkefa described it as ‘an impressive, honest, delicate and emotionally searing work that chronicles phases of human development by artfully going back in time to discover the origins of a young man: Gregory Maqoma.’ In London, the Guardian reported it as having ‘a relentless energy and some striking images, none more so than the final scene.’ The renewal of Ketima for this year’s Dance Umbrella offers a new audience the opportunity to experience an important work in Maqoma’s development, and a key piece in the Vuyani Dance Theatre Project’s repertoire. Don’t miss it! CF
Gregory Maqoma in Ketima. Photograph by John Hogg
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 31
igger
THAN ART
Themba Mbuli, Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance 2016, will perform Breaking Borders at this year’s Dance Umbrella in Johannesburg.
32 / Creative Feel /February 2016
T
hemba Mbuli refers to people as sisi or bhuti (sister or brother) imbuing his responses with respect, in a calm and shy tone. He generally averts his gaze and looks at his hands sometimes when he speaks. When he does
make eye contact, there is a certainty to the focus of his gaze that seems to see more than the mere mask of the human face. Themba Mbuli is the 2016 Standard Bank Young Artist (SBYA) for Dance. He quietly says, ‘I haven’t really had a chance to get excited about it.’ He has been so busy working on the various projects of his Unmute Dance Company that he has not had a moment to take it all in. Mbuli has also been running a programme that selected three female choreographers to work with the company in Cape Town. He says that the company’s aim was to address the imbalance of choreographers in South Africa where ‘males, they seem to dominate.’ Alongside this programme, the company also started its first festival, the Unmute ArtsAbility Festival. In addition, he has been working on realising the dream of the Broken Borders project that he facilitates with Fana Tshabalala (SBYA for Dance 2013) and Thulani Chauke of the Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC). This project creates a space for African artists to collaborate in choreography. Breaking Borders is the title of Mbuli’s partnership with choreographer Anna Morris from Harare, and is about the mental borders created by xenophobia. It features a team of dancers from Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia dancing with Unmute Dance and the work premieres at Dance Umbrella 2016. For Mbuli, one of the most noticeable effects of being awarded the SBYA Award has been that ‘a lot of things have had to change for next year’ but he adds that ‘it’s a good thing’. Art was one of the few good things that young Themba Mbuli had. During difficult times, as a young boy, he found that ‘art was really an escape’. He says, ‘It was a process for me where I could rehabilitate myself. I dealt with a lot of things when I was young.’ His grandparents raised him and he laughs that he doesn’t think that they knew what he was doing ‘they were just glad I was off the streets.’ Mbuli was yet to envision a career in the arts. Mbuli was involved in a youth club in Soweto but he repeats that all the activities were simply useful distractions until he saw contemporary dance. The man that he calls his mentor and to whom he attributes much of his artistic
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 33
34 / Creative Feel /February 2016
“Out of all the YOUNG SOUTH AFRICAN ARTISTS who are already doing innovative and ground-breaking works, I’m really HUMBLED to be part of the few that are recognised with such a SIGNIFICANT AWARD” – Themba Mbuli
inspiration, Kent Ekberg, was the first person to take Mbuli, as well as a group of others from the youth group, to see a contemporary dance performance. Ekberg had said to Mbuli that he saw significant talent in him but that he had too much anger, anger that would make him suffer if he failed to channel it. Mbuli says, ‘I was just a young kid making a lot of noise: writing angry poems about white supremacy and apartheid’ at the time. He found the channel that would fuel his activist character when he saw Fana Tshabalala dance. Seeing Tshabalala, a previous holder of the SBYA Award for dance, perform a story through his dance sparked Mbuli’s passion for the contemporary art form. ‘I knew from then that this is what I want to do,’ he says. He regrets that his grandmother passed away before getting the opportunity to see his first piece in 2005. She had had a wound in her leg that he recalls had never healed and had been the reason that he had wanted to become a doctor. His desire had been to heal her but she died before he had the chance to try. He agrees that his work is still in the pursuit of healing and that this foundation is at the core of his activism. ‘It’s bigger than art,’ he says. All his work, just as with the Unmute ArtsAbility Festival, is about integration and accessibility. His fiancee uses a wheelchair and he says the public transport system does not cater to her needs. Theatres are also built in areas that he states are far from townships and are out-of-the-way in the evenings. He says integration and accessibility are the issues his work will reflect at the National Arts Festival because, ‘We want everyone to enjoy theatre!’ His focus will be on excelling at his combination of dance and visual art. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 35
Making an
ImpACT
ImpACT Award winner 2015 for Dance, Letlhogonolo Nche is ecstatic. The award is a recognition not only of his work, but of the work of dancers in the Northern Cape, a province traditionally overlooked in terms of artistic talent, he tells Nondumiso Msimanga.
A
n ImpACT Award is awarded to a young
neighbourhood that gives him hope that through dance
artist who has made a contribution to their
success is possible.
community; it is also an award that has an
Growing up, Nche had admired Hinkel’s work without
impact on the community that the award
realising that Hinkel was from his province. When Hinkel
winner serves. Letlhogonolo Nche is the
returned to the area to bring his expertise to the young
winner of the inaugural ImpACT Award for Dance 2015 and
people from his hometown, Nche was excited. In 2012,
he is ‘not like other artists,’ he says. The Arts & Culture
when Dance Forum began its Dance XChange programme
Trust (ACT) presents Lifetime Achievement Awards and
in the Okiep region with Hinkel and John Linden’s
ImpACT Awards each year to worthy artists who fulfil their
Garage Dance Theatre, Nche was awarded a residency.
criteria and whose work impresses a carefully selected panel
The programme culminated in a dance piece shown on
of judges. Nche is the first to win the award for dance and his
the Dance Umbrella stage and its success allowed for
work speaks to the power that dance has had in transforming
the project’s continuation. Nche also won a place at the
the lives of some people in the Northern Cape.
Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative’s (FATC) initial
Fellow Northern Cape choreographer Alfred Hinkel was
residencies in Mpumalanga. With each residency he states
awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award and Nche was
that he has gained significant knowledge and skills to help
thrilled to find that his mentor was being honoured by ACT.
him become the choreographer that he hopes to be. The
‘When I got to the ceremony I didn’t know that Alfred Hinkel
ImpACT Award is a special moment in his career. The fact
was going to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. It
that he is the first person to be awarded for the new dance
was the people from this province – not a big city – and the
category leaves him overjoyed. ‘I don’t get over that. I don’t
first time that dance is being awarded. It gave me hope that
think I’ll ever get over that,’ he says gleefully.
