Rich pickings from 700+ shows

Some highlights to inspire NAF visitors

PICKING up this year’s National Arts Festival programme brochure, one can be forgiven for being intimidated by the sheer number of entries – close on 700.

How does one decide what to prebook for?

While the Main event is choc-ablock full of shows for which tickets will quickly sell out, the Fringe programme offers many performances that are premiering at the event and their crowd appeal has yet to be decided.

To help you with your decisionmaking, we’ve provided some festival highlights, although leave yourself some free time to discover what’s on the fringes of the festival when you get to Grahamstown.

Bookings have already opened for the 11-day event, which starts on June 29.

This year’s Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre, Monageng ‘Vice’ Motshabi, has co-written Ankobia, a play which unfolds in the future land of Pelodikgadile, where it is forbidden to remember a time before the new state, and the “joy machine” keeps people grinning with pleasure and utterly obedient.

Co-written by Motshabi and Omphile Molusi, it touches on unresolved issues and the silencing of protest – the machine that is the state and the traps that we fall into when power is unchecked.

The play, which derives its name from the Ghanaian word ankobia (meaning “go back and get it”), features Momo Matsunyane, Katlego Letsholonyana and Billy Langa and will be performed in Grahamstown on July 7, 8 and 9.

Nadia Davids digs up history in her play What Remains – a fusion of text, dance and movement about the unexpected uncovering of a slave burial ground in Cape Town.

Based on an actual event, the archaeological dig leads to a reckoning of untold histories for the citizens, archaeologists and property developers involved.

Jay Pather directs, choreographs and sets the sceneography of the piece, with performers Denise Newman, Faniswa Yisa and Shaun Oelf bringing the story to life on June 29 and 30, and July 1.

After a 17-year break from working together, performer Rehane Abrahams and Mothertongue co-founder and director, Sara Matchett, are bringing their individual work into unison for a study on the body politic in Womb of Fire.

The piece uses a mythical, nonWestern framework to examine the performing female body as a site of disruption.

An all-woman theatre collective, the Mothertongue Project has drawn on their experience of helping countless women tell their stories and become empowered within their bodies and communities. Audiences can catch this production on July 4, 5 and 6.

In a time where women’s safety and identity remain squarely on the South African agenda, another piece that interrogates the representation of women in contemporary society is Zimkitha Kumbaca’s Confessions of a Blacklisted Woman: She Bellows.

First written by her in 2011, Kumbaca now directs the piece at this year’s National Arts Festival close to her original home of King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape.

A departure from her best-known role as Nontle Sanqu, in the e.tv drama series Matatiele, this work has been presented to critical acclaim at the South African State Theatre, Pop Art Theatre, the Windybrow Theatre, the Joburg Theatre and, most recently, at the Soweto Theatre. Festival audiences can see it on July 4, 5 and 6.

A treat for theatre lovers will be a live link-up to the National Theatre in the UK for the staging of Amadeus and Twelfth Night.

National Theatre Live launched in June 2009 with a broadcast of the National Theatre production of Phèdre with Helen Mirren.

They have since broadcast more than 40 other productions live.

This global viewing experience will take place on July 5 at 3pm ( Twelfth Night) and 7pm (Amadeus).

A long-standing partner of the National Arts Festival, the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) will again bring French-inspired works to the programme.

With the support of the IFAS and Alliance Française Southern Africa, The Fortune Cookie Company’s Tartuffe will have its Eastern Cape premier on June 29, 30 and July 1.

Directed by 2006 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner Sylvaine Strike, the cast includes Neil McCarthy, Craig Morris, Khutjo Green and Camilla Waldman.

The piece tells the story of destructive influence and power through Moliere’s traditional satire but with Strike’s fresh vision and a pre-war epoch, 1930s treatment.

The Arena is composed of productions that have won either a Standard Bank Ovations Award on the National Arts Festival Fringe or an international award at one of the NAF’s partner festivals.

The fast-paced, decisive Reparation is written, directed and designed by Ameera Conrad and presented by Hungry Minds Productions.

“An all local-content theatre production for the new age theatre goer” it’s a dark comedy that explores the “final reparation” in South African politics on June 30, and July 1 and 2.

