Picking up the pieces
Last month I was re-elected as president of the PE Gilbert & Sullivan Society, our oldest community theatre company, established in 1932.
G&S has seen the start and end of apartheid, two World Wars, this devastating pandemic and the performing arts industry nationwide producing thousands of stellar performers, artists, writers and creatives in all fields who have carved their names into the heritage we celebrate today.
It is an honour and a privilege to be entrusted to lead the society through these turbulent times, made all the more challenging by nonsensical government regulations, lack of support for artists and venues, and a failure to grasp how vital a role the arts will play in picking up the pieces during the current crisis.
The arts and culture sector, pre-Covid, contributed over R60bn to SA’s GDP and employed over one-million people (SACO 2019).
The direct flow on from this vibrant creative sector benefited thousands of ancillary businesses, including theatre suppliers for lighting and sound, props and set builders, event companies, venues, restaurants, caterers, festival operators, ticketing and taxi services, to name just a few.
South African artists from all disciplines have been recognised and honoured internationally for many years and their successes have paved the way for young people from all backgrounds to aspire to a career in the performing arts.
South African actors, dancers, musicians and writers have told the stories of struggle, tragedy and triumph that inspire and unite our people, especially today.
In the Bay, we had a thriving community and township theatre sector, plentiful corporate work for artists, successful production companies and a wide range of programmes run by the PE Opera House.
The honour roll of local thespians who have achieved national and international success include Dorothy Bernard back in the late 1800s, Tony Award winner John Kani, and prolific stage and screen star Alice Krige, who performed in a G&S production of Romeo and Juliet at just 14 years old, among others.
In addition to providing a springboard for aspiring theatre makers to learn their craft, organisations such as the G&S Society also were also actively supporting local NPOs and providing developmental and mentoring opportunities across all aspects of theatre making, especially the muchneglected technical arts.
Fast forward to 2020 and bottom on the list of priorities was theatre, totally understandable when you consider that many were more worried about when they would get their next salary, job or meal. Most people in Nelson Mandela Bay didn’t go the theatre before Covid and it was the last thing on their mind as we struggled through 2020.
However, this year has brought a whole new challenge. Most people I speak daily talk of the mental challenges — depression, anxiety, fear, sense of isolation, loss and grief, made worse by a lack of trust in those leading us through the storm.
Things that many of us would keep hidden come bubbling out when there is another human to talk to.
Once we begin to emerge from the cloud of Covid-19, our performing artists, support teams and venues that work together to ensure safety will play a vital part in helping us pick up the pieces.
Throughout our troubled past, artists from all creative disciplines have uplifted, exposed, healed and celebrated by telling our nation’s stories. They have been a voice for the people to share our hopes, dreams and history as we try to find a united way forward towards the Rainbow Nation.
On Heritage Day, we celebrate our shared national heritage alongside the many artists we have lost, not just to a deadly virus but to a longstanding lack of support that saw iconic actress Shaleen Surtie-Richards die in poverty, unable to access medical care, as an example of the neglect of those who have contributed so much to our heritage.
Local performers have limped through, with many leaving the industry or the country. The erstwhile minister for condolences and congratulations (the sector’s pet name for minister of sport, arts & culture Nathi Mthethwa) has offered neither of those to the many artists who have lost their lives and livelihoods during the pandemic.
As you celebrate Heritage Day, are you watching a performance, live or on TV, by singers, dancers, actors or musicians? Are you enjoying their talent, passion and energy?
Are you thinking, perhaps the extra zing in their performance might be because they haven’t performed for a long time? Will you realise that these performers have been largely unemployed for the last 18 months and they are desperate to tell the stories and begin the healing?
We also need our actors, dancers, musicians, poets, writers and tech crews back at work to keep the proud theatrical heritage of our city alive and prove that events under even the most inane lockdown regulations can be safe and enjoyable.
At the same time, special projects and performances that explore the impact of the pandemic through the arts can be used to teach, share, comfort and inform.
A huge opportunity was missed when the government failed to see how touring performers could be engaged in the fight to spread information about Covid-19 countrywide and break the cycle of fear and misinformation.
It’s not too late to give our artists the resources and funding to create new works and programmes that will help guide us through the wreckage left by Covid-19.
We need to recognise their value, not just creatively, but economically and, most importantly, as those who feed our souls in times of crisis.
The time is overdue to include and involve the creative sector in planning the way forward — they have a unique perspective to offer, the ability to touch people’s hearts and minds, and creative problemsolving is second nature.
At G&S we took our first steps forward with a family show in April. So many children came and asked me when they could be part of a show or learn to do drama, and the cast blossomed before my eyes as they made magic together with new friends after so much isolation.
Heritage Day is the perfect time to start working together to keep our proud theatrical heritage alive, so that our performers, writers, dancers, poets and musicians can lead the way in picking up the pieces.