Five respected members of the South African arts community joined the National Arts Festival’s Artistic Committee last month: Phyllis Klotz, Nomusa Makhubu, Dominic Thorburn, Brett Bailey and Gregory Maqoma. Each will serve a three-year term on the committee, which plays a significant advisory role in the programming of the Festival, as well as identifying artists for the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Awards.
Five respected members of the South African arts community joined the National Arts Festival’s Artistic Committee last month: Phyllis Klotz, Nomusa Makhubu, Dominic Thorburn, Brett Bailey and Gregory Maqoma. Each will serve a three-year term on the committee, which plays a significant advisory role in the programming of the Festival, as well as identifying artists for the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Awards.
Phyllis Klotz has toured extensively with productions nationally and internationally over the past 35 years and brings an understanding of a wide array of artistic genres to the Artistic Committee. She created an award-winning African Orchestra and Dance Company housed at the Sibikwa Theatre.
The 2001 Standard Bank Young Artist, Brett Bailey presented his first play at the Festival in 1991, and has since presented 10 other works at the Festival, six on the Festival’s Main programme. He currently is the artistic director of Third World Bunfight, the performance company he founded in 1996 and he has curated the Infecting the City in Cape Town for the past four years, the region’s only public arts festival.
Nomusa Makhubu is an art historian and visual culture lecturer at Rhodes University, an artist, a research team member of the Visual and Performing Arts of Africa and former council member of the South African Visual Art Historians. Her own current research is based on popular culture (film) in Nigeria.
Dominic Thorburn is a Professor and the current Head of the Department of Fine Art at Rhodes University. He has been awarded numerous residencies, awards, grants and scholarships and has also worked with numerous developmental arts initiatives, including the Dakawa Art and Craft Project and the Egazini Outreach Project in Grahamstown. On a national level, he has been involved in various projects, including the Break the Silence Campaign.
Gregory Vuyani Maqoma started his dance training in 1990 at Moving into Dance, establishing himself as an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, director, and scriptwriter. When he founded Vuyani Dance Theatre in 1999 Greg was at the Performing Arts Research and Training School in Belgium. Amongst his many awards is the Standard Bank Young Artist award for Dance in 2002. Maqoma’s work has been seen in Africa, Europe, USA and South America.
