Top French cultural order for Brett Bailey
ON TUESDAY night, acclaimed and controversial South African playwright and artist Brett Bailey received a top cultural award – French ambassador Christophe Farnaud bestowed on him the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) on behalf of French President Emmanuel Macron in Mouille Point, Cape Town.
Playwright, designer, director and installation maker, and the artistic director of the performance company Third World Bunfight, Bailey said he found the award of utmost importance in boosting the arts.
“In a society where so little importance is given to the arts… where theatres are crumbling due to lack of funds, it’s wonderful that value is being given to culture.”
Bailey is well-known as curator of the public arts festival, Infecting the City, staged in the Mother City from 2008 to 2011 and his work has been showcased in Europe, Australia, Africa and Latin America.
The artist is not overly optimistic of the future of the arts in South Africa – “one day we will get to the stage where we will not have the money to make quality work. There’s a paucity of strong applications (for works) and artists are fleeing elsewhere to seek more lucrative markets. It’s really dim for the future so it’s great to have this award to give greater exposure for artists...”
Bailey has worked extensively in France and last year he was commissioned to create a visual campaign for the Marseilles France 2018 Festival.
But his most controversial work to date, also featured in France, was in 2014 in Paris. Exhibit B showed black actors in cages and was cancelled by London’s famed Barbican Centre in September of that year. When it opened in the French capital later that month it sparked furious protests. Says Bailey, “300 riot police had to come in to help the exhibit stay open. France was very supportive compared to England.”
The live installation was a thought-provoking look at the 19th-and 20th-century practice of exhibiting people from the colonies in “human zoos” for public amusement.
Bestowing the latest award on the much deserving artist, French ambassador Farnaud said: “Brett Bailey is a revolutionary director, who’s broken traditional boundaries by bringing theatre to the streets of Cape Town.” Referring to the controversial piece in 2014, Farnaud said, “In France, the opera Macbeth, or the performance Sanctuary, dedicated to migrants, or Exhibit B... were acclaimed in recent years as masterpieces of the performing arts.”
The Order of Arts and Letters is a French order established in 1957 and awarded by the French Ministry of Culture in recognition of significant contributions to the enrichment of the arts and literature in France and abroad. There are three degrees: knight, officer and commander. Johnny Clegg received the award in 1991, William Kentridge in 2013, Gregory Maqoma (2017) and Zanele Muholi (2017).
Bailey is now also gearing up for his latest show, Samson, at the Woordfees in Stellenbosch. He says the piece is a lyrical, nearapocalyptic music-theatre, that he crafted with choreography by the acclaimed Vincent Mantsoe and music by the talented Shane Cooper. “Samson is stripped of biblical flavour and deals with colonialism, xenophobia, politics, migrants, refugees and the demand for land.” The piece will be set to music with soaring vocals, rap, opera and live electronica. Interpreted on a rich visual canvas it will run at Woordfees on March 8, 9 and 10.