despite your background, despite your infrastructure, you
Nche recalls his initial dance lessons vividly. His mother
can really make it,’ Nche says ecstatically. It is the prize
‘forced’ him to go from the age of eight. ‘It was a Sunday,
of having people to look up to in your field and from your
I remember,’ he says. The eight-year-old boy found it
36 / Creative Feel /February 2016
The fact that he is the first person to be awarded forThe the new leaves overjoyed. factdance thatcategory he is the firsthim person
to be awarded for the new dance category leaves him overjoyed,
“I don’t get over that. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that” a nuisance to go to dance classes, until one Sunday he received compliments and ‘that made me want to try again.’ He came first at his initial competition and yet dance was a career choice that seemed too far-fetched for him. Fate would intervene and he would eventually grow to become a choreographer. And Battlefield would be the title for his debut. The work was about the difficulties of being a choreographer from the Northern Cape where a dance choreographer was received less seriously by the rest of the country, he felt. He says that dancers from the province obtain fewer opportunities and often give up on the arts or move to the bigger cities. This was the reason that he started a project called Journey in 2015, a dance awareness campaign that toured the province with discussions being held to get a sense of the understanding of contemporary dance from the spectators. He found ‘that there is misinformation and also interest about dance.’ ‘I’m not like other artists,’ Nche says, ‘I’m doing my work to make sure that young people can grow.’ The ultimate goal, for him, is to run a company that teaches other young choreographers. He has a vision for a centre and hopes that with the opening of the Sol Plaatje University that he can facilitate a significant dance course that can show the province’s youth that there is possibility in the Northern Cape. Nche’s younger brother Kamogelo Nche, winner of the ACT Scholarship Award in 2014, aims to return to his hometown to further his career. When the younger Nche had told his brother that he would go audition, Nche had been apprehensive but trained with his brother for six months. When he won, Nche was inspired. The younger Nche then nominated his brother for the ImpACT Award and returned the favour of inspiration to his brother and their community. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 37
Installation by Sammy Baloji
38 / Creative Feel /February 2016
The Rolex Arts Weekend in Mexico City
This year, Mexico City, with its rich and diverse arts scene, was chosen to mark the culmination of the 2014-2015 cycle of the internationally celebrated mentoring programme, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
H
undreds of arts lovers from Mexico City joined cultural luminaries and arts journalists from around the world. All had travelled to the home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to celebrate the work carried out by the mentors and protégés of the 2014-2015
Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Among the star-studded gathering, at one of the largest
performing arts complexes in Mexico, were artists and creative leaders from the Arts Initiative’s growing community. Current mentors, Mexico’s multi-Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu among them, joined former mentors and advisors, including Mira Nair, William Kentridge, Julie Taymor, Mark Morris, Lin Hwai-min, Kazuyo Sejima, Sir David Chipperfield, Robert Wilson and Pierre Audi. Many of the 43 protégés from past cycles of the Arts Initiative – each with a growing international profile – were also in attendance. Portuguese composer Vasco Mendonça opened the event in the Teatro El Granero, Xavier Rojas with celebrated Mexican ensemble CEPROMUSIC performing his compositions, along with another piece, Lichtbogen (electric arc), written in 1986 by Mendonça’s mentor, Kaija Saariaho. The Finnish composer introduced the performances, which included a world premiere of her protégé’s ensemble work, ‘FIGHT | FLIGHT | FREEZE’. As an added attraction, former music protégée, mezzo-soprano Susan Platts sang Mendonça’s chamber music piece, ‘Boys of Summer’. Following the concert, American Jennifer Tipton introduced an installation by her theatre protégé, Mexican Sebastián Solórzano Rodríguez. The audience lined up in small groups to experience his highly original work comprised of broken and discontinued lighting devices. In the Teatro Julio Castillo, a conversation took place between Congolese artist and photographer Sammy Baloji and his mentor, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, who is acclaimed internationally for his large-scale art installations. Among other subjects, they focused on Baloji’s powerful photographic and installation work, which was mounted in the theatre’s lobby, and which examined post-colonial identities, borders and African urbanisation. Captivating was the wide-ranging conversation on architecture between revered Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, a Pritzker and RIBA prize-winner, and Gloria Cabral who, during the course of the mentoring year became project manager of her mentor’s tea chapel
Sammy Baloji with Olafur Eliasson
project near Seoul. Zumthor’s superstar status in Mexico meant
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 39
Passengers, choreographed by Myles Thatcher
the presentation had to be moved to a large tent on the Plaza Ángel Salas, which accommodated the hundreds of university students who gathered to hear their idol. Famed Sri-Lankan-born Canadian author Michael Ondaatje and Bulgarian literature protégé Miroslav Penkov explained their literary influences and read from their own works. Actor and former Rolex theatre mentor Kate Valk joined them in the Teatro El Granero and read excerpts from such diverse writers as Anton Chekov, Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King. But it was the dance performance, Body of Your Dreams, a collaboration between dancer/choreographer Myles Thatcher (mentor, Alexei Ratmansky) and his fellow Rolex protégés, architect Gloria Cabral and lighting designer Sebastiàn Solorzano Rodriguez that captured the mind of just about everyone and was greatly discussed and praised. Myles Thatcher actually presented five of his dance pieces might not enjoy ballet was entertained and transported into their multilinear narratives by his wonderful choreography. This work, a world premiere, was only completed hours before Myles Thatcher and his troop finished it in rehearsals leading up to the performance. Gloria Cabral’s intriguing set starts flat against the backdrop with no clues that it will soon fold out to create multiple landscapes, psychological interiors and dimly realised mirrors for Thatcher’s body obsessed dancers/characters to check out their silhouettes. The soundtrack (by Andrew Russo) is a modern classical piece, combining ‘madcap piano arpeggios and mashed up Myles Thatcher with Alexei Ratmansky
40 / Creative Feel /February 2016
(Some) Images shot with Canon PowerShot G5 X
and all of them were outstanding. Anyone who thought they
Body of Your Dreams (world premiere), choreographed by Myles Thatcher
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 41
spoken word snippets, that sound as though they have been nicked from fitness videos’. Long after the dance performance finished one was left with its multi-layered ideas, in awe of the dancers and admiring this young choreographer Myles Thatcher who was mentored by Alexei Ratmansky. Being only in his mid-20s, Myles Thatcher is somebody to look out for, as surely he will go far. And then there was of course the film category and with the arts weekend being held in Mexico City it was inevitable that the work of Oscar-winner Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) was the greatest draw card for the local audience, as well as the international visitors. Over the course of the weekend in González Iñárritu’s hometown, he celebrated his protégé, Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval in a co-presentation of clips from both men’s films (including González Iñárritu’s much anticipated film, The Revenant). González Iñárritu said he chose Shoval precisely because he saw a lot of quiet humanity in Shoval’s first filmmaking efforts. González Iñárritu echoed his protégé’s desire not to make anything predictable, warning that ‘Hollywood has created something so tasty, it is easy for audiences to Tom Shoval and Alejandro González Iñárritu
42 / Creative Feel /February 2016
forget other diets.’ In an extensive parable that compared
The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative is a biennial
mainstream films to the culinary equivalent of McDonald’s
philanthropic programme created by Rolex to ensure that
and Starbucks, and which also referenced the 17 tries it
the world’s artistic heritage is passed on from generation to
took to get his son to try oysters, González Iñárritu said
generation, across continents and cultures. Unique to this
that what united him and Shoval was a joint commitment
year’s celebration was the participation of Joseph V. Melillo,
to filmmaking that poses ‘a threat to the comfort of people’s
Executive Producer of the famed Brooklyn Academy of Music
diet in every aspect, culturally speaking.’
(BAM) in New York, who was curating the Arts Weekend. He
‘Israel is not Hollywood. It is a small film industry where
commented at the end of the weekend: ‘The performances
it’s still hard to raise money. You need a certain amount
and events that took place this year revealed the element of
of trying to convince the producers that the film can be
sharing between masters of their art and a new generation
commercial, but sometimes it conflicts with your motivation
who have had an exceptional voyage through creativity. In my
to try and discover something new and to show other angles
position as curator, I witnessed a true commitment on both a
of humanity,’ Shoval explained. ‘One of the things that the
professional and personal level between mentor and protégé.’
mentorship has offered is for me to see Alejandro dealing
Allegra Cordero di Montezemolo, an up-and-coming curator
with all those aspects and challenges. It gave me inspiration
from Mexico City, served as Melillo’s official apprentice for the
to try not to lose my motivations and my ideas.’
Arts Weekend. CF
During the year of mentorship, González Iñárritu invited Shoval to observe the post-production of Birdman and to be by his side for six weeks in the snow-bound Canadian Rockies on the set of The Revenant. The young director was almost overwhelmed by his mentor’s generosity in terms of the access he was given and the audience just loved this mentor and his protégé who seemed to be so close in their work.
