4 minute read
Women in The Arts
Creating Change
By Jessie Taylor
Women have, especially in Africa, often driven the arts. Women have played significant roles as artists, patrons, collectors, curators, performers, and educators on the African continent. However, their contributions have often been underplayed.
According to Britain’s Tate Gallery, more than half of all visual artists today are women, yet 78% of the galleries represent more men than women. In South Africa, representation is also skewed towards men, which gives women fewer opportunities for their work to be exhibited.
Women in leadership roles in the South African creative and cultural industries are rare. While 58% of firms in the visual arts and crafts domain have at least one woman owner, this sector has the smallest average firm size and the lowest average monthly turnover. Other domains, like audiovisual and interactive media (including film, TV, podcasting and video games), have a much lower percentage of female owners (31%).
However, 52% of employees in the creative and cultural industries in South Africa are women. But despite this underrepresentation, there are still South African women working towards creating a more equitable industry by showcasing their talents and paving the way for the next generation of young artists and performers.
Pretty Yende
South African opera singer Pretty Yende became a household name when she performed at King Charles III’s coronation in Westminster Abbey, London, in 2023. The 37-year-old soprano is the first black woman to perform at the coronation of a British monarch.
Pretty grew up in Mpumalanga, drawn to the world of music after she heard the Flower Duet from the opera Lakmé in a British Airways TV advert. She was active in her church choir before starting to sing at school and going on to study music.
After her debut in 2007 at Artscape Opera House in Cape Town,Pretty made her international breakthrough in 2013 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She has gone on to grace stages around the globe.
Aside from her incredible talent, Pretty works to create greater equality in the opera world. She has been the first black performer in many roles, including Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and the first black person to have a new production of La Traviata in Opera Garnier in Paris. She has been outspoken about racist practices in the opera industry and advocated for new voices in opera.
Kitty Phetla
Kitty Phetla is a South African Ballet dancer who hails from Soweto. She started dancing ballet in primary school and soon expanded her repertoire to include Spanish dancing, contemporary dance, and Afrofusion under the tutelage of Martin Schönberg.
She established the Mzansi Productions (now the Joburg Ballet) in 2002 and toured Russia, where she became the first black ballerina to perform Anna Pavlova’s famous solo, The Dying Swan. She later performed this solo to Nelson Mandela and the Dutch Royal Family in Amsterdam.
Kitty has won a number of international awards and participated in several competitions. She attributes much of her success to hard work and discipline. “Success has nothing to do with luck. It’s about the work you do – not just the hard work, the sweating – but what your mind tells your body,” she says.
She believes in helping black South African children enjoy the same kind of experiences through her work with Joburg Ballet and its numerous outreach programmes. These programmes have put more than 300 promising dancers on the stage.
Dr. Esther Mahlangu
Dr. Esther Mahlangu was taught the art of Ndebele design and house painting by her mother and grandmother as a child in Middelburg. She was the first person to reimagine Ndebele design on more contemporary mediums: she has painted everything from planes, cars, motorbikes and bicycles to pots, canvas, walls, mannequins and even war helmets.
She has participated in numerous international exhibitions and continues to collaborate with leading museums, curators, art fairs, celebrities and global brands. Dr Mahlangu has also received countless awards, which include two honorary doctorates, the French ‘Office of Arts and Letters’, an award from the United Nations, and ‘The Order of Ikhamanga’ from the President of South Africa.
However, Dr Mahlangu remains grounded in her Ndebele culture, choosing to live in her homestead in rural Mpumalanga and wear traditional Ndebele dress. She continues to advocate for promoting and preserving Ndebele culture, and she has spent a great deal of time educating and passing her skills to the younger generation via her self-funded art school at her homestead.
