"NoMaLady", the donkey, gets a kiss from Lusanda Kutta on High Street.
05 July, 2009
G-Twon’s pots boil over for Fest!
By Anele Ngwenya and Lwando Helesi
Politicians may falter and prices will always change but the 35th National Arts Festival has not neglected its obligation to good cuisine and artistic inspiration. The Long Table restaurant has certainly maintained its promise to feed the diverse crowds during festival.
Although Grahamstown has a dearth of restaurants, the Long Table Restaurant, now in its 15th year, is a well recognised provider of food and art during the festival. “It’s more of a creative venture whereby artists make gatherings and the ‘undiscovered’ can meet their aspired mentors,” says owner, Michele Kloppers. Fixed in a quiet town alley on New Street, one can find the Long Table by just following the sweet smell of Moroccan Chicken Tagine.
Unlike the ‘eat and go’ restaurants, The Long Table combines both art and food good enough to make one feel close to home, with art pieces by locals masking the tall walls of the old hall area. The restaurant only comes around once a year during Festival and has become an unchallenged. “I’ve been coming here for so long, although the prices have gone higher, none of us can stay away,” says Haidee Crowe, an actress from Cape Town. Kloppers also emphasises equality among the crowds, “everyone sits together. There is no diversity between actors and normal festival goers”.
Although the town is awake with festival goers, Grahamstown does not leave much room for competition amongst restaurants. “Grahamstown is hungry for more restaurants and we don’t mind feeding the masses”, says Kloppers. Travis Masters, manager of Red Café, sings the same tune, saying that their loyal festival customers still come to the café and nothing changes in terms of income although the different festival customers inspire menu changes. “We add soup and serve bottled wine and we close the restaurant later,” Masters adds.
Street vendors at the village Green Fair also participate. “The town is really small and hosts too many people so all of us get a good profit”, explains BJ Odendaal, a first time ‘street food vendor’ from Pretoria. The off-on-and-on-again relocation of the Village Green Fair to the Rhodes Great Fields has slightly affected business for some of the vendors. Al Else has been a food vendor at the festival for the past 13 years and thinks “now it’s harder for many people to walk this far for the food but it’s just a small change”.
A string of young festival visitors has also found their spot in night-clubs and although food does not really feature here, hosting famous DJs and celebrities has boosted income.
Cindy Radebe, who tend a bar waitress at a local night-club says that students from all over the country never miss a night out after watching a good show.
But it’s The Long Table Restaurant that attracts even young people in search of a quiet space to eat.
Ngwenya and Helesi are Journalism students at Rhodes and Fort Hare respectively. They’re currently participating in the Future Journalist Programme (FJP) Winter School at Rhodes University.
Politicians may falter and prices will always change but the 35th National Arts Festival has not neglected its obligation to good cuisine and artistic inspiration. The Long Table restaurant has certainly maintained its promise to feed the diverse crowds during festival.
Although Grahamstown has a dearth of restaurants, the Long Table Restaurant, now in its 15th year, is a well recognised provider of food and art during the festival. “It’s more of a creative venture whereby artists make gatherings and the ‘undiscovered’ can meet their aspired mentors,” says owner, Michele Kloppers. Fixed in a quiet town alley on New Street, one can find the Long Table by just following the sweet smell of Moroccan Chicken Tagine.
Unlike the ‘eat and go’ restaurants, The Long Table combines both art and food good enough to make one feel close to home, with art pieces by locals masking the tall walls of the old hall area. The restaurant only comes around once a year during Festival and has become an unchallenged. “I’ve been coming here for so long, although the prices have gone higher, none of us can stay away,” says Haidee Crowe, an actress from Cape Town. Kloppers also emphasises equality among the crowds, “everyone sits together. There is no diversity between actors and normal festival goers”.
Although the town is awake with festival goers, Grahamstown does not leave much room for competition amongst restaurants. “Grahamstown is hungry for more restaurants and we don’t mind feeding the masses”, says Kloppers. Travis Masters, manager of Red Café, sings the same tune, saying that their loyal festival customers still come to the café and nothing changes in terms of income although the different festival customers inspire menu changes. “We add soup and serve bottled wine and we close the restaurant later,” Masters adds.
Street vendors at the village Green Fair also participate. “The town is really small and hosts too many people so all of us get a good profit”, explains BJ Odendaal, a first time ‘street food vendor’ from Pretoria. The off-on-and-on-again relocation of the Village Green Fair to the Rhodes Great Fields has slightly affected business for some of the vendors. Al Else has been a food vendor at the festival for the past 13 years and thinks “now it’s harder for many people to walk this far for the food but it’s just a small change”.
A string of young festival visitors has also found their spot in night-clubs and although food does not really feature here, hosting famous DJs and celebrities has boosted income.