The mentors and protégés of the 2014-2015 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative line up at the closing ceremony celebration in Mexico City. They are, from left to right: Myles Thatcher and Alexei Ratmansky, dance; Gloria Cabral and Peter Zumthor, architecture; Sebastián Solórzano Rodríguez and Jennifer Tipton, theatre; Tom Shoval and Alejandro González Iñárritu, film; Michael Ondaatje and Miroslav Penkov, literature; Kaija Saariaho and Vasco Mendonça, music; Olafur Eliasson and Sammy Baloji, visual arts
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 43
SA Seasons in the UK successfully draws to end The SA Seasons in the UK, part of the SA-UK Seasons 2014 & 2015, the cultural exchange partnership by South Africa’s Department of Arts and Culture and the United Kingdom’s British Council, is proud to announce that the final round-up of the SA Season in the UK has again been a phenomenal success.
Arts and Culture Minister Mr Nathi Mthethwa
David ‘Qadasi’ Jenkins
S
outh Africa’s Minister of Arts and Culture, Nathi
On Mass
‘Connecting new generations of creative professionals
Mthethwa, says, ‘The Department of Arts and
and audiences in SA and the UK while fostering skills
Culture is delighted at the success of the SA-UK
transfer and development, sharing expertise and innovation
Seasons 2014 & 2015. The SA-UK Seasons has
in developing the creative careers of young people, the SA-
opened up opportunities for meaningful cultural exchange
UK Seasons partnership not only strengthens cross-cultural
that will create networks to encourage job creation and
initiatives in South Africa and the UK, but showcases the
economic self-reliance among artists. This is a continuation
younger generation’s talent and provides them a platform
of a collaborative relationship that will ultimately put
to shine,’ says Commissioner-General of the SA-UK Seasons,
artists in the leading role of creating a more humane society
Bongani Tembe.
and better world. Above all, this marks the deepening of
In 2015 the Seasons started the year
with some of South
bonds that tie together the people of our two countries and,
Africa’s emerging fashion designers exhibiting alongside
hopefully, will result in a better appreciation of our mutual
those of 30 other countries at the International Fashion
history and heritage. Our artists are custodians of the soul of
Showcase in London. The talented designers achieved second
this country and help to forge stronger relations and create
place for Best Exhibition, while Laduma went on to receive a
platforms to foster mutual understanding through the arts.’
Best Designer special mention at the London Fashion Week.
A commitment to strengthen cultural ties between South
Seven home-brewed musicians – Jeremy Loops, Al Bairre,
Africa and the UK, the SA-UK Seasons commenced in January
Okmalumkoolkat, Yorke, The Accidentals, Thor Rixon, and P.H.
2014 and concluded in December 2015.
Fat – represented SA’s local music flavour alongside 400 other
44 / Creative Feel /February 2016
international live acts at The Great Escape Festival, a music
in various locations in London. Glasser collaborated with
extravaganza that showcases emerging artists from all over the
British flautist and arranger Gareth Lockrane and feature
world in Brighton, at the Spiegeltent and Prince Albert.
jazz pianist Bokani Dyer in all series.
As the Seasons draw to a close, some notable acts
The Plastics, an Indie Rock band from Cape Town, also
have graced the United Kingdom with their remarkable
enthralled audiences throughout London last November in
performances. David ‘Qadasi’ Jenkins, performing in full
four performances. Esther Mahlangu, one of South Africa’s
Zulu traditional regalia, ably captured a 20 000-strong
greatest living artists, turned 80 in November 2015.
audience with his mesmerising and highly energetic
SA-UK Seasons celebrated her exceptional Ndebele art-
traditional Zulu Maskandi music performance at the The
inspired work with a solo exhibition and an accompanying
Bear Grylls Festival in Trent Park, London. South African
exhibition catalogue at the UCT Irma Stern Museum. She
theatre made inroads with the quirky, but inherently tragic
will also travel with her work to the United Kingdom as
love story, ‘The Dirt Road’ receiving a standing ovation
part of the Season in 2016.
Thandiswa Mazwai
Commissioner-General of the SA-UK Seasons, Mr Bongani Tembe
from audiences at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden. After a
Esther Mahlangu
The Durban Music School rounded off the Seasons at the
successful stint in Edinburgh, Ubu and the Truth Commission
Dundee Jazz Festival in Scotland at the end of November
once again lived up to all performance expectations.
2015. In the spirit of spreading the unique qualities of South
An array of South African jazz took over the EFG London
African music, The Brother Moves On band took Itai Hakim,
Jazz Festival last November. South African award-winning
a young Venda/Tshonga folk singer, on their European
a cappella group, The Soil, took the EFG London Jazz stage
tour as part of the SA-UK Seasons. A partnership between
with a stellar performance of their chart-topping hits. The
Kunjanimation Animation Festival (Cape Town) and the
trio opened Melody Gardot’s performance on the 17th of
London International Animation Festival to create special
November 2015. South Africa’s distinguished ladies of song,
initiatives highlighting SA and UK animation industries
Sibongile Khumalo, Gloria Bosman and Thandiswa Mazwai,
focused on both the business and creative side of animation.
presented a highly anticipated show at the EFG Jazz. Building
Various screenings, workshops and talks were held with
on 2014’s hugely successful strand of South African work at
studio visits and business-to-business opportunities with
the festival, Cadogan Hall hosted the three accomplished
visiting delegations from each country.
artists in a memorable evening filled with musical heritage and cultural attitude on 21 November 2015. A series of educational events, live performances
Commissioner-General of the SA-UK Seasons, Bongani Tembe, was quoted as saying that ‘the success of the Seasons is evidenced by the statistics: over 100 productions were
and jam sessions celebrating the vibrant legacy of South
supported, 700 South African artists travelled to the UK and
African jazz were led by harmonica player Adam Glasser
benefitted from this important collaboration.’ CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 45
CTEMF and Connect ZA COLLABORATE FOR
BassXchange UK/ZA
2016
E
stablished in 2012 as a platform for South Africa’s burgeoning electronic music culture and industry, the Cape Town Electronic Music Festival (CTEMF)
CTEMF Terrace 2015. Photograph by John-Henry Bartlett
has gained international recognition for being one
of the most relevant and forward-thinking events on Africa’s music festival calendar.
Now in its third year, BassXchange UK/ZA is a search for talented upand-coming UK music producers, exposing the winner to SA audiences through the Cape Town Electronic Music Festival (CTEMF).
46 / Creative Feel /February 2016
International pioneers and innovators share the stage with the bright lights of the South African scene while the inner workings of this rapidly growing industry are unpacked and explored through the workshops. Launched as a project of the British Council’s Connect ZA in 2014, BassXchange UK/ZA offers UK-based producers the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win an all expenses paid trip to Cape Town for the first week of February. The winner will be given a VIP Full Weekend Pass to CTEMF, the chance to showcase their music through the festival programme and
CTEMF workshops. Photograph by Luke Daniel
spend time with critically-acclaimed UK producer Nightmares On Wax in Cape Town’s world-class Red Bull Studio. (At the time of writing, entries for the competition were still open, with the winner being announced in January 2016, visit www.creativefeel. co.za for updates.) Entrants were required to upload a minimum of three tracks to Mixcloud before 7 January, following which the ten most popular mixes would be judged by a panel made up of Nightmares On Wax, Warp label management and CTEMF programmers. The winner will then travel to Cape Town’s City Hall for the festival taking place on 5 to 7 February. George ‘E.A.S.E’ Evelyn, AKA Nightmares On Wax, has released a range of records that have been integral to cultural movements and electronic music. After cutting some embryonic rave tracks with musical co-conspirator Kevin ‘Boy Wonder’ Harper, the duo signed to Warp and released their debut album in 1991. A Word Of Science became instrumental in the bleep explosion; with tracks such as ‘Dextrous’ and ‘Aftermath’ attaining mythical status for a generation of clubbers. Still under the Nightmares On Wax moniker, Evelyn continued as a solo artist going on to produce definitive
Highlights from the 2016 line-up: Goldie (UK), Okmalumkoolkat, Nightmares On Wax (UK) & Sibot.
