{"id":4387,"date":"2021-06-17T10:41:04","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T09:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4387"},"modified":"2021-09-20T20:01:11","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T19:01:11","slug":"naf-gig-guide-pt1-hoist-that-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4387","title":{"rendered":"NAF gig guide Pt1: Hoist that flag"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like a character in a Tom Waits song, the National Arts Festival once more sticks its fingers in the ground, heaves and turns the world around<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidst the ruin and desolation<\/a>, the fire<\/a>, opportunistic ineptitude<\/a> and state-funded funerals<\/a> the Covid pandemic has wrought on entire communities of artists, the festival defends the hill of creative endeavour with tooth and claw, grit and innovation, determined to hoist that rag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has done so under heavy fire. Maintaining the stage has never been an easy task, made harder each year as the infrastructure festival needs to function has crumbled under the malevolent misgovernance<\/a> of the Makana municipality, leaving residents and the National Arts Festival to not only construct the stage supporting the largest multi-arts festival on the continent, but the stage upon which the stage is built: the framework of water and power and bricks and mortar. In this environment, made multitudinary more complex by Covid, the festival\u2019s continued existence is a momentous achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How unfortunate that what is most wonderful about our humanity; the development and celebration of empathetic communication and response, has to work so hard to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet art does,\ncontinues to, and as long as there is humanity, will not cease to\nexist. It is what the National Arts Festival supports, celebrates and\nprotects as much as it can. Which is why we will be going to\nMakhanda. The city, through the festival, has spread its roots\nthroughout this country and beyond its borders, it has provided so\nmuch creative energy, there\u2019s no question of not returning the love\nat a 1.5-metre distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makhanda once known\nas Grahamstown is like the navel of South African performing arts,\nthe bellybutton. If you\u2019re a bit fuzzy around the edges \u2013 i.e not\na sharp-edged fascist or suited sociopath – you\u2019re likely to end up\nthere at some point. We just can\u2019t help gravitating to the birth of\nself-consciousness. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What holds this\nyear? Hellll! It\u2019s a unique one, that\u2019s for sure. Less on the\nprogramme, small audiences only, masks up, hold back from the\ntouchie-feely haven\u2019t-seen-you-in-two-years greetings before, and\nespecially after, the show, or in the ticket queue, or the coffee\nline. Definitely no three-feet deep at the bar hail-well-mets. It\u2019s\ngoing to be different, so many variables, but for sure there will be\nmagic in the cracks. The only way to tap it is to dive in, whether by\ngoing to Makhanda, watching the gigs coming to you if you lucky to be\nin Cape Town, Durbs, Gqeberha, or especially Jozi, or just logging in\nto experience the online work from your couch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of writing on the\nday the festival kind of begins in Cape Town, far from its home in\nthe Eastern Cape as the Standard Bank Presents section of the\ntriumvirate programme switches on the lights, we the public do not\nyet have view of the full programme. It\u2019s kind of being developed\nas we go. The multiple spinning wheels Covid creates does that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Standard Bank Presents programme is fully populated, yes. This is the bit where for the first time the sponsoring bank presents aspects of the Jazz Festival, along with a small selection of Fringe performances in four cities from 17 June to 4 July. It\u2019s like a touring taster of what\u2019s going down in Makhanda from 8 to 18 July, with a focus on the jazz. Joburg gets the lion\u2019s share of this one, with 15 shows staged at the Market Theatre, AFDA Red Roof Theatre, and Wits University Main Theatre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town, by\ncontrast, gets seven shows, Durban and Gqeberha get three, but\nanyone living in GB has no excuse for missing at trip past the game\nreserves to Makhanda: Live!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here a map to guide\nyou through the crazy paving of the coming week:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, for\nDurbanites<\/strong>, this week is easy: just go to all three shows\nbeing staged at the Seabrooke Theatre as part of Standard Bank\nPresents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means you\u2019ll\nget to watch the Melvin\nPeters Trio<\/a> this Saturday the 19th<\/sup>, and the Neil\nGonsalves Trio<\/a> on Sunday the 20th, as well as the seven-piece\nisicathamiya acapella group\nAfrika Mamas<\/a>. You don\u2019t often get this much jazz in Durban over\none weekend, do you? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capetonians<\/strong>\nhave more to choose from, as usual (sorry Durbs, on the plus side\nyou\u2019re probably still able to wear shorts).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It fell to Jungle\nTheatre\u2019s The\nMagic Shell<\/a> to mark the start of festival at 10am in Gallery44 on\nLong Street. More of a whimper than a bang, and no fault to the\ntheatremakers, Standard Bank didn\u2019t seem to put much thought into\nhow to razzle dazzle this one. The Magic Shell being a family show,\nparents should have been lining up outside gesturing vigorously from\nan acceptable social distance in a bid to secure tickets and plant\nthe seeds of creative imagination within the next generation. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The razzmatazz seems\nreserved for the weekend, with three great jazz shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nJitsvinger Trio<\/a> goois the taal into new musical forms on Saturday\nthe 19th at 5pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trombonist\nSiya Charles<\/a> leads a sextet at midday on Sunday. Siya is a young\nmusician with all the chops and you want to be there so in a decade\u2019s\ntime you can be one of those people sagely nodding outside one of her\nscintillating concerts going \u2018yeah, I first saw her playing that\n\u2018bone on Long Street\u2019. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trumpeter\nMandisi Dyantyis<\/a> plays at 5pm with saxophonist Buddy\nWells, drummer Kevin Gibson, Blake Hellaby on piano and Stephen de\nSouza on bass. This is a hella lineup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the theatre side,\nSophie Joans and Maggie Gericke have cobbled The\nFlower Hunters<\/a> together out of tape, menstrual blood, googly eyes\nand experimental texts. They\u2019ve got us hooked. It\u2019s on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new original play\nby Qondiswa James, whose\nwork has impressed us<\/a>, premiers on Friday and Saturday next week\n(25 and 26 June). Here James still touches the rich vein of her\nboarding school years, but seems to use them to flesh out an\nadaptation of Credo Mutwa\u2019s The Coming of the Strange Ones<\/em>\nto cast a critical eye on history in Ndinxaniwe<\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Joburg<\/strong>\nprogramme gets going on the 26th<\/sup>\nJune, and Gqeberha <\/strong>has\nto wait until 3rd<\/sup>\nJuly. we\u2019ll give you a run down on that next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get\nyour berets and fascinators on, the show has begun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a character in a Tom Waits song, the National Arts Festival once more sticks its fingers in the ground, heaves and turns the world around. Amidst the ruin and … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[493,577,1147],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4644,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4387\/revisions\/4644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}