01 July, 2012

Food, fun and Festival of delights


By Tendai Sibanda
 
A few days into the annual National Arts Festival, the roads of Grahamstown are packed with eager festival goers feasting on this year’s arts buffet.

The National Arts festival is a global arts platform as it draws various local and international artists
and allows them to showcase their talents.
Theatres and market places are packed with people from as far as Europe and the Americas, providing a perfect recipe for what is always expected from such big occasions.
Despite the anticipation, some have pointed out that the festival has not lived up to the expectation as they hoped it would be.

Some shows have also not been attracting audiences as expected.  Music band Davyn and the Rhinos Music‘s opening show at Prime nightclub only drew few viewers despite it being a free show. That is a start off that any musician would not want. Many point this problem to the lack of exposure during the build-up to the shows and any meaningful promotional measures by the artists. Though many artists face challenges such as these, there are provided with a rare opportunity to showcase their various talents on a local and international level, and delight audiences from all walks of life.
The writers are part of the Future Journalist Programme (2012), a project of Highway Africa at the Rhodes University School of Journalism & Media Studies.

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