albums Smokers Delight and Carboot Soul – both of which helped shape the burgeoning down tempo hip-hop scene, and
Pearce and Andi Dill are billed alongside fresh talent like
tracks such as ‘Les Nuits’ being widely regarded as chillout
Adam De Smidt and Kyle Roussouw and Robin Would.
classics. After 25 years of producing and recording music, Nightmares On Wax is Warp Records’ longest serving artist. The first phase of the line-up for the festival has been
Renowned for its carefully curated line-ups, CTEMF brings together an assortment of local talent and imported luminaries to create a programme that aims to represent a
announced and includes Goldie, Nightmares On Wax, Harri &
cross section of South Africa’s vast, thriving electronic music
Domenic and Boris Brejcha alongside some of South Africa’s
industry in its global context.
trailblazers and hotly tipped new talents. Long-serving icons like Vinny Da Vinci, DJ Kenzhero
In addition to the main event, CTEMF will once again be hosting a three-day workshop programme ahead of the core
and DJ Superfly will share the stage with the mold-breakers
music festival. Free and open to all, the CTEMF workshops
like Okmalumkoolkat, DJ Lag and Rudeboys, while the more
explore the many different facets of this rapidly growing
established house and techno purveyors such as Terrence
industry from the inside out. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 47
Aladdin Sane 48 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Reinvention, culling an iconic persona and donning a new mask was a constant cycle in the career of David Bowie. His career was one that circumvented categorisation and definition and instead involved almost constant innovation and evolution.
D
avid Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London on 8 January 1947. He died on 10 January 2016, just two days after his 69th birthday. The 8th of January
2016 also saw the release of Blackstar, his 28th and final studio album. Bowie’s immense and complex career spans five centuries. Ever searching for new ways to shake up the music industry, Bowie played with his sexuality, fashion and identity, transforming his musical style from album to album. ‘I am an actor,’ he said. ‘My whole professional life is an act.’ From his start in folk music, Bowie experimented with glam rock, soul, funk, rock pop, New Wave, electronic and jazz. His drive for innovation kept him relevant in pop culture for almost his entire career and led to some of the most poignant songs of the 1970s and 1980s: ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Changes’, ‘Fame’, ‘Diamond Dogs’ and ‘Aladdin Sane’. Aside from an ever-changing musician, Bowie was a producer, painter, film actor, art critic and poster boy of androgynous chic. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars (1972) was the world’s first introduction to Bowie’s iconic alien alter-ego Ziggy Stardust. Bowie quickly ascended to international superstardom with Ziggy Stardust, staging one of the most spectacular live shows to date, expanding the parameters of the live rock show and singlehandedly launching a worldwide glam explosion. Shortly after touring as Ziggy, Bowie culled his creation just as quickly as he had created him. Amidst the throes of Ziggy fever, Aladdin Sane was released in April 1973. Playing on ‘A Lad Insane’, this new Bowie character was essentially a development of Ziggy Stardust in appearance and persona and was described by Bowie himself as ‘Ziggy goes to America’. Biographer Christopher Sanford believed the album showed that Bowie was ‘simultaneously appalled and fixated by America.’ His mixed feelings about the journey stemmed, in Bowie’s words, from ‘wanting to
be up on stage performing my songs, but on the other hand not really wanting to be on those buses with all those strange people… So Aladdin Sane was split down the middle.’ This kind of ‘schizophrenia’, as Bowie described it, was conveyed on the cover by his makeup, where a lightning bolt represents the duality of mind, although he would later tell friends that the ‘lad insane’ of the album’s title track was inspired by his brother Terry, who had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Bowie’s feelings for his brother, who committed suicide in January 1985, were again dealt with in the song ‘Jump They Say’ from his 1993 album Black Tie White Noise. Following Aladdin Sane came the Thin White Duke, with Bowie eschewing the Technicolor theatricality of his previous tours in favour of a stark German expressionist black and white film atmosphere that only heightened the dramatic impact of each and every performance. At first glance, the Thin White Duke appeared more ‘normal’ than Bowie’s previous incarnations, wearing a stylish, cabaret-style wardrobe, but Bowie consumed massive amounts of cocaine during this period and made, what some considered, controversial and offensive statements in interviews. At this time in his life, Bowie said that he lived on ‘red peppers, cocaine, and milk’. The Duke was a hollow man who sang songs of romance with an agonised intensity while feeling nothing, ‘ice masquerading as fire’. The persona has been described as ‘a mad aristocrat’, ‘an amoral zombie’ and ‘an emotionless Aryan superman’. For Bowie himself, the Duke was ‘a nasty character indeed’, and later ‘an ogre for me’. As his drug habit ate away at his physical and mental health, Bowie decided to move from Los Angeles to Paris and then West Berlin, where he began recording the ‘Berlin Trilogy’ albums (Low, “Heroes” and Lodger). In September 1996, a brand new Bowie track, ‘Telling Lies’, would become the first ever song to be offered for download via
Bowie played with his sexuality, fashion and identity, transforming his musical style from album to album. ‘I am an actor,’ he said. ‘My whole professional life is an act.’
the internet. Despite the crawling speed rates of the nascent online era, ‘Telling Lies’ was downloaded by more than 300 000 fans prior to being released as a single that fall, and eventually
lack of conventional promotion, the album hit #1 in the UK and
showing up on Bowie’s album Earthling early in 1997.
18 other countries and entered the US chart at a career high #2.
The turn of the century found Bowie enjoying a period
Spring 2015 brought the announcement of the off Broadway
out of the public eye, emerging only for a handful of rare and
theatre production Lazarus, in collaboration between Bowie and
meaningful live performances.
renowned playwright Enda Walsh. Lazarus is inspired by the
Heathen was released in June 2002, with Bowie playing
novel The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis, and centres on
more instruments on it than anything in memory, including the
the character of Thomas Newton, famously portrayed by Bowie
drums on the Pixies cover ‘Cactus’, as well as nearly all the synth
in the 1976 screen adaptation. It will feature new Bowie songs
work and some of the piano. A year later, the Reality album was
alongside fresh arrangements of music from his back catalogue.
launched with the world’s largest interactive live satellite event.
Bowie leaves in his wake an incredible career that has
Bowie would maintain an extremely low profile for the coming
influenced limitless genres of music and contemporary pop
years, until the 2013 album The Next Day. Despite a complete
icons. Through this legacy, he will live on. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 49
Minnette Vรกri, Chimera 2001. Four-channel digital video installation with stereo audio Duration: Video 3 minutes, stereo audio 5 minutes, looped Dimensions: Variable. Installation view courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
OF DARKNESS AND OF LIGHT Opening at the Standard Bank Gallery on 29 January 2016, Of Darkness and Of Light presents a mid-career survey of work by Minnette Vรกri.
