The Arts

Besides music, the artist is involved in the national gender-based #ActNow Campaign. The campaign was formed by black men who decided to take a stand against the ongoing Gender-Based Violence in South Africa.

The #ActNow Campaign is endorsed by various government departments, cabinet ministers and celebrities such as DJ Sbu, businesswoman and motivational speaker Gugu Khathi, DJ Fresh, Khanyi Mbau, author Jackie Phamotse as well as Miss South Africa 2020 Shudufhadzo Musida, to mention just a few.

In solidarity with civil society institutions, educational organizations, sports and entertainment federations, members of @actnow_africa (Kadaf included) are mobilizing various communities to combat, report and fight gender-based violence.

This tribute is not only a portrait of an extraordinary human being, but a set of decisions, like any work of art, executed with dexterity, empathy and commitment.

Myesha Jenkins, activist, poet and feminist, who died peacefully in her home on 5 September, arrived in South Africa from the US in the heady early days of our new democracy and devoted her life to the empowerment of rural black women, performance poetry, the creation of networks that supported poets, the broadcast of poetry and multiple collaborations between poetry and jazz, one of her greatest loves.

A protean artist, who evolved as her interests led her, her signature style was one of unshakeable socialist principles delivered with simplicity and integrity infused with a rich seam of humour.

Cape Cultural Collective adapts to conditions imposed by pandemic

The Covid 19 pandemic has deepened our crisis. More people are out of work and hunger depressingly gnaws at growing numbers of households in the country. The very basis of human interaction has changed dramatically.

In these conditions, building resilience and pushing boundaries present themselves as almost insurmountable obstacles.

However, four weeks into the pandemic, we hosted an online fundraiser that generated income for the organisation and for a host of artists.

Community Chest and the Cape Cultural Collective joined forces to produce a publication called Heritage in a time of global crisis: Building resilience and pushing boundaries.

A short story set in the time of the pandemic

We feature poet and performance artist Philippa Yaa De Villiers’ award-winning short story. The Crown won second prize in the Arts24/Kwela Books Corona Fiction competition.

Fiona checked over her shoulder and quickly closed the Women’s Ways magazine open on her screen. It felt weird to worry about Van Reenen, her line manager at the workstation Hamish had setup in the spare room. A cloudy light made it past the thick ugly curtains, adding to the surreptitious atmosphere. It felt like the beady eyes of the surveillance cameras at Gordonson Insurance had followed her to Kublai Khan and were staring down at her from the painting of Paris in the rain, above the bed.

Writing a pain body and also reading such a body are acts of resistance and triumph

We review Zimbabwean author, Dangarembga’s, new book This Mournable Body, which has been long-listed for the Booker prize.

Tsitsi Dangarembga has made a name for herself as a writer, filmmaker and activist in Zimbabwe. She gained international acclaim with her debut novel Nervous Conditions (1988), which became the first published English novel by a black woman from Zimbabwe. The BBC named it one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world.

As a trilogy, Nervous Conditions was followed by The Book of Not (2006) and This Mournable Body (2018). 

Poet who made black “cool” in Britain wins 2020 Pen Pinter Prize

The dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, this year’s recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize, is the third consecutive black winner of the gong instituted in memory of Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter. Johnson, popularly known as LKJ, follows in the wake of British poet Lemn Sissay (2019) and Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2018).

It is no exaggeration that LKJ, who went to Britain from Jamaica at the age of 11 to follow his mother, part of the Windrush generation, did more than most to make black “cool” in Britain and beyond. In his music and poetry, he not only threw orthographical conventions by the wayside

Master KG’s hit a feel-good song for all!

A South African song combined with a dance that began in Angola, has captured the imagination of people throughout the world. Amidst the Covid 19 pandemic, Jerusalema has had 50 million views on You Tube and has got groups of people dancing in many parts of the world.

South African born and bred artist, Master KG has both young and old individuals, all over the world dancing to his latest single called Jerusalema.

Prof Liz Gunner In Johannesburg, during the Sophiatown era of the 1950s, gangsters would routinely order a writer or journalist like Can Themba or Bloke Modisane, to recite Shakespeare to them on street corners. For a time, Shakespeare became part of the rhetoric of the streets. One of the favourite requests was for the revolutionary funeral oration by Mark Anthony, in Julius Caesar: “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” This may be because the writer and broadcaster King Edward Masinga had earlier...

Michelle Galloway A South African composer, Michael Blake and Ugandan composer Justinian Tamusuza, talk about the fusion of western and traditional music, cultural appropriation and finding their “voice”. Justinian Tamusuza is a Ugandan composer of contemporary classical music. His music combines elements of traditional Ugandan music and Western music. He is based at the Department of Performing Arts and Film (PAF) at Makerere University. Michael Blake is a South African contemporary classical...

