THE SPIER ARTS FESTIVALS: AN EXCITING REBIRTH
The Spier Arts Summer Season has been formally adopted by the Africa Centre, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting and celebrating the rich history and contemporary practice of African arts and culture.
Now known as the Spier Arts Festivals, the Season’s content has been re-conceptualised to comprise three vibrant festivals spread over the year: poetry, performance and music festivals will expand across the Spier Estate and into the city of Cape Town, from February through to October 2008. Each festival will have a separate team of creative consultants, and will be managed by the Africa Centre.
The Spier Arts Festivals are rooted in the Africa Centre’s raison d’etre – a space where the visual, intellectual and performance cultures of Africa are celebrated, studied and brought to life for diverse audiences in innovative ways. The Festivals will become a celebration of African excellence in the performing arts by promoting South African artists, providing opportunities for collaboration with Pan-African artists and building new audiences for the arts.
Poetry: The Poetry Exchange, on February 1 and 2, will build on the phenomenal success of the Spier Open Air Poetry Festival, which thrilled and challenged South African audiences from 2004-2006. This Festival will be curated by Malika Ndlovu and Lorelle Royeppen-Viegi and will be performed on the Spier Estate.
Performance: The Performing Arts Festival, from February 26 to March 2, will be curated by Brett Bailey and Jay Pather. Using inner city venues in Cape Town, the emphasis will be on developing original work and re-staging works outside of the usual performance spaces -- on the streets, in train stations, churches and other exciting locations.
Music: The Music Festival in October will be hosted in a series of intimate venues throughout Cape Town. The Festival will infuse the city with experimental African music, which explores how and why Africans function within a web of entangled nations. The Festival will be curated by Ntone Edjabe and Neo Muyanga.
Background to the Africa Centre
For a variety of historical, political and economic reasons, most of the important collections and productions of African art today are located outside of Africa.
Thus, most of the continent lives without the mirror that such art, from the past and present, from the North and South, can provide. We live without the art by which we can recognise ourselves. And we live without a vital component of our humanity, one that plays a fundamental role in our development and empowerment as Africans and citizens of the world.
The Africa Centre was created as a result of these needs and the belief that the time has come for a place where African arts and cultural expression can be nurtured and created, in Africa for Africans. Based in South Africa, the Africa Centre is a physical entity and an ongoing philosophical process, meant to grow spatially and conceptually over time. Beyond the Spier Arts Festivals its projects include:
· The Spier Contemporary 2007 – an exhibition of over 100 South African artists and a series of awards, to be launched on the Spier Estate on December 12 and running until February 20;
· An artist-in-residency programme;
· A high school arts leadership programme with three Stellenbosch high schools; and
· The Beam Gallery – a gallery developed to allow artists and curators to innovate with shows that do not fit into the existing commercial art market or framework.
Spier Amphitheatre
As the Spier Arts Festivals are a series of themed, concentrated engagements and will be located on and off the Spier Estate. This has created an exciting new opportunity for the Spier Amphitheatre which will now be hosting a series of performances during the summer months which are independent of these festivals. To find out more about the schedule of shows in the Amphitheatre or to book the venue, please contact Cindy Wilson at 021 809 1100 or email conference@spier.co.za
Issued by African Equations on behalf of the Africa Centre
Contact Penny Gaines: penny@africanequations.co.za
Tel: (021) 461 5735/ 082 554 0554
PROGRAM:
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POETRY EXCHANGE SATELLITE EVENTS
BEYOND THE PAGE: POSSIBILITIES FOR EXCHANGE AND ACTIVISM THROUGH POETRY
DISCUSSION THEME: POLITICS AND PROPHECIES: The Poet as Commentator and Visionary
Tuesday 29th January 13h00 – 15h00
UWC / CPUT poetry groups at UWC Library Auditorium, Performing Arts Building
Well known writer,and poet, Diana Ferrus will facilitate the session with poets Omekongo wa Dibinga, Ernestine Deane, Changa Hickinson, Mary Magdalena and Shabbir Banoobhai.They will be joined by poets from UWC and CPUT poetry groups.
