By Uvile Soci
There’s a special kind of electricity in the Makhanda air when June rolls around. This week, that buzz got a whole lot louder: the on-site box office for the 2025 National Arts Festival is officially open, and it is the clearest sign — in addition to the billboards at the top of High Street — that the biggest cultural event in the country is about to take over this town once again.
It is the start of the town’s annual transformation, when churches turn into theatres, classrooms become cabaret venues and every street corner feels alive with possibility.
The Festival draws about 50 000 visitors annually. While many opt to book online, the physical box office has become something of a local tradition, offering a chance to chat with the staff, plan a day of shows, and stumble upon something unexpected.
Reflecting on the evolution of this year’s programme, the National Arts Festival’s artistic director, Rucera Seethal said, “The global landscape is entirely unpredictable: trends emerge and collapse, institutions quiver, shocks reverberate and radical new ideas rumble below a tense surface.” She describes the Festival as a “fluid container” for such complex conversations. And this year’s curated programme certainly lives up to that promise. For example:
SALT (Cape Ballet Africa) opens the dance programme with a blend of local choreography by Kirsten Isenberg, the award-winning Mthuthuzeli November and Michelle Reid. and a rare South African staging of George Balanchine’s Allegro Brilliante.
Izithukuthuku, a visceral new protest work in IsiPantsula, confronts questions of resistance and resilience. By using the percussive sound and the rhythms created by the industrial machinery that is the city; the typewriter and paper as symbols of instructive language, the work is conceptualised and choreographed by Vusimuzi Mdoyi and Phala Ookeditse Phala.
Loved South African group The Soil returns to Festival, blending soul, jazz and gospel with unmatched vocal harmony.
Late South African playwright and novelist Athol Fugard will be remembered through the staging of two plays he wrote with actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona, The Island and Sizwe Banzi is Dead. Both plays are directed by award-winning Gqeberha-based director and playwright Xabiso Zweni. Fugard spent much of his life in the Eastern Cape, inspired at first by the pivotal partnerships he formed here and then by the solitude that he was afforded to write his plays.
With around 60 venues scattered across Makhanda — from ground halls to repurposed garages — Festival season reanimates the town’s economy and spirit. And, for many locals, it’s more than art, it’s a lifeline.
The on-site box office has officially opened at the Settlers Monument on Fort Selwyn Drive, from:
- Monday to Friday: 09:00-16:30
- Saturdays (14, 21 and 22 June): 09:00-14:00
- Closed: Sundays (7, 8 and 15 June)
Online bookings can be made at nationalartsfestival.co.za.