Cindy Radebe, who tend a bar waitress at a local night-club says that students from all over the country never miss a night out after watching a good show.
But it’s The Long Table Restaurant that attracts even young people in search of a quiet space to eat.
Ngwenya and Helesi are Journalism students at Rhodes and Fort Hare respectively. They’re currently participating in the Future Journalist Programme (FJP) Winter School at Rhodes University.
Is this a statue or someone waiting to grab one's bag?
Now think about it. What if some of them are these naughty street kids.99 awards in 25 Years
By Colin Wardle and Onamandla Mathe
The award features four categories; music, jazz, dance drama, and visual arts. Winners are selected by a committee chaired by none other than Sibongile Khumalo herself. They are then featured on the National Arts Festival’s main programme, funded for their Festival participation and receive a significant cash prize. This year’s Jazz category winner, the drummer Kesivan Naidoo, will embark on a four-country Africa tour sponsored by the French government and Standard Bank in October.
Naidoo began playing the drums at the tender age of ten. While waiting to be let in to his aunt's house, he heard his aunt's boyfriend (Reese Timothy) playing drums over the music coming from inside. What he heard excited him so much that he became a drummer. Remarkably talented and well-mentored, Naidoo had already toured Germany, France and England by the time he had matriculated from high school. He read towards a Bachelor of Music at the University of Cape Town, and graduated with a First Class Honours in 2002.
The youngest person to ever win the Samro Overseas Scholarship Competition, Naidoo used this opportunity to study under Sitar guru, Prof. Sanjay Bandophadyah in India, completing a degree in tabla and percussion. In a recent interview, Naidoo revealed he would like to one day be the minister of Arts and Culture. This is not merely wishful thinking either, as he would like to use the knowledge and experience he has gained during his career to make the arts accessible to everyone.
This year’s music category winner Jacques Imbrailo had always been reluctant to voice his talent, despite its evocative power. He left the Drakensburg Boys’ Choir to pursue a more conventional high school experience. He studied law at Potchefstroom University but soon realised it wasn’t for him. Fortunately Prof. van der Nel encouraged him to consider and eventually pursue music professionally. Nevertheless, Imbrailo completed his law degree in 2002 but did post-graduate opera studies at the RCM under Ryland Davies.
Seven years, countless performances, award nominations and wins later, Imbrailo is the 2009 Standard Bank Young Artists Award (Music) winner. Ever modest, Imbrailo credits his talent to God, and is merely grateful for the opportunity to share it with the world.
Pretoria-born Thabo Rapoo is this year’s dance category winner. Rapoo began his dancing career at 18 with aMajita, a pantsula collective that incorporated acting with several forms of dance. To Rapoo dance was always more than just a passion, but a creative outlet and form of expression. In 1998, he met Tlokwe Sehume who invited Thabo to join his band, Medu. He learnt to play drums and percussion and in 2002 the band was nominated in three categories at the SAMA Awards. The same year, Rapoo auditioned for a scholarship at the Johannesburg Dance Foundation and completed a three-year diploma in dance, which covered a wide range of styles, and was taught by the likes of Grayham Davies and Eugene Berry. Rapoo maintains that through dance “you forget about yourself and are transformed” and that it’s a medium integral to African culture for through joy and sadness we dance.
Ntshieng Mokgoro, this year’s Drama award winner began her career as a librarian, putting on plays with children who would attend readings at the library. Eventually she opened a children’s community theatre that attracted Market Theatre director at the time, Lara Foot Newton’s attention. Mokgoro regards Foot Newton as the first person to believe in her directing capability, mentoring her and championing her cause. In turn, Mokgoro has used her various productions to women’s highlight issues within the South Africa. She sees her work as a means of self-expression and not just about “proving one’s self”. A true artist and visionary Mokgoro believes “theatre is real” and where she belongs
Sculptor Nicholas Hlobo is this year’s Visual Art category winner. Frustrated by the banal and limited opportunities available to him after his matriculation, Hlobo decided to enrol at Wits Technikon in 2002. His time there would go on to be highly formative, his experiences and discoveries at Wits playing an integral role in his body of work. With every piece, Hlobo aims to tell as story, exploring themes such as his colonial heritage, sexuality and Xhosa traditions through subtle ribboned motifs. Hlobo finds receiving this award not just a validation for him as an individual, but for the South African art community as a whole.
This year’s Young Artists Award recipients’ aspirations do not just end with the National Arts Festival. All have various tours and exhibitions lined up for the next 2010.
In such troubled economic times, it’s comforting to see big business still supporting the arts, a tradition that will hopefully continue well in to the future.
- Wardle and Mathe are students at the University of Cape and the Durban Institute for Technology. They’re currently participating in the Future Journalist Programme (FJP) Winter School at Rhodes University.