DISCUSSION THEME: IMVUSELELO ZOLWIMI LESINTU: The Affirmation of Indigenous Voices
Wednesday 30th January 10h00 – 12h00 Ou Conservatorium Hall, Stellenbosch University
The session will be facilitated by Halejoetse Tsehlana, poet and Faculty Advisor for the Stellenbosch University Poetry Society (SUPS). Festival participants, Izaline Calister, Violettea Simatupang, Gert Vlok Nel, Belinda Kruiper and Mandla Mbothwe will be joined by members of SUPS.
VERSES
Wednesday 30th January , 20h30 for 21h00- 23h00, Zula Bar, Long Street,
This pulsating platform for poetry will be hosted by well known poet and MC , Nicole Moody. Exchange poets, Changa Hickinson, Napo Masheane and Omekongo wa Dibinga are included in the session, together with a line up of exciting voices from Cape Town.
DISCUSSION THEME: POETRY FOR PAGE AND STAGE: Exploring Oral and Written Genres
Thursday 31st January from 14h00-16h00, Guga S’thebe Centre, Langa
Dynamic performance poet and founder of the organisation Lyrical Base Projects (LBP), Bulelwa Ba**e will facilitate presentation and discussion with Jacques Coetzee, Ruben van Gogh, Napo Masheane, Antoine de Kom and Khadija Heeger and members of the LBP.
WORD WEAVERS GATHER FOR SPIER POETRY EXCHANGE
The Spier Poetry Exchange in collaboration with Winternachten
29 January – 02 February 2008
For five exciting days from 29 January- 02 February 2008, the Spier Poetry Exchange will offer Cape Town audiences a celebration of the word - written, spoken, sung and even explored on screen, bringing together 14 inspired solo performances and 4 collaborative productions by local and international wordsmiths.
This is the first of three Spier Arts Festivals, which represent the re-birth of the Spier Arts Summer Season under the umbrella of the Africa Centre.
The Spier Poetry Exchange kicks off on 29th till 31 January, with a programme of satellite events hosted by established local poetry groups in order to foster exchange, networking and dialogue among diverse poet communities, including participants and audiences from Cape Peninsular University of Technology, University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch University, Gugu S’thebe in Langa and Verses in Long Street – hosted by poets and poetry activists Diana Ferrus, Halejoetse Tsehlana and Nicole Moody resepectively. A conference aspect to the satellite events will explore, among other themes: “Poetry for Page and Stage: exploring oral and written genres” and “Reclaiming the Mothertongue: the affirmation of indigenous voices”.
On the weekend of 1 and 2 February, an amazing line up of poets and performing artists will engage audiences in outdoor venues on the Spier Estate as part of the main Festival programme.
The Festival weekend will include South African poets, storytellers and performers: Gcina Mhlope, Ernestine Deane, Jacques Coetzee, Belinda Kruiper, Gert Vlok Nel, Khadija Heeger , Napo Masheane, Shelley Barry, Andrea Dodolo and Shabbir Banoobhai. Collaborative poetry productions include even more local talent, Umyezo Wezandi directed my Mandla Mbothwe, Stone Words directed by Jaqueline Dommisse and Living on the Fence directed by Paula Kingwill, with musicians Garth Erasmus & Glen Arendse of Khio Khonnexion.
International poets will include Congolese-born Omekongo wa Dibinga from the USA, Izaline Calister, Ruben van Gogh, Changa Hickinson, Antoine De Kom, Violetta Simatupang representing voices from Indonesia, Trinidad, The Dutch Antilles, Surinam and Holland, under the Winternachten banner. Winternachten is a writers' and poets’ network in The Netherlands and historically related countries that annually hosts a festival in The Hague, with writers, music and film from these countries.
