Now in its second year, the National Arts Festival’s Arena programme bridges the gap between the Festival’s Main and Fringe programmes. More than half of the 30 productions on the Arena programme this year were Standard Bank Ovation Award winners on the Fringe last year.
Now in its second year, the National Arts Festival’s Arena programme bridges the gap between the Festival’s Main and Fringe programmes. More than half of the 30 productions on the Arena programme this year were Standard Bank Ovation Award winners on the Fringe last year.
The Standard Bank Ovation Award was introduced in 2010, recognising and celebrating innovation and excellence on the Fringe, by putting the spotlight on cutting-edge work that is strong, diverse and original. All Ovation Award-winners from last year were invited to submit proposals for this year’s Arena programme, and sixteen of these companies were selected to participate in the 2011 Arena.
Arena Dance sees Sibikwa Dance Theatre staging a new production, The Public Oscillation, choreographed by Thabo Rapoo with musical direction by Neo Lelaka. The work will be set in an open flat space where the audience are free to move in between the dancers.
The Tshwane University of Technology: Dance and Musical Theatre won the 2010 Standard Bank Gold Ovation Award for Dance, and this year present Chronicles, a trilogy of works created and choreographed by Timothy le Roux. The highly acclaimed iKapa Dance Theatre presents Fuse, a triple bill that was created and performed in collaboration with New York’s Steps Ensemble in 2010. This production offers 3 different interpretations of the theme of peace and reconciliation and displays the company’s diversity of dance styles as well as its intense technical and artistic abilities.
Lime Light on Rites, presented by Ovation Award-winners Ntsoana Contemporary Dance Theatre choreographed by Sello Pesa, explores how the media, through marketing and publicity, exploits people’s emotions.
There are fourteen Theatre productions scheduled for the Arena. Wreckage is a collaboration between the 2010 Ovation Award-winning companies, First Physical Theatre and Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company. 8 Minuets, presented by Exclusive MC, communicates the narratives of the female condition as experienced by South African women coming from various backgrounds.
Fleur du Cap and Ovation Award winning Christian Olwagen directs Poisson, a new play by acclaimed playwright Juliet Jenkin (The Boy who fell from the Roof, Deep Freezing); and the multi-talented team from ‘a conspiracy of clowns’, Rob Murray and Liezl de Kock star in Kardiãvale, a cabaret clown noir spectacle, directed by Emilie Starke.
Underneath its irreverent and comical narrative, Gaëtan Schmid’s Body Language brings a social message of ever increasing importance: human interaction and communication. Mpho Osei-Tutu, directed by Craig Morris, provides a comedic reflection of one man’s obstinate obsession with reinstating one of the world’s most decorated soccer coaches back to Bafana Bafana in time for the world’s biggest sporting event – Convincing Carlos.
Directed by Tara Louise Notcutt, …miskien is a simple story of two guys, best friends who are stuck in similar dead end jobs and nondescript lives, both waiting for Happy Hour at the end of each day to drag them unceremoniously into the next. Sylvaine Strike directs The Butcher Brothers, in collaboration with Dark Laugh Theatre Company. It won an Ovation Award last year, and is performed in mask by Mongi Mthombeni and Jaques de Silva. Shooting, performed by Dhaveshan Govender and written and directed by Ashwin Singh, deals with important aspects of South African Indian culture.
The Library Theatre, Israel and the Embassy of Israel present Volunteer Man, an exploration into the right of a patient with an incurable illness to choose to end his life written by Dan Clancy and directed by Roy Horovitz. Coming from the Netherlands, Het Geluid Maastricht presents Life Is Too Good to Be True, winner of the 2010 Amsterdam Fringe Jury Award; and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands presents Daddy Day, a confronting and personal slide-show in a homely setting were Bert Hana reports on his summer holiday with his six-year-old daughter.
In his autobiographical one ]man show, Seriously?, award-winning hip-hop activist artist Iain Ewok Robinson takes us on a multi ]disciplinary journey from his small-town beginnings in eMpangeni in the early 1990’s all the way to the present 2011, where he finds himself one of South Africa’s most eminent white rappers.
Baba Yaga Theatre presents Jori Snell in Inua, winner of the 2010 Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award in Physical Theatre. In Flicker, Gerard Bester once again directs Craig Morris and Athena Mazarakis, joined this time by theatre-maestro, Andrew Buckland. This edgy physical theatre work combines innovative digital art with a compelling physical language to tell a surreal tale of great urgency.
Adrienne Sichel will again be the convener of the 2011 Standard Bank Ovation Awards panel. Only Fringe festival premieres will be eligible for nomination this year. The nominations will again be made by a panel of Cue reviewers, accredited professional media as well a select number of knowledgeable and specialist arts professionals and writers appointed by the Festival.
Bookings for this year’s “11 Days of Amaz!ng” are open. Tickets are available through Computicket. Booking kits available from selected Standard Bank Branches, selected Exclusive Books and all Computickets. For more information on the programme, accommodation and travel options visit www.nationalartsfestival.co.za. Also join the National Arts Festival group on Facebook for all the latest competitions and news, or follow us on Twitter. Call 046 603 1103 for more info.
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.