You can hardly tell he is blind
Abraham Cetwayo's disability does not stop him from showcasing another Special talent.......National Arts Festival
Live talent at Bearford Street-Grahamstown
Lusindiso from PE,promoting his new album called "Isabelo".
.Cultural group perform at fest and entertains the crowd.
Cultures and traditions potrayed by the performers.
This foreigner is busy vending to enjoy Fest!
By Sophiane Bengeloun
Jean Khenda is a foreigner from the Democratic Republic of Congo. During the National Arts Festival, he makes the trip down to Grahamstown to work down High Street (and very close to the Cathedral) selling his stuff. “I’ve been here three days and all this time I barely sold anything,” Khenda said. “More than that, the rent I pay per day is digging a big hole in my budget. I’m worried about not making any money out of this.”
Jean Khenda is a foreigner from the Democratic Republic of Congo. During the National Arts Festival, he makes the trip down to Grahamstown to work down High Street (and very close to the Cathedral) selling his stuff. “I’ve been here three days and all this time I barely sold anything,” Khenda said. “More than that, the rent I pay per day is digging a big hole in my budget. I’m worried about not making any money out of this.”
Khenda has been coming to the festival for the last four years, and says this is by far the worst things have been. To start, the organisers initiated a well-intentioned but little-advertised move away from the Village Green to the Rhodes University campus, which many blame for the slump in sales. Because a lot of festinos are impulse shoppers, High Street is often the place where vendors catch them on their way to lunch, or to shows.
Armani Dusabe who also from DRC, sells second-hand shoes next to Jean’s stall and says she is feeling the pinch too. Dusabe who lives in Johannesburg, came to Grahamstown on a friend’s recommendation but she is very disappointed.
Vendors are also involved in cut-throat price under-cutting. “I know some of the guys out there are cheaper, Khenda said, “but I can’t let my prices go any lower than that, I’ll make no profit out of my sales if I did.”
Neither Jean nor Armani have a place to stay at night because they can’t afford Festino inflated B & B prices and have had to make do with sleeping bags next on the ground and sleep on the streets to be able keep an eye on their merchandise. Until Friday, they add a spot near the cathedral where they could plug cell phones and water heaters, but the power has since been cut and Police officers kick them out of their sleeping bags in the mornings,
“I am a woman”, says Armani talking about her needs, “and I need a little privacy, or at least a quiet place I could take care of myself without being scared or disgusted.”
What the vendors did not say is that financial crisis has probably also affected their sales, with shoppers being more discriminating and having real budgets.
With all this fuss, you would think people will be so disappointed they will not be back. “I’m definitely not coming back next year,” Khenda said.
Sophiane Bengeloun is a University student from Senegal who’s in South Africa participating in the Future Journalist Programme (FJP) Winter School at Rhodes University.
The beauty of the Arts!
One of the many eyecatching artworks which can be found at the Grahamstown Festival.
Turn a blind eye to discrimination
By Jane Mathebula
After 15 years of democratic rule in South Africa, the impact of apartheid continues to be the biggest topic of political debates. A major concern is whether transformation has really occurred within all spheres in society and if so to what extent.
Justice of Constitutional Court of South Africa and Chairperson of the South African National Council for the blind, Zac Yacoob is certainly one of those who is unconvinced about the speed of transformation.
In a conversational session held during Think!Fest on 4 July at Rhodes, Judge Yacoob reflected on the efforts to transform South Africa post-1994. His prime concern is for people who are physically challenged. As a representative for blind people, Judge Yacoob said that although the South African constitution dictates that we’re all equal, this does not mean that we’re treated equally.
After a thoroughly enjoyable speech, I suddenly thought that when we debate the struggle for freedom, we tend to focus on racial in-equality and marginalise people who are physically challenged.
All should take into account that people with disabilities also fit in the struggle to live in a peaceful society where there is equal concern for all.
Jane Mathebul is a 2nd year Journalism student at the University of Johannesburg. She is currently participating in the Future Journalist Programme (FJP) Winter School at Rhodes University.
Making a name for themselves.
Samuel "Size-one" Mofokeng (left), Innocent Mohlakane (right) promote the play The World's Cruelty on the street.
this is just it
one good thing i will never forget about South Africa is their hot traditional dance steps.uh...i love it
Living well through the crisis...
Yesterday I attended yet another THINK!!FEST event at the ARTS FEST, called 'Living well through the crisis' with Bobby Godsell. Thoroughly informative I must say, but it was not what he had to say that really affected me but rather the demographics in the room.
This is of course no fault of Godsell's but a room full of old white retired men and their equally aged female counterparts is perhaps not the kind of person that should have filled up the room. "It was like preaching to the converted" as he himself pointed out. There was a handful of young black people, mostly Journalism students like myself and non of the young black elite who could have faired well with a little advice from someone who knows something about money.
