vNAF Gig Guide 3: Last chance! Not really, but Last Chance!

The weekend’s here and it’s time to get your virtual kicks.

Normally in Makhanda we’d all be trying to squeeze in the hits we haven’t yet seen, visit the Green, meet up with pals at the Beer Tent before tattered posters start blowing down the emptying streets on Sunday as tarp-topped trailers exit the town. But we’re in the virtual world so festival is times two and we’ve got until the 16 July to tick every uploaded wonder off our list.  

If you’ve got the gigabytes to spare, start with the pretty substantial shortlists in Part 1 and Part 2 (go there). Listen, you’re not meant to follow these gig guide’s strictly – we don’t! They’re teasers and tasters to lure you closer and welcome you to the party. From there it’s your prerogative to chase down your vibe.

We realise we missed a day between gig guides but who hasn’t lost track of the calendar these past few months?! We missed out precious Thursday but time is a construct so don’t worry, you haven’t lost out.

Another Kind of Dying is the reimagined virtual experience of the should-have-been staged play by Amy Louise Wilson, the winner of the 2020 Distell National Playwright Competition. Critter Dave Mann has already written something wonderful about it, read here.

Then, we know school’s been out for a while so some decent brainfood for the youngsters is a matter of must. Enter the experts when it comes to providing nourishing, enriching content for young minds: ASSITEJ SA. They’re presenting two staged readings: 1) a story of a heroine who saves her home township, and 2) a boy’s story of following his dream no matter the obstacles. Readings are awesome exercise for the imagination & practicing that thing we all need to learn how to do better: really listen. A super stellar team is behind this production In The Works: Playreadings For Young Audiences so rest assured it’ll be time well spent.

Clicking through to today!

Together Apart “features the talents of a largely queer collective with backgrounds in film, theatre, fine art, performance, activism and documentary”. Created by a snazzy roll-call of award-winning artists, Together Apart sure looks interesting. Performance art and film, blurring the lines, questioning reality, understanding isolation in all its forms. Yes, we’re in.

Are you a podcastophile or audiobook fanatic? Stories your thing? Then listen in on the readings of five short plays written by African writers who explore issues of love, loss, family and responsibility. Click on through to the Novel-Script Writers’ Development Project to get all the deets, peeps.

But now you’re looking to get your weekend vibes home-style while #stayingsafe in solitude. We feel you. We need a Friday wind (and wine) down too. This week has held some hard news.

Friday nights are meant for music so pick your playlist.

The Jazz Festival is teeming with tip-top quality musicians ready to wrap you in the warm embrace of their music. Critter Percy Mabandu has been sharing his responses to their artistry (read here) and we reckon it’s time to get on the jazz train if you’re not already zooting along on it. We’re talking Gloria Bosman, Thandiswa Mazwai, and SBYA for Jazz 2020 Sisonke Xonti just for starters!

If it’s been a while since you stopped to listen to Classical, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra is here to help. Let their masterful musicianship transport you to other worlds; be absorbed by Mozart’s ‘Divertimento In D, K136’, mesmerised by Elgar’s ‘Serenade For Strings Op. 20’, and rejuvenated by Dvořák’s ‘Serenade In D Minor, Opus 44’. Everyone loves a cello, right, and to have your fill, CTPO principal cellist Peter Martens is playing Bach’s Six Solo Cello Suites for us. Recorded at La Motte’s historic wine cellar, you can pretend you’re there and get a little toshed up daahhling for an evening concert.

On Saturday there’s a documentary looking at the current global realisation that food comes from land and not from shops, and it checks in with history for cultural and traditional approaches to preserving food. Preservation is nutritious brainfood for thought. Cringey wordplay. But not as cringeworthy as knowing incalculable tonnes of food go to waste each year across the globe. What are you eating? Where does it come from? How was it produced? For something so intrinsic to survival, and for a human right denied to far too many across our continent – these are questions we must face and answer. I’ll be watching.

Hotly anticipated weekend releases are the Standard Bank Young Artists, for Dance, Lulu Mlangeni, and for Theatre, Jefferson Tshabalala.

Lulu has been flooring local and international audiences with her incomparable dancing for years and now we can learn more about her in ‘Lesedi: the rise of Lulu Mlangeni’, opening Saturday. Oh how we wish we could be in the freezing cold cavern of the Great Hall in Makhanda to bathe in the glory of this glorious mover. We can’t, so we’ll trust the blurb on this one: “a beautifully shot documentary film offering a window to Lulu Mlangeni’s journey into dance”.

J Bobs! We’ve enjoyed our time with him before (read here) and we’re keen to see what ingenious magic he’s cooked up for us this year. Again we’ll trust the website blurb as we eagerly anticipate ‘content loading’… “A sketch, a faux concert which plays out as a collection. Of prose. Of poems. Of plays.” Sunday, we’re ready and waiting.

Also on Sunday, is Dumile Feni: 4 Provocations a programme featuring Nadia Beugré; Nora Chipaumire; Dorothée Munyaneza; Chuma Sopotela, four highly lauded performance artists who have created responses to the esteemed artist Dumile Feni. It promises to be complex and richly textured, and should be on your list if you’re in need of something gritty and conceptual to wrestle with.

Last time, we promised some fringe action too… but oh my fringed straw hat there’s a lot on offer. Here’s the link. Wiggle your fingers and warm up those knuckles. Grab your mouse and go! If you’re in the position to, watch as much as possible. #supportSAartists. These have been trying times for an industry which almost entirely relies on gatherings of people! Yet the artists of our country have endured and made art for your entertainment. So ja, buy a ticket please. Alright, to start you off, read what our student reviewers have written about: Memory Laine, To The Little Girl Inside of Me, and Township Talks: The Suitcase.

Last word! And then skip yourself over to the virtual National Arts Festival ok. We spend so much of our lives scrolling through timelines-this and feeds-that and I don’t know if we ever really come out the other end having shifted much. If you must feed the scroll-addiction – make your way to the vFringe Visual Art exhibitions. There are awesome, awesome, awesome artworks to explore. Beautiful, confounding, challenging. Just like life. And art is life. So take part.