The National Arts Festival will intensify its strategic partnership with the Makana Municipality and Rhodes University to offer a dynamic opportunity for at least five youths from Grahamstown to be trained in basic stage management, and to work alongside the Festival's professional technical team.
The National Arts Festival will intensify its strategic partnership with the Makana Municipality and Rhodes University to offer a dynamic opportunity for at least five youths from Grahamstown to be trained in basic stage management, and to work alongside the Festival's professional technical team.
The Rhodes University's drama department and the Ubom! Theatre Company will work alongside the Festival to offer the trainees a diverse range of practical hands-on opportunities in basic stage management, basic lighting technology and basic sound technology.
Participants selected for the training will be assessed by the Festival's technical management directorate in both the theoretical and practical aspects of stage managements. Successful participants will be afforded the opportunity to work at the Festival, on from 20 June to 10 July 2011. The Festival will also explore possibilities to offer the trainees on-going opportunities to grow their skills through the Festival's partnerships with other festivals.
"We recognise the need to invest in technical skills development amongst talented youth in Grahamstown. Community-based artists in Grahamstown demonstrate an enormous passion for the arts, and this partnership will be an effective way to channel that passion into potential employment,” said Festival Director Ismail Mahomed.
The training will be supervised by the Festival's Technical Director, Nicci Spalding and Technical Manager Michelle Lowry.
"This is a real opportunity for the Festival to share its pool of knowledge with local youth and to ensure that essential theatre making skills are able to filter down to community arts programmes," said Spalding.
Rhodes University's Janet Buckland and the Ubom! Theatre Company will administrate the training programme and contribute towards the development of the modules. The Ubom! Theatre Company already enjoys a strong relationship with local community-based artists. This new initiative will allow the company to act as a strong bridge in a relationship between local community-based artists and the Festival.
"We are aware that there is a dedicated group of hard-working community artists who are very eager to up-skill themselves in the technical field in order to gain a more holistic understanding of theatre," said Buckland.
An information session for community-based artists interested in the training programme will be held on Wednesday 9 March at 9:30am at Rhodes Theatre. Interested candidates can obtain more details by calling 046 603 8771.
The National Arts Festival is sponsored by Standard Bank, The Eastern Cape Government, The National Arts Council, The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, The Sunday Independent and M Net.
