Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Showcasing the Cape’s diverse cultures
Nurturing the dream of uniting people from different backgrounds through arts and culture
AN ENCHANTED evening of music, words and dance in a variety of styles is on the cards for Cape Town next Saturday when the Cape Cultural Collective throw their annual Big Bash.
“With this show, there’s just more magic,” said the show’s musical director Camillo Lombard who brings his customary “jazz edge” to the line-up which includes leading flamenco guitarist Bienyameen Camroodien, traditional instrumentalist Dizu Plaatjies and songstress Ernestine Deane.
“The audience will be getting the best out of the Cape Cultural Collective, the diverse cultures and genres which is what Cape Town is about. The Rosa Choir makes magic with their translation of traditional Cape songs which they translate into the province’s three official languages.
“And what is Cape Town without humour? Riaad Moosa brings the comedy, Bienyameen plays flamenco and Dizu brings indigenous Khoi and San music, playing the bow and bushman’s piano. There’s so much diversity,” said Lombard proudly.
Now in its 10th year, the Cape Cultural Collective was formed by a group of antiapartheid era activists and young post-apartheid poets who would meet in local pubs every month, to share their poetry, dance and music.
With endless possibilities as their vision for the second decade of their existence, CCC chairperson Mansoor Jaffer said the performances reflected the group’s values of non-racialism, inclusivity, non-sexism and development and found expression through all the region’s languages and cultures.
Jaffer added: “We never dreamed that the CCC would grow the way it has and make such a huge impact in our city. We look forward to The Big Bash to celebrate the progress achieved by artists, audiences and activists working together to bring about change through arts and culture.”
“I’m honoured to be directing the show at Artscape”, veteran theatre and TV drama director, actor, writer and singer, Basil Appollis said: “It includes everything that I love, the genres of music, the dynamic choir, the poetry, rap and dance, from flamenco to the riel.”
“The Cape Cultural Collective has been nurturing the dream of uniting people from diverse backgrounds through arts and culture,” Appolis told Weekend Argus.
Besides The Big Bash every year, the CCC has published four anthologies of poetry and successfully organised other major community concerts, including the 50th anniversary University of the Western Cape concert.
“In 2013, the CCC sent four poets to France where they performed a production called Uhadi, at the Paris Autumn Festival,” said Jaffer.
Performance poet, Khadija Tracey Heeger, who has been with CCC from its inception, said that they were “like family”. “It is all very informal and hospitable, not rigid, at all,” she added.
“Being part of the CCC and its sense of community has been a very good space for me, it feels like family for the longest time. Apart from the performance, the relationship between people is comforting in many ways.
“I still appreciate the event, I love the development, especially of the junior choir and also the fact that people who ordinarily don’t go to the theatre or who can’t afford it or who would probably feel a bit stiff in theatre environment for a first time, enjoy themselves so much.
“It is a very relaxed environment. The Big Bash has been a great way to get people to go to other shows.
“It’s been a very interesting journey with the collective,” said Heeger.
Performing in a collaboration with the Jazzart Dance Theatre group which consists of dance set to the sound of poetry, Heeger said that she drew her artistic impetus from the hurts of the pre-apartheid era, from before 1652 to 1948.
Ethnomusicologist Dizu Plaatjies, who has toured 150 countries with the group Amampondo, said his music took him “all over” and that he would be playing two or three traditional instruments, including the bow and the karimba – the Khoi piano.
“Most of the music I play is my own compositions, all using ancient rhythms. I don’t like to play other people’s music. We are all playing different music, and me, I am more comfortable when I’m playing the ancient sounds because it is something that I like, that I grew up with, something that comes from my continent and my country,” said Plaatjies.
Also part of the line-up are the Young Men Malay choir, the versatile Jazzart Dancers, the senior and junior Rosa Choir, Young Men Sporting Club, James Bhemjee and the Cape Flats tenors, poets Ziqu Pro-found Ndabizetha and Chris Ferndale, Deane’s band Moodphase5ive, Camroodien’s 16-year-old flamenco guitarist son Dawood, Plaatjies’s ensemble Ibuyambo
The show, which is co-hosted by the CCC and Artscape, takes place at the Artscape Theatre on Thursday September 21 at 8pm. Tickets are R120 at Computicket.