Awarded the Dioraphte “Best of Amsterdam Fringe 2016” award, Macho Macho is an ironic exploration of masculinity through a physical “dance” between two men who question the objectified world they are subjected to.

Brought to the festival by the World Fringe Alliance, audiences can see it on July 3, 4, 6 and 7.

Robaby Productions’ Kid Casino sees the irrepressible Roberto Pombo pair up with Joni Barnard in a play about the underbelly of gambling, as two young children caper through a casino while their mother works the slot machines. Showing on July 6, 7, 8 and 9.

The much-anticipated new work of 2016 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre and recent Naledi Award winner, Jade Bowers’ Black features Ameera Patel in Penny Youngleson’s adaptation of CA Davids’ Blacks of Cape Town.

The narrative, in split chapter form, shifts between past and present – from New Jersey where lead character Zara Black finds herself alone and displaced, to South Africa of the past and present – as she grapples with constructing and arrogance that his grandmother used to sing to him, KonKoriti explores physical power and selfishness.

A former Standard Bank Young Artist, Mantsoe now lives in France.

KonKoriti toured France and Germany last year to sold-out houses and critical acclaim. See it from July 4 to 6.

Dada Masilo’s Giselle makes its South African debut in Grahamstown, thanks to a partnership between the University of Johannesburg and the NAF.

Masilo, a former Standard Bank Young Artist, says she has aimed “to create a work that is not about forgiveness, but about deceit, betrayal, anger and heartbreak”.

The Willis ancestors literally call Giselle to join them. They are not a group of sweet, sad girls, but rather something more terrifying . . . They have been had. They are heartbroken. And they want revenge. Giselle does not forgive.”

This dance will be performed on June 29 and 30, and July 1.

Another interesting take on a classic is Mark Hawkins’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in celebration of the Johannesburg Youth Ballet’s 40th anniversary.

Set to Mendelssohn’s score, the ballet moves from the contemporary world of taxis, car guards and unemployed actors to a fantasy world of psychedelic neoncoloured fairies dancing through bubble-wrap forests at the behest of the King and Queen of the fairies.

This production celebrates exciting emerging talent and offers perfect family entertainment. It is on from July 7 to 9. The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative presents With Nothing But Silence They Turned Their Bodies To Face The Noise.

This “dance-theatre” piece, choreographed by former Standard Bank Young Artists PJ Sabbagha and Fana Tshabalala, brings into sharp focus the ever-present realities of environmental degradation and climate change. It runs from July 7 to 9. The Oakfields College Faculty of Dance and Musical Theatre returns to Grahamstown with contemporary dance works.

Their production, titled 4, is an experimental platform for choreographers Ignatius van Heerden, Gladys Agulhas, Bailey Snyman and Sunnyboy Motau to collaborate with Oakfields College dance students, using Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as the point of departure. See it from July 5 to 8.

From Phakama Dance Theatre in Kwa-Zulu Natal comes . . . On the Line.

This work, which is part of the Arena programme this year, engages with self-discovery, lost dreams, new avenues, fear of the unknown and the empathy found in collective suffering.

AInternational comedian Stephen K Amos kicks off the comedy platform at the NAF this year.

The globe-trotting laughter master will perform his new show World Famous on July 2 and 3.

Together with the Brighton Fringe, the NAF has brought It’s Only Birds to this year’s festival; Louise Reay’s trail-blazing language experiment in non-verbal communication.

“You’ll understand it but won’t know why,” says Chinese-speaking Reay, who recently won awards in Brighton and at other World Fringe Alliance events in Adelaide and Edinburgh, in Scotland.

Home-grown talents John van de Ruit ( Spud) and Ben Voss ( Beauty Ramapelepele) reunite for a look at all that is wrong with the ‘ Rainbow Nation’ in Mamba Republic.

Topics such as #FeesMustFall, state capture, online dating, an alternative national anthem, and even the most unusual football match in living memory, are given the once-over by the duo.

Succeeding its predecessors Green Mamba (2002) and Black Mamba (2005), the show will run from July 2-8.

The UK’s The Pretend Men will present Police Cops; an actionpacked hour of adrenaline-fueled physical comedy, cinematic style and uncompromising facial hair.

This runs daily throughout the Festival.

The NAF programme is online and available for booking on the site www.nationalartsfestival.co.za