The vision of the Spier Poetry Exchange, shared by festival curators Malika Ndlovu and Lorelle Royeppen-Viegi, is to showcase a diversity of cultures and languages and styles of presenting poetry and to build new audiences for this art form. “The festival is building and extending on what has gone before” says Ndlovu, referring to the successful Spier Open Air Poetry Festival performed on the Spier Estate in 2006 and 2007. “However besides expanding the festival activities beyond the Spier site through satellite events, there is now also a distinct emphasis on performance poetry, which is attracting wider audiences. Poetry is alive – it is being seen by more and more people as a means to creatively express and engage with their conditions. Styles of communicating are diverse too – from written, to multi-media performance, hip-hop, to sung, to theatrical performance – and in a wide range of languages. It is vital for this festival as one of only 3 major annual poetry events in the country, to support and create visibility around all these voices”.
“It is wonderful that the Africa Centre is providing for Cape Town's very own festival dedicated to the celebration of this often neglected and underestimated art-form”, says Royeppen-Viegi.”
The Director of the Africa Centre, Tanner Methvin, Festival Manager Barbara Mathers and the Curators are available for interviews. High-res pics are available upon request.
Issued by African Equations on behalf of the Africa Centre
Contact Penny Gaines: penny@africanequations.co.za
Tel: (021) 461 5735/ 082 554 0554
For more information go to:
www.africacentre.net Note: ATTACHMENTS
BIOGRAPHY: Malika Lueen Ndlovu
Malika Lueen Ndlovu is a Durban - born poet, playwright, performer, arts project manager and mother of three, with a wide range of experience in the Arts and Arts Management arenas. She has two of her own poetry anthologies, Born in Africa But and Womb to World: A Labour of Love, besides her work being featured in several local and international publications. Her words and visions have flown far from the nest, making their appearances on pages and stages in Austria, USA, UK, Holland, Ireland, Germany and the Philippines. Malika is a founder-member of Cape Town-based women writers' collective WEAVE, co-editor of their multi-genre anthology WEAVE’s Ink @ Boiling Point: A selection of 21st Century Black Women’s writing from the Southern Tip of Africa. She has also initiated the And The Word Was Woman Ensemble of 14 local performance poets, bringing together established Cape Town writers and fresh writing talents. Between 2000 and 2005 Malika conceptualised, managed and often performed in numerous women-focused poetry and theatre projects for the annual Cape WOW (Women of the World) Festival, the Cape Town Festival and the Mother City Book Festival. She has also been an adjudicator for three PANSA (Performing Arts Network of South Africa) Festivals of New SA Plays. In 2006 Malika, in collaboration with singer-songwriters Tina Schouw and Ernestine Deane launched their highly successful production, Womantide, showcasing their original poetry, songs and music. For Human Rights Day 21st March 2007, Malika conceived and facilitated Wordwise: A Celebration of World Poetry Day inspired by this 1999 UNESCO global initiative and hosted at Iziko Museums’ Slave Lodge in collaboration with the Cape Town City Council. Malika is currently working on two new poetry anthologies and has a new play entitled Sister Breyani, being launched at the Baxter in June 2008. She is constantly nourished by collaboration with other artists and motivated by her personal mantra: ‘healing through creativity.’
BIOGRAPHY: LORELLE ROYEPPEN-VIEGI
Lorelle Royeppen-Viegi has an extensive portfolio in arts, culture and heritage management. She recently moved to Cape Town from Durban, where she worked as Project Manager at the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In this capacity, she managed the highly acclaimed Poetry Africa and Time of the Writer International Literary Festivals and was also involved in the management of the Durban International Film Festival and numerous other projects undertaken by the Centre for Creative Arts. She also has several years of experience in the field of heritage and culture, occupying the positions of Education Officer at KwaMuhle Museum and then Acting Director of the Ethekwini History Museums. Prior to this, she lectured in the Department of English, specializing in African literatures, at the University of Durban-Westville (now University of KwaZulu-Natal) and holds a Masters Degree in English from the same university. Since moving to Cape Town, she has worked as Project Manager at Magnet Theatre, based on the Hiddingh Campus (UCT).
