Dan Corder is a South African television, radio, and internet personality. He has a political commentary YouTube channel and podcast titled The Issue with Dan Corder and presents The Dan Corder Show for eNCA. He made a guest appearance this year on the NAF’s Better Late Show (with hosts Yaseen Barnes and Callum Hitchcock). Aryn Guiney caught up with him for a quick Q&A.
What do you love about Makhanda and what keeps bringing you back?
“I went Rhodes one semester in first year, 2012 and I just fell in love with the town and the space that it gives to not only students but also young creative people who want to pursue music or art or live performance and really make a space to experiment with what they can do. And so I then became a very regular attendee of Grahamstown Makhanda Arts festival. This year is my fifth time and I’ve also performed once in a Fringe play, which was a lot of fun and I decided to come down this time because I can do one part of my broadcasting from anywhere and so I just set up in the Barista Coffeeshop every morning for the past week and I recorded the show from there. It was really great, we got to interview some of my favourite local artists – many of my favourite people and closest friends are comedians, so we had Yaseen Barnes on, Conrad Koch – with Chester Missing and it was just really cool to be back. I haven’t been back since before COVID, so it was a real treat.”
What would you say to those who complain that the festival isn’t what it used to be?
I would say that creating a unique space where performers and artists of all levels and kinds can perform a lot and can see crowds and can learn and develop and meet other creative people and other performers is an almost singularly, unique opportunity in the whole country but that, that community moment every year requires maintenance and it requires support. There’ll be boom years and there will be fallow years and that’s totally fine. Some years it’ll be not as good or there won’t be as many people or not as many stars and then other years, if you continue to support and invest, bigger stars will come and more people will come and the practice of an arts fest is to constantly maintain and pour yourself into that project, even as an audience member, as an attendee, because your contribution, along with everyone else’s is what will make the arts fest better, more successful, more of a destination, more of a place where creative people can go and try things and excel. So sure, maybe in the last few years the Arts Fest isn’t what it used to be but it can and will come back if people decide that it does. You all have agency and control as attendees to make it what it used to be or what we want it to become, through our attendance and support.”