Minnette Vรกri, The Calling, 2003. Two-channel digital video installation with stereo audio Duration: Video and stereo audio 3 minutes, looped Dimensions: Variable. Stills from video courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
50 / Creative Feel /February 2016
‘T
his is the way I work: often starting with a word, or a notion,’ says Minnette Vári. She is fascinated by words, stories, science, mythologies and histories, things too easily lost in the ‘fog
of forgetfulness’. She digs for roots, follows silken thread through a high tech maze. There’s a twist in this tale though. At the end of the hunt, Vári doesn’t discover a monster, she creates one. This is not to say that Vári depicts monsters, or that her work is monstrous in appearance, although some are a little grotesque (Alien and Oracle being good examples). Rather, they are chimeras which, as Vári explains, are mythological mash-ups, a blending of beasts. ‘Iconographies merged
“Iconographies merged together to create something that can be PERILOUS and very UNRELIABLE”
together to create something that can be perilous and very unreliable.’ Just as the ancient Greek chimera was a fusion of lion’s head, goat’s body and snake’s tail, so Vári’s artworks are a grafting of stories, images and impressions to create new beasts entirely; something so layered, that their constituent parts are more or less unrecognisable. They are seductive, and maybe treacherous: they turn things upside down, undermine certainty. The notion of a chimera springs to mind because this is, in fact, the title of a 2001 video piece by Vári. For this, she filmed
draw from nearly two decades of work produced by the artist
the friezes of the Voortrekker Monument’s Hall of Heroes. ‘I
since she first exhibited on an international platform, while
took my camera for a walk all around in chronological order,’
completing her master’s degree.
she recounts, ‘and then back as well, so the history plays
Selecting works for such a survey is not a simple task.
forward and back.’ From this, Vári selected scenes depicting
‘Much of the work that we’re going to be showing is in
women, and alters the footage (a recurring practise through
video, and of course, most video comes with audio. Even in
much of her work) to include herself, clad only in masks and
a big space, audio travels, and one has to control that very
bandages. In this way, she highlights the ‘perversity’ of a
carefully,’ says Vári.
certain telling of history: ‘[The friezes are] a hagiography of
From about 18 video pieces, only about five or six will
these people: it makes them into heroes, gods almost,’ she
probably be selected. ‘That’s very hard, because there are
says. ‘Nothing can stop them. They have these big hardships
pivotal works that have been very well known, anchors that
that makes their victory all the more heroic.’
people always go back to... and then there are works that
The friezes are history literally set in stone. But history,
have hardly been seen in Johannesburg, but which have been
as Vári emphasises, is not the ‘cold’ truth. (Here she connects
shown in different exhibitions in the world, that I’m very keen
the idea of cold back to the roots of the word ‘chimera’ – ‘a
to bring here,’ she says.
yearling goat of one winter old’ – and also to the perennial
As Vári notes, her work ‘veers wildly between big historical
chilliness of the Hall of Heroes.) ‘History is always slanted,’
themes and something that is extremely intimate and
she says. ‘It’s always told from one point of view: the heroes
personal.’ Out of Time, a never-ending self portrait that shifts
are outright heroes and everyone else must be bad... If you
imperceptibly from one drawing to the next, is an example of
make something unequivocal, it’s always dangerous.’
the latter. The title suggests both death (being out of time),
Under Vári’s treatment, in which her adulterated footage is projected onto floating diaphanous screens, the story begins to move again. It becomes something fluid, it ripples. Chimera is set to form a centrepiece of Vári’s survey show opening in January at the Standard Bank Gallery. This will
and the fact that the work is created from moments of Vári’s life: ‘built out of my time,’ she says. ‘I started this process in 2005, and it was never meant to be an artwork. It was a daily meditation for myself, helping me to get through a difficult time. I did one every day; it dropped
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 51
“As an ARTIST, one often has to say the DIFFICULT THINGS, to tackle subjects that are not easily spoken of in society”
Minnette Vári, The Calling, 2003. Two-channel digital video installation with stereo audio Duration: Video and stereo audio 3 minutes, looped Dimensions: Variable Stills from video courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
approached people ‘to collect their stories, find out why they’re here, what they hope to achieve; things like that,’ and was often confronted by an initial suspicion – ‘because, what is this white girl doing here, and at this time?’ She was, notes Vári, as much of an outsider as they were; perhaps more so, a condition reflected in the depiction of her lone figure making its way across the cityscape, a gargoyle banished to the shadows. The collected stories, desires and experiences of the city’s ‘alien’ inhabitants form one of the themes of The Calling. Another is the role of the artist: ‘how, as an artist, one often has to say the difficult things, to tackle subjects that are not
off and then I would pick it up again.’ The portraits, slightly
easily spoken of in society... like Zanele Muholi, for example,
larger than life size, are not arranged chronologically. ‘I’m
who has focused on the lives of gay black women,’ says Vári.
not a great believer in chronology,’ says Vári. ‘I don’t think
‘It’s not easy: you put yourself out there, and people can rip
our memory works like that. Our recollections kind of jump
into you for taking the “wrong” angle.’
around through the years.’ Out of Time, like most of Vári’s videos, loops seamlessly
And so, in her meditation on cities, Vári uses the practice of twinning ‘sister’ cities to bring in a reference to the two
without beginning or ending – ‘that’s one way to subvert a
sisters of a fairytale by Charles Perrault, later reinterpreted by
linear narrative,’ says Vári. ‘Also, as it goes on and on, the
South American writer Luisa Valenzuela. Typically enough,
viewer will come into the installation, and that’s where their
in Perrault’s tale the good sister is rewarded with jewels and
relationship with the work begins. That’s the beginning, for
flowers that flow from her lips, while the bad sister is cursed.
them. That’s something I don’t want to control.’
When she speaks, only lizards and snakes crawl out.
Another piece that will be on her Standard Bank
In Valenzuela’s version, the bad sister is consequently
survey show is The Calling (2003), in which Vári appears,
banned to the woods. There, says Vári, she ‘begins to enjoy
crawling along the perilously high ledges of skyscrapers of
these creatures that pour from her, because they’re iridescent
Johannesburg, Brussels and New York, with the migrant’s
sometimes, they’re shiny, they have patterns... And this begins
paraphernalia – pots, bundles, sickles – strapped to her back.
to equate with the artist, who creates things that are sometimes
The Calling centres around the idea of ‘the shining, radiant
not very beautiful to look at, but that perhaps carry important
city,’ a utopia envisioned by those seeking a better life. For this
messages. Maybe they have a certain beauty; just a moment of
work, Vári ventured into Johannesburg at dawn and dusk, times
revealing a truth that shines on people for a second.’
of transition, and explored the old defunct office buildings now inhabited largely by ‘so-called illegal immigrants’. She
52 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Thus in The Calling, a lizard emerges from Vári’s mouth, and transforms into the words: O Jerusalem, aurea civitas (Oh
Jerusalem, radiant city/city of gold). This is a line from a song
She depicts this via the (largely) Victorian practice
by Hildegard von Bingen, a nun who lived in around 1000AD,
of photographing one’s dead. Following the advent of
whose artistic and religious achievements far exceeded the
photography, ‘it became a big fashion to photograph your
role and status then allocated to women. ‘To me, she became
dead, when they passed away,’ explains Vári. ‘People dressed
this sister in the woods, her words of praise and pleading like
[these corpses] up; sometimes they propped them up;
beautiful, glistening toads and snakes,’ writes Vári in her artist’s
sometimes they strapped them into contraptions that made
statement. She incorporates Von Bingen’s plainsong in the
them stand. If their eyes weren’t open, then the photographer
soundtrack for The Calling, slowing it to sound deeper, more
would simply draw pupils on the eyelids afterwards, so that
masculine. (The artist’s soundtracks are as carefully considered
the eyes would appear to be open... Families kept these as a
and densely layered as the visual component of her videos.)
keepsake, because nobody had photographic equipment. It
The Calling therefore refers to the artist’s need to create
would be an occasion, to get a photographer in to do this, and
(a calling), to communicate something (calling out), and
it would be the last opportunity to memorialise somebody.’
the terrible vulnerability of producing these ‘monsters’,
‘I wanted to recreate this atmosphere’ she explains,
beings that might just as easily disgust and appal, as charm
‘because Johannesburg began during this time, the 1880s.’
and delight their audience. There is, arguably, a kind of
And so, in the parlour room of Northwards, an old Randlord’s
conceptual link between this and Vári’s 1999 work Oracle.
mansion, in which ‘everything is period: furniture, wallpaper,
Both consider the role of the artist, but here the focus is
all the fittings,’ Vári posed friends and volunteers decked
on the assimilation of information. Just as Saturn devours
out in period dress, taking turns to be ‘the dead one’. ‘It was
his children, in a bid to avert the events predicted by the
about the shifting identity, the shifting state of being between
oracle, the artist ravenously consumes ‘every fragment of
these people’, she says. ‘Directly reflecting on the inequality
information into one hybrid body,’ Vári writes.
of that time, and on riches as well: something being brought
If Oracle and The Calling suggest the earlier and latter
back, because gold is also brought back from an exploited
stages of artistic production, then The Revenant (2013) nods
underground. So gold is also a revenant, as are the workers,
to an intermediate one: that of reflection. The word ‘revenant’
bearing wealth destined for others.’
refers to ‘a person who has returned, especially from the dead.’