On the 50th anniversary of humans landing on the moon, we take you back to Zambia’s attempt to achieve that feat

This year marks the 50th anniversary of humans landing on the moon. And while the United States was the first country to achieve this feat, the effort to send people to the moon has taken place all over the world. Zambia’s National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy come to mind. We spoke briefly with director Nuotama Bodomo, who tells this story in her short film “Afronauts” (that you can now view in full online on the occasion of this anniversary), and which will be developed into a feature.

European countries must return looted African art

There are almost 90 000 African artworks in French Museums. The swift return of African artefacts would provide an economic boost for countries on the continent and stoke a sense of national pride which would help create greater cultural productivity on the continent.

Many of these artefacts which sometimes are not even displayed in European museums, collect dust and they could instead be used to inspire the African continent.

The Hot Docs jury praised Whispering Truth To Power for “its timely portrait of a bad-ass public servant who uses her office for good at a pivotal moment in South African politics.”

With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access, Whispering Truth To Power charts the final year in office of South Africa’s anti-corruption champion as she attempts to seek justice for ordinary people.

Whispering Truth To Power, Shameela Seedat’s documentary about Thuli Madonsela’s last year as South Africa’s public protector, has been released and is available to watch on the streaming platform Showmax.

The Fishermen probes broken trust that eventually obliterates the Agwu family

The Fishermen, a play currently running at the Market Theatre until Sunday 4 August, in Johannesburg is a display of life’s complexities.

The play stirs up one’s core as it investigates universal values and principles of trust, love and bond in a witty, humourous way while displaying prophecies that cause unnecessary deaths, unwarranted sibling rivalry, intense passion and depth of chaotic and emotional upheaval ultimately obliterating the Agwu family throughout an intense dramatization and an execution of the highest note.

A tour with deep emotions

The Free State Arts Festival recently took place at the Bloemfontein campus of the University of the Free State. In this piece Precious Mamotingoe Lesupi reports on a tour through her emotions as she experienced some of the plays.

Disgust, shame and heartache are the first things that came to me as I watched most of the plays at the Free State Arts Festival this year. I felt the screams of women in our country through art.

Colonialism came with historical distortions and we as modern day society still live by those and turn them into new words, philosophies and principles.

Invoking memory and curiosity

An outing to a local art event, First Thursdays, didn’t go quite as planned. It turned out even better. Precious stumbled on an exhibition at The Other Venue on 2nd Avenue in Bloemfontein. In this piece, she reports on the art that caught her eye.

The Black Season is an exhibition by Lesego Motsiri who is a student from the Department of Fine Arts at the University of the Free State. It is made up of a collection of 21 artworks inspired by dark moments in the artist’s life. Motsiri has had viewers interested since its premier at Art Fusion in 2016, the year he created his work.

The Arts take choristers into new space

About a month before opposition politicians lambasted President Cyril Ramaphosa for outlining his dreams for a future South Africa, a small group on the Cape Flats were encouraging about 25 young choral singers to imagine better lives for themselves.

The management team of the Junior Rosa choir had begun preparing the kids –mainly from Manenberg and Langa – for their first mini-production called Dare to Dream, held on 6 July 2019 in Wynberg.

Clegg was a dissident, a courageous man who confronted history and left an enduring mark on the world

In death, the artist begins the process of becoming a collective ancestor for South Africans and others around the world whose lives have been touched by his music and deep empathy with the oppressed.

Johnny Clegg died at his home in Johannesburg on Tuesday 16 July, in the care of his family.

“No longer should music be removed from the country in large amounts”

A flooding back of Africa’s cultural wealth from an era that is now three to four generations removed from the current generation would engender confidence and eradicate lingering notions of an empty history. It would remind everyone that we need not hark back to the ancient past or the great stories of medieval Africa to draw a sense of its centrality to world affairs, but only a few decades ago.

The film The Sound of Masks explores dance, memory and the meaning of life, ancestry, culture and political struggle in postcolonial Mozambique. "I am Atanásio Cosme Nyusi, son of my father, healer without master born on the Makonde plateau where there are bridges without rivers and the people believe in life after death." THE SOUND OF MASKS - TEASER DEC 2016 from Lionfish Productions on Vimeo. The Sound of Masks is a visual meditation on the nature of memory in postcolonial societies ravaged...

Creating meaningful and identifiable spaces

Whether it’s tagging (the stylised writing of an individual or crew’s name), posters, stickers, installations, murals or mosaics, graffiti has always been a contentious issue. Countries like the US, UK and Australia have adopted aggressive – and expensive – strategies to try and eradicate graffiti.

Weaving together memory and history

Winner of the 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art, Igshaan Adams, recently held an exhibition at the Johannes Stegmann gallery in the Free State. In this exhibition Adams presents an eclectic and multi-sensory large-scale installation, bringing together aspects of sculpture, textiles, found objects, furniture and performance in an immersive environment. Nwabisa Timeni spent some time with Adams and reports on their conversation.