THE past 11 days saw another bigger and better edition of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
What a spectacle it was to see 2,500 productions of some of the most talented South Africans currently plying their craft.
I
was only able to sample about four or five of these a day last week,
straddling comedy, drama, music and dance, among other genres on
display. Grahamstown, still so inexplicably named, is the capital of
South Africa’s arts and culture scene and has been for the past 40
years.
I am baffled that we have not made a meal of this amazing
event. We have come to take it for granted. With our rich culture and
heritage this is one event that continues to be a gauge of where we are
in the social cohesion stakes. The picture is uneven. Some of the
productions had lily-white audiences and others, relatively mixed ones.
No
surprises that the Seshego Gospel Choir had an almost 100% black
audience, while the performance of The African Piano by a white South
African living in New York had virtually no black attendees — despite
both in my view having cross-cultural appeal. Gospel music cuts across
cultures and the indigenous instruments played at the African Piano
performance represented amazing exposure for African indigenous
instruments.
The "two nations" construct continues to afflict even
the arts festival that is meant to start breaking down the barriers. It
was also amazing how many representations of our state of the nation
cut across the comedy circuits whether the state of the SABC, or
Parliament. Lots of comic material there. I don’t have to tell you what a
show called Pay Back the Curry was targeted at.
But the big
question is how seriously do we take the arts as part of economic
development? I’m not sure how many remember what used to be punted as
Mzansi’s Golden Economy. We are fond of slogans and so I am not
surprised that this punting of the arts as a big economic growth
generator is no longer top of mind.
The actors are still battling
with making business sense of their craft. Many still die poor because
of the hand-to-mouth nature of their careers despite the noise being
made constantly about how the arts are linked to economic development.
The
reality is that a legend like Caiphus Semenya cannot be secured without
breaking the bank and this has often priced him out of a market that
has ranked his services lower than what corporations or promoters are
willing to pay for overseas performers. And so, he tells me, he woke up
one morning and thought he would cancel his appearance at the festival —
only to be told sorry, your show is actually sold out! It is clear that
we need to take a new attitude towards the arts, starting with
empowering our artists and making sure we rank them high enough on our
expense lists.
Second, government at all levels has to review what investments the state is making in the arts.
How
is local government, for instance, coming to the party in creating an
environment in which the arts can be nurtured in communities? Is this
item featuring in any seriousness in the integrated development plans of
municipalities?
I mean beyond the current electioneering in which
outrageous and unrealistic promises can be easily made? How about the
Grahamstown municipality making sure that when you have such a big-scale
event, you have running water for the duration of the 11 days? How is
it possible that such a misstep can happen if there is recognition that
this event is the golden egg that we all talk about?
Finally,
funding organisations such as the IDC, DBSA and even the national
lottery should do more to help export these festivals to other parts of
the world.
Over and above promoting South Africa’s rich heritage,
the exposure that the South African artists will get with a little
investment beyond the borders will propel their careers so that they can
play more on the international stage, because, frankly, the quality of
some of the productions at the arts festival can indeed rival anything
staged on Broadway.
• Tabane is author of Let’s Talk Frankly and anchor of Power Perspective on Power FM
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