Zabalaza Fest kicks it up a notch
HAVING watched just more than 100 productions since August last year, the Zabalaza Festival organisers have chosen 40 productions to play at the Baxter from Saturday to March 18.
The role of the festival is growing from just a platform that showcases community theatre plays, though. Over the past year organisers have noted how the calibre of the work being presented at their eight mini-festivals has improved and how new directors and producers are stepping up to present work, having obtained their start in groups that have taken part in previous festivals.
The mini-festivals have helped them identify new production groups and to show more people what Zabalaza is about.
“Identifying spaces is important. We felt like, in communities where there are alternative spaces which can be used as performance spaces, it’s a way to inspire the community to use those spaces more. We can see what happened at the Delft Rent office after we did the mini-festival,” said Zabalaza artistic director, Thami Mbongo.
This year, the best from mini-festivals in Robertson, Stellenbosch, Khayelitsha, Delft, Athlone, Mitchells Plain, Langa and Nyanga East will be presented as well as the winning productions from the Eden Drama Festival, the Cape Winelands Festival and the Overberg Drama Festival.
The number of performance groups from education institutions such as Northlink College and City Varsity have increased. This is gratifying because organisers have noticed that as festival participants become more comfortable with the idea of performing, they start asking the students about their courses and institutions. Zabalaza co-ordinator, Zoleka Helesi, says they are also noticing more festival participants asking for help to prepare for drama auditions for tertiary institutions.
This year, Helesi has translated Janice Honeyman’s Bangalory’s Back into Xhosa specifically to present at the festival.
Amabali Ethu is aimed at children aged 5 to 12 and Helesi is upfront about using the production to do research: “It’s a way to develop a young black audience,” said Zoleka, who is the organiser who spends the most time contacting schools and organisations to spread the world about the festival’s aims.
For the first time, the festival will present script read-throughs from works by Philip Dikotla, Loyiso Damoyi and Mbongeni Nomkonwana.
Another previous winner of Best Performance at the Zabalaza Festival, Khayalethu Anthony, will return with a new work, Naked Truth. Last year he won a Fleur du Cap award for Best Performance in a One-Man Show for a work he debuted at the Zabalaza Festival, The Champion.
In another first for the festival, they will present stand-up comedy courtesy of Amasokolari Township Comedy and a poetry show by Words of War, with a touch of magic from Mawonga Gayiya’s Astonish.
Music formed a huge part of the minifestivals and participants took organisers up on the challenge to not simply show they can play instruments, with four groups presenting musical productions at this year’s festival.
The festival starts at the weekend with the entire Baxter taken over by 26 productions and then the main festival sees 17 productions running from March 14 to 18 at 10am, 11.15am, 12.30pm, 3pm, 5pm, 6.30pm and 8pm.