Now, in present day Johannesburg, Vári must confront
Vári uses this idea to invoke ‘a return laden with precious
revenants of a different kind: the works of art that she has
goods – referencing both the exploits of mining, and also the
produced across the last two decades. Which pieces will she
nature of the creative process.’
bring to the light? And which will have to wait, dormant for a while longer? There’s only one way to find out.
Minnette Vári, The Revenant, 2013. Single channel digital video installation with stereo audio Duration: Video and stereo audio 3 minutes 2 seconds, loop Dimensions: Still from TheVariable Calling Stills from video courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
Of Darkness and Of Light opens at the Standard Bank Gallery on 29 January 2016. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 53
Me and My Parrots, 1941
54 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Frida Kahlo famously once said that there had been two great accidents in her life: ‘One was the train, the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.’ These ‘accidents’ played an enormous role in leading her to art, and shaped the subject matter that she tackled throughout her life.
FRIDA OF BLOOD AND GOLD
B
orn on July 6 1907 (although she sometimes
up painting. She wrote to Julien Levy, who presented her
fudged the date to coincide with the start of
solo exhibition in New York in 1938, that ‘I never thought
the Mexican revolution in 1910), Frida Kahlo’s
of painting until 1926, when I was in bed on account of
art and life have posthumously made her
an automobile accident. I was bored as hell in bed with a
Mexico’s most famous artist.
plaster cast (I had a fracture in the spine and several in other
Having suffered from polio aged six, which caused one
places), so I decided to do something.’ (She had previously
of her legs to wither, Kahlo struggled with ill health most
learned photography from her father and grandfather, both
of her life. The bad effects of her initial illness were greatly
of whom were professional photographers, and had also
exacerbated several years later, when a collision between a
learned to draw).
bus and tram left her skewered by a metal rail. This was the ‘first great accident’ in her life, the strange
Once somewhat recovered, Kahlo took her paintings to show to Diego Rivera, and her ‘second great accident’ was
details of which have come to form a part of her mythology.
set in motion. Despite a significant age gap, and Rivera’s
According to Alejandro Gómez Arias, a boyfriend who was
established reputation as an unrepentant womaniser, the
travelling with her, Kahlo was left ‘totally nude’, and covered in
two married in 1929. ‘My father... said to Diego, “Now, look,
blood and gold: ‘Someone in the bus, probably a house painter,
my daughter is a sick person and all her life she’s going to be
had been carrying a packet of powdered gold. This package
sick,”’ Kahlo recalled. ‘She’s intelligent but not pretty. Think
broke, and the gold fell all over the bleeding body of Frida.’
it over awhile if you like, and if you still wish to marry her,
This catastrophe may have been the genesis of Kahlo the
marry her, I give you my permission.’ (Despite this assertion,
artist. Prior to the accident, she had been studying towards
it seems both Kahlo’s parents had reservations regarding the
medicine. Now, confined to bed for several months, she took
union, referring to it as a marriage between ‘an elephant and
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 55
Self portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird, 1940
a dove’.) Kahlo depicted their marriage in Frida and Diego
in the works Self Portrait as a Tehuana (1943) and Girl with
Rivera (1931).
Death Mask (She Plays Alone) (1938).
Caught up in the movement to shape a new Mexican
However, while these ideas and iconographies formed
identity, Kahlo began to dress in the clothing of the
the mainstay of Rivera’s epic political murals, Kahlo’s work
indigenous population of Mexico (as did other women
remained inescapably personal. Many of her paintings are
in similar cultural circles), and continued to develop her
self portraits. They frequently depict physical pain, showing
abilities as a painter. While she never undertook any formal
Kahlo bed-ridden – for example The Dream (The Bed) (1940)
training, Kahlo seems to have learned much from observing
or in a wheelchair (Self Portrait with portrait of Dr Farill,
Rivera. Perhaps inspired by his passion for the history of
1951) as she endured operation after operation. The Broken
Mexico, and the artefacts thereof, she developed similar
Column (1944) shows her corseted and stabbed with pins,
interests, which filtered into her paintings – as, for example,
while her spine is replaced with a broken ionic column.
56 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City, by Anagoria - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons
Kahlo also portrays the emotional anguish so often
This disjunction is perhaps well illustrated by her
occasioned by Rivera. While she herself had many lovers,
painting The Suicide of Dorothy Hale (1938). Despite its
(including, perhaps most famously, Leon Trotsky), Rivera’s
dreamlike quality, the work is a literal depiction of the faded
constant infidelities seemed to have caused her much grief.
star’s tragic end, showing her both plummeting from a high
Perhaps the worst of these was his affair with her sister
rise building and lying dead in her elegant evening dress.
Cristina, which started soon after Kahlo and Rivera’s return
Unsurprisingly, the work deeply shocked Clare Boothe Luce,
from a three year stay in the USA. This was too much for
who had commissioned the work and intended it as a gift
Kahlo, and the couple divorced in 1939.
to Hale’s mother, expecting a straightforward portrait. Luce
Kahlo, devastated by the betrayal, cut off the long hair that Rivera adored and portrayed the result in Self Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940. Kahlo and Rivera’s divorce didn’t last. Just under a year
wanted to destroy the painting, but was talked out of it. In 1953, Kahlo’s withered leg, always problematic, developed gangrene and had to be amputated. While she attempted to put a brave face on the matter, writing ‘Feet,
later, the pair remarried. They seem to have found it as
what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?’ it seems that
impossible to be apart as together.
this final blow depressed her deeply. During this time, she
In the summer of 1938, Edward G. Robinson visited
had her first solo show in Mexico, which was very successful.
Mexico, and bought four of Kahlo’s paintings for $200
Kahlo was conveyed by ambulance to the exhibition, where
each. Kahlo, who sold few works during her lifetime, was
she was installed in a bed due to her ill health.
thrilled. She also had a ‘well received’ solo show in the
By this time, Kahlo was additionally debilitated by her
United States, at the Julien Levy gallery. André Breton,
heavy use of alcohol and painkillers, which perhaps explains
the father of surrealism, was bowled over by Kahlo’s
the comparatively poor quality of her last paintings, such as
paintings and invited her to put on a show in Paris in
Self Portrait with Stalin (1954). (Despite her affair with Trotsky,
1939. (Apparently, however, when Kahlo arrived in Paris,
whom she and Rivera hosted and supported in his unsuccessful
she found that he had done little to realise this offer.
attempt to escape Stalin’s assassins, by the end of her life Kahlo
Ultimately, it was Duchamp who made the exhibition
was a committed supporter of the Russian dictator.)
happen.) While Breton saw Kahlo as a natural Surrealist,
In 1954, Kahlo died. It is unclear whether this was the
she herself did not: ‘They thought I was a Surrealist, but I
outcome of a pulmonary embolism, or suicide by an overdose
wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality,’
of morphine. Shortly before her demise, she wrote in her
said Kahlo of her work.
diary: ‘I hope the end is joyful, and I hope never to return.’ CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 57
58 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Considered one of the great artists of the early 20th century, and one of the ‘Big Three’ Mexican muralists, Diego Rivera has been credited with an important role in changing the way Mexico viewed herself.
