12 July, 2014

My first time experience of the National Arts Festival

Jackson Malatji

Being it my first time at the National ArtsFestival, my experience has been outstandingly overwhelming and I’ve learnt to embrace art more than I did before and being there as a journalist covering stories for RMR and Cue newspaper helped me to also express my artistic skill through writing and compiling news packages for radio!


Thembeyi Cultural Group drinking Red-bull after their perfomance
I enjoyed every show I’ve seen  more especially ‘She Bellows’ which is a well written and directed, the play is  for both men and females, where vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming men for the way they treat and perceive women as their "dolls". Another first time experience was seeing Lira’s live in concert show, well I knew some of her songs but was never really a fan but after last night’s show I’m definitely a fan and going to start going to her shows. To see so many young black people embracing art like the Thembeyi Cultural Group I ran onto, a young Xhosa cultural music group wearing cultural clothes and the girls were topless made me to appreciate ad respect other cultures.
I wish the festival was happening twice a year because it’s not every day that you get to see actors, musicians, painters, designers, dancers and performers all in one place showcasing their talents to a mass audience.
 Some shows were boring but there’s always a room for improvement. Oh before I forget, the food was so good but expensive (sigh).

To conclude I believe the festival brings people from all sorts of lives, different sexes, religion and races together, that’s the beauty of art!

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