Disappointing still was the realisation that much of his talk, would have been lost to the ears of the ordinary black person selling chips and sweets on the streets. Living well through the crisis, suggests that you have money in the bank to spend, but what of the large South African majority that has not a cent to rub together. I posed this question to him, and besides him acknowledging that South Africa has a major poverty problem, he could offer me no real answers.
Seriously though, how are the very poor meant to survive an economic crisis which has bought much of the upper and middle classes to their knees. Jacob Zuma would you like to answer that or is Shabir Shaik more qualified to provide the right answers. Yes yes I know that is a low blow, but its a question existing, needing a serious intelligent answer.
In fact lets look at the middle class, which is made up in bulk of teachers who already get a low salary and are dangerously in debt. Of course Godsell, tried to sell the idea of a debt councillor to help those in a large amount of debt, but seriously I can't imagine any pride-driven black person going to get counselling of any kind, let alone debt counselling. I have a vivid image of my own mothers reaction to the absurdity of that idea. Lets face it "real black" people don't go for counselling and yes it's a very loaded statement but I stand by it.
Essentially what I'm trying to say is that the economic crisis is yet another burden for the black person to carry. Aluta, the struggles continues.
This is of course no fault of Godsell's but a room full of old white retired men and their equally aged female counterparts is perhaps not the kind of person that should have filled up the room. "It was like preaching to the converted" as he himself pointed out. There was a handful of young black people, mostly Journalism students like myself and non of the young black elite who could have faired well with a little advice from someone who knows something about money.
Disappointing still was the realisation that much of his talk, would have been lost to the ears of the ordinary black person selling chips and sweets on the streets. Living well through the crisis, suggests that you have money in the bank to spend, but what of the large South African majority that has not a cent to rub together. I posed this question to him, and besides him acknowledging that South Africa has a major poverty problem, he could offer me no real answers.
Seriously though, how are the very poor meant to survive an economic crisis which has bought much of the upper and middle classes to their knees. Jacob Zuma would you like to answer that or is Shabir Shaik more qualified to provide the right answers. Yes yes I know that is a low blow, but its a question existing, needing a serious intelligent answer.
In fact lets look at the middle class, which is made up in bulk of teachers who already get a low salary and are dangerously in debt. Of course Godsell, tried to sell the idea of a debt councillor to help those in a large amount of debt, but seriously I can't imagine any pride-driven black person going to get counselling of any kind, let alone debt counselling. I have a vivid image of my own mothers reaction to the absurdity of that idea. Lets face it "real black" people don't go for counselling and yes it's a very loaded statement but I stand by it.
Essentially what I'm trying to say is that the economic crisis is yet another burden for the black person to carry. Aluta, the struggles continues.
While Grahamstown slept
Traders goes to bed under the tent to have a good night rest in the streets of Grahamstown.Can you imagine...?
Have you already seen this egg man?
This guy was wandering around Green Village Fair, asking people to visit his website which name was "open your wallet dot com" !
This guy's got some wild air about him!
The least thing to say about the Osadia Event, that took place earlier at the Village Green Fair, is that it was kinda "RAW"!
A Vintage Clothes Stall at the Village Green
*cough* second-hand *wheeze* someone else's old drawers *ahem*
Did you hang up your boots or gloves?
Andre Arendse: Former Bafana shots stopper couldn't stop the journos. Pic: D-Bongz Meeting Andre...
I have always been the type of gilr who loves the beauty of football, so you can only imagine my excitement at the realisation that one of my favourite old time goalkeepers was going to be breathing the same G-Town air...Fest how I do love you!!
I have had the opportunity to meet Andre Arendse, wow..what a pleasure. He was holding a talk called Game Plan: 2010 for all those who are looking to start businesses over the 2010 World Cup period. He is incredibly charasmatic, articulate and funny, basically everything I would have imagined. He had a multi-media presentation which was nothing short of cool, it made me realise once again just how the 2010 World Cup will be for this country. I even asked him some technical questions about the Bafana Bafana strikers 'cause I'm a GoGirl lol...
Heres hoping we have an amazing 2010...
I have had the opportunity to meet Andre Arendse, wow..what a pleasure. He was holding a talk called Game Plan: 2010 for all those who are looking to start businesses over the 2010 World Cup period. He is incredibly charasmatic, articulate and funny, basically everything I would have imagined. He had a multi-media presentation which was nothing short of cool, it made me realise once again just how the 2010 World Cup will be for this country. I even asked him some technical questions about the Bafana Bafana strikers 'cause I'm a GoGirl lol...
Heres hoping we have an amazing 2010...
04 July, 2009
Green Red and yellow binnies
The National Art Festival is an opportunity for the Rastafaries to showcase their colurful clothes
Heating Up Chilli Grahamstown
Kesivan Naidoo and his band The Light chilling after an electrifiying performance at the Standard Bank Jazz festival on Friday night 3 July 2009.
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