Diego RIVERA B
orn in Guanajuato, Mexico on December 8 1886, Diego Rivera went on to become one of the country’s most revered artists, as well known for his larger-than-life personality and wild exploits
as his epic murals. He allegedly started painting at the age of three, on the walls of his parents' home. They did not dissuade him, instead placing chalkboards and canvas for him to work on. Like many of Mexico’s artists, he studied at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City, before receiving support to study further in Europe. From 1907, he studied first in Spain, and later in Paris, where he became a part of the fecund cultural circle living and working in the district of Montparnasse. There, Rivera experimented with many of the developments then happening in art, embracing Cubism and later Post-Impressionism. In 1920, he travelled through Italy and was inspired by the murals of the Renaissance. The following year, Rivera returned to Mexico, where José Vasconcelos, the newly appointed Minister of Education,
Diego Rivera’s mural depicting Mexico’s history at the National Palace in Mexico City
commissioned Rivera as a part of his government sponsored mural programme. Rivera, who had already begun to
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 59
establish a reputation for himself as a painter, excelled as a muralist. He brought together the many influences of Europe and the styles and palettes of his native country to create something new. While artists in Paris and New York increasingly embraced the abstract, he took on a grand figurative style through which he told the stories and histories of Mexico. Rivera saw art as a means of uplifting and educating people (‘The artist must try to raise the level of taste of the masses, not debase himself to the level of unformed and impoverished taste’), and used the medium to convey his politics and ideals, largely inspired by the Mexican and Russian revolutions. Rivera championed the indigenous and working class people of Mexico, depicting his subjects as noble and heroic,
and thus helped to shape a new identity for the country that had once looked longingly to Europe. In his own words, ‘I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil... The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature... The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican.’ Rivera painted a number of important murals at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City, the first of these being Creation, which he undertook in January 1922. In the same year, he played a role in the founding of the Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors, and also joined the Mexican Communist Party. (It was at the National Preparatory School that he first encountered his later wife-to-be, Frida Kahlo. Kahlo allegedly delighted in playing pranks on him, and told her classmates that she would one day marry Rivera.)
60 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Later in the same year, Rivera began work on a long series of murals at the Secretariat of Public Education, comprising 124 frescoes. This was finished six years later. He also completed works at the National School of Agriculture at Chapingo (now the Chapingo Autonomous University), in the Palace of Cortés Palace in Cuernavaca, and the National Palace in Mexico City. In 1927, Rivera travelled to Russia, where he celebrated the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, and was later expelled for political activity deemed ‘anti-Soviet’. He was similarly expelled from the Mexican Communist party, in 1929, but remained a dedicated communist throughout his life, hosting Leon Trotsky at his home during the late ‘30s. In 1929, he married Frida Kahlo, who became his third (and fourth) wife. This was a tempestuous union, at least in part due to the couple’s many infidelities. Nevertheless,
"The artist must try to RAISE THE LEVEL OF TASTE of the masses, not debase himself to the level of UNFORMED and IMPOVERISHED TASTE"
she travelled with him to the United States in 1930, where the pair lived for the next three years. While there, Rivera had a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as completing several murals – one of which, Man at the Crossroads caused a furore when Rivera refused to remove a portrait of Vladimir Lenin. Rivera and Kahlo returned to Mexico City in 1933, where Rivera recreated the inflammatory mural – now named Man, Controller of the Universe – at the Palacio del Belles Artes. In his autobiography, My Art, My Life, Rivera describes an artist as ‘above all a human being, profoundly human to the core. If the artist can’t feel everything that humanity feels, if the artist isn’t capable of loving until he forgets himself and sacrifices himself if necessary, if he won’t put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn’t a great artist.’ Diego Rivera died in 1957, and remains one of Mexico’s most celebrated artists. CF
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 61
CDs & DVDs The latest releases to suit all tastes
Dark Sky Island Enya Warner Music WBCD2357 Dark Sky Island is the eighth studio album from the Irish musician Enya, released on 20 November 2015 on Aigle Music. Following the release of And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took an extended break from writing and recording. She returned to the studio in 2012 to record Dark Sky Island with her long-time lyricist Roma Ryan and producer Nicky Ryan. Enya performs all the vocals and instruments on the album, apart from Eddie Lee who plays the double bass on ‘Even in the Shadows’. Dark Sky Island received a mostly positive reception from critics. It peaked at No. 4 in the UK, Enya’s highest charting album there since Shepherd Moons (1991), No. 8 in the US, and within the top ten in thirteen countries worldwide. A Deluxe Edition includes three extra tracks, and an LP edition was released on 18 December 2015; Enya’s first LP since the 1992 reissue of her debut album, Enya (1987).
Explosive David Garrett Decca 4749097
Johann Strauss: Der Zigeunerbaron Kurt Eichhorn Deutsche Grammophon 0734437
Verdi Rigoletto Pavarotti | The Metropolitan Opera | Levine Decca 0743884
Combining his virtuosic
This exuberant 1975 film of Strauss’s
The only filmed stage production
playing with electronic beats,
popular operetta stars Siegfried
featuring Luciano Pavarotti, this
Garrett transforms hit songs
Jerusalem in the role that launched
Metropolitan Opera performance is
by Ed Sheeran, Eminem, David
his career. Jerusalem stars alongside
now available for the first time on
Guetta and Metallica into
Wolfgang Berndal, Hans Karemmer
DVD. Recorded in 1981, it prevents
powerful new instrumental
and Janet Perry with the Südfunkchor
Pavarotti at the peak of his career,
tracks, full of excitement and
Stuttgart and Radio-Sinfonieorchester
supported by an outstanding cast
vitality. For the first time,
Stuttgart. Der Zigeunerbaron is adapted
that includes Louis Quilico in the
this album is dominated
and directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt
title role, Christiane Eda-Pierre as
by Garrett’s own original
and conducted by Kurt Eichhorn with
Gilda, Ara Berberian as Sparafucile,
compositions, plus popular
musical arrangement by Bert Grund.
and Isola Jones as Maddalena, with
classical tunes. Many of the
‘With this wonderful cast and stunning
Met Music Director James Levine on
tracks are infused with high-
landscapes, the veteran director has
the podium. Relive the excitement
spirited, upbeat rhythms – ‘I
liberated this Hungarian fairytale
of Pavarotti at the Met, including his
think that is what the album is
from stage limitations while doing
celebrated renditions of ‘La donna è
all about,’ says Garrett, ‘a fun,
full justice to its enchanting music’
mobile’ and the final quartet ‘Bella
positive, high-energy record.’
(Berliner Morgenpost).
figlia dell’amore’.
62 / Creative Feel /February 2016
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 63
‘I am controlled by a white guy. Golden, when I look at him properly. Mishka. A gangly, golden Labrador who tries to tell me what to do from the morning to the night.’ ‘Beyond him, my complexes about racial superiority and inferiority have left the building – it has taken years and the arrival of freedom for that to happen. Perhaps because I grew up reporting the making of the Constitution and now enjoy the opportunities and protections of that sacrament, I feel my equality in deep and appreciative ways. Equality is a pillar of our Constitution and after having grown up feeling like a child of a lesser god, equality is a living concept for me.’ Ferial Haffajee Ferial Haffajee is highly respected as one of South Africa’s thought leaders and commentators. She effectively uses her media platform to raise and discuss issues pertinent to the state of the nation.
What if there were no Whites in South Africa? BY FERIAL HAFFAJEE
B
efore becoming the editor-in-chief at City Press,
true, the basis of the book is not opinion but research, with
Haffajee headed up the Mail & Guardian. She
the aim of showing how much situations around property,
sits on the boards of the International Women’s
pension, provident fund ownership have changed.’
Media Foundation, the World Editors Forum, the
International Press Institute and the Inter Press Service, and
In the preface of her book she writes: ‘My dear uncle, Mac Carim, was instrumental in making me
she has won several awards, including international ones,
see South Africa differently and not only through my jaundiced
related to media freedom and independence as well as for
journalist’s eyes, looking out only for what’s wrong and not
her reporting over the years.
what’s right. Early on in my editing stint at the Mail & Guardian,
In What if there were no Whites in South Africa? Haffajee
he said, “Jeez, Fer, sometimes it’s a wrist-slitter”, in reference
examines the South African history and the present in the
to various editions. So, now he’s expecting this book, and said,
light of a provocative question that yields some thought-
“What an interesting question!”, when he saw the title.
provoking analysis for the country. The provocatively titled book is the respected journalist’s
‘Sorry, Uncle Mac, this book doesn’t answer the question, “What if whites hadn’t colonised South Africa?” I intend to
debut, and she explained where the title came from. ‘I’ve come to
become an historian some day, but this is more a work of
a point in my life where I want to think a little more deeply about
contemporary study – and then only of our freedom years.
what we’re going to be as a nation and where we’re going, I want
‘I guess there are some who might answer my question
to answer those questions, because I get asked them a lot, and
this way: “If there were no whites, this bloody country would
make myself part of the voice of those voices by saying, “here’s
go down the drain.” It’s not that book either. Thankfully. And
our scenarios, here’s what we could do”.
still others might answer, “And it wouldn’t be a moment too
‘Even now, I think it is a debate in our society, which believes falsely that only if we had all the stuff whites have got, then everything would be cool. But actually that’s not
64 / Creative Feel /February 2016
soon.” It’s not that book either. ‘I prefer to think of this as a love song to an Mzansi I love dearly and as an attempt to see the possible.’ CF
Book Reviews Recently published
Island of Dreams By Dan Boothby Publisher: Picador ISBN: 9781509800759 Dan Boothby had been drifting for more than twenty years, without the pontoons of family, friends or a steady occupation. He was looking for but never finding the perfect place to land. Finally, unexpectedly, an opportunity presented itself. After a lifelong obsession with Gavin Maxwell’s Ring of Bright Water trilogy, Boothby was given the chance to move to Maxwell’s former home, a tiny island on the western seaboard of the Highlands of Scotland. Island of Dreams is about Boothby’s time living there, and about the natural and human history that surrounded him; it’s about the people he meets and the stories they tell, and about his engagement with this remote landscape, including the otters that inhabit it. Interspersed with Boothby’s own story is a quest to better understand the mysterious Gavin Maxwell. Beautifully written and frequently leavened with a dry wit, Island of Dreams is a charming celebration of the particularities of place.
The Versions of Us By Laura Barnett Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of Orion ISBN: 9781474600170
The Painter of Souls By Philip Kazan Publisher: Orion Books ISBN: 9781409142836 Beauty can be a gift...or a wicked
A Manual for Cleaning Women By Lucia Berlin Publisher: Picador ISBN: 9781447290438
What if you had said yes…? Eva and Jim
temptation... So it is for Filippo Lippi,
The stories in A Manual for
are nineteen, and students at Cambridge,
growing up in Renaissance Florence. He
Cleaning Women make for one
when their paths first cross in 1958. Jim
has a talent – not only can he see the
of the most remarkable unsung
is walking along a lane when a woman
beauty in everything, he can capture it,
collections in twentieth-
approaching him on a bicycle swerves
paint it. To survive, Pippo Lippi, orphan,
century American fiction.
to avoid a dog. What happens next will
street urchin, budding rogue, must first
With extraordinary honesty
determine the rest of their lives. We follow
become Fra Filippo Lippi: Carmelite
and magnetism, Lucia Berlin
three different versions of their future -
friar, man of God. His life will take him
invites us into her rich, itinerant
together, and apart - as their love story takes
down two paths at once. He will become
life: the drink and the mess
on different incarnations and twists and
a gambler, a forger, a seducer of nuns;
and the pain and the beauty
turns to the conclusion in the present day.
and at the same time he will be the
and the moments of surprise
The Versions of Us is an outstanding debut
greatest painter of his time, the teacher
and of grace. Her voice is
novel about the choices we make and the
of Botticelli and the confidante of the
uniquely witty, anarchic and
different paths that our lives might follow.
Medicis. So who is he really?
compassionate.
Creative Feel / February 2016 / 65
encore How have the arts industries in South Africa changed over the last ten years?
There has definitely been a renewed focus on the arts. Some of South
Africa’s next generation artists like Mary Sibande are producing works of art that are placing South Africa firmly in the international arts arena. There is an arts rebirth that is taking place is the country. This is fantastic news for the development and sustainability of the arts in South Africa during the next decade and beyond. Name one thing you think would improve the arts and culture industry in South Africa. I would attempt to make art more accessible in public spaces. I think
we need to find ways of bringing art to the people in their environment rather than the environment of artists such as galleries, concert halls
Karendra Devroop is the Director of the Unisa Music Foundation and Acting Director of the Directorate Music at Unisa. Devroop also holds a full professorship in music in the College of Human Sciences at Unisa. His previous positions include being the Director of the School of Music and Conservatory at North-West University (Potchefstroom) and Head of Music Education at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania (USA)
and theatres. What is your most treasured possession? My fathers ‘Selmer Mark VI’ alto saxophone. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? People who are perpetually negative and make of point of constantly spreading their negativity to others. What is it that makes you happy? Playing my saxophone.
Name three artworks that you love and why. 1. T he CD Recording of PJ Perry and the Edmonton Symphony is
Describe a defining moment in your life.
my favourite recording because it features PJ Perry, who is a jazz
The very first time I had entered a recording studio to record my
saxophonist, with rhythm section and full orchestra. For me
saxophone parts on a well-known jazz pianist’s new album. I knew
personally it is the perfect blend of jazz in an orchestral setting.
that my performance would forever represent me as a performer. I
Naturally, PJ Perry’s playing is incredibly inspiring.
doubted whether I was completely ready. That feeling has never left
2. M ary Sibande is my favourite artist. Her works are totally fresh with
me. I feel the same way each time I am about to make a recording.
vivid use of colours and form. Her recent work Right Now! (2015) is simply stunning. From all of her works, this is my favourite. 3. I am fascinated with modern architectural design, especially the designs
What projects will you be busy with during 2016 and into 2017? 1. Unisa is spearheading an artist exchange between the Netherlands
emanating from Singapore, the UAE and Holland. They represent the
and South Africa. In 2016 we will take ten to twelve jazz musicians
ultimate creativity made possible by human beings on a large scale. My
to perform at the Amersfoort Jazz Festival and later in the year we
favourite building is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.
will welcome ten to twelve Dutch jazz musicians that will perform at the Joy of Jazz Festival and Unisa.
Name one artist you would love to meet. Chick Corea – the jazz pianist.
2. Unisa has also partnered with El Sistema in Venezuela. We are expecting to expand on that partnership in order to further develop our community music outreach project which currently serves over
What are you reading at the moment? I usually do not have time to read books because I tend to read more research journals and articles. It is the only way I can keep up with the
1 200 students. 3. On a more personal note, I will be performing at two international jazz festivals later this year.
latest research. Name one goal you would like to achieve in the next What is in your car’s CD player?
twelve months.
David Sanborn’s Pearls.
Completing a project I initiated last year where I am having twelve South African jazz standards arranged for saxophone, jazz rhythm
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
section and full orchestra. When the arrangements are complete, I
I would take more risks. My wife constantly reminds me that I am
hope to start touring and performing with orchestras nationally and
predictable and too fixed in my routine.
internationally. CF
e