A DEFINITE highlight on the arts calendar is the Not the Grahamstown Festival which aims to help offset costs and assist artists and productions on their journey to South Africa’s biggest arts festival, while offering local theatre- goers the ochance to salute and support their home-grown talent.
Running from Thursday to June 20 at the Catalina Theatre, the fest will showcase some of Durban’s theatre productions that are set to play at the National Arts Festival next month.
The line-up for Not the Grahamstown Festival includes Rowin Munsamy’s comedy skit, No Contest; Clinton Marius’s B!*ch Stole My Doek starring Shona Johnson; The Monotonous presented by Theatre of Human Purpose; All Gone, a cautionary tale based on a true-life human drama; and Arach-no-phobia, a collaborative contemporary dance piece.
Tonight chatted to some of the directors and choreographers regarding the productions staging during the fest:
l No Contest: As the opening production for the fest, Munsamy’s skit comedy centres on two aspiring dancers (Renaldo Moodley and Verne Rowin Munsamy) who compete on a reality TV show to raise funds to build a rehabilitation centre in Chatsworth. Touching on the themes of the show, Munsamy says: “There are about nine different themes, some being: tolerance, prosperity, education, strength, class, and drug abuse. Audiences can expect to be taken on a wild ride through various parts of South Africa.”
l The Monotonous: Directed by Nhlakanipho Gamede, the show tells the story of a master and a servant with issues around time, isolation, suffering, perseverance and pride. The director reveals: “The concept was taken from performers Bonginkosi and Nzuzo’s duality from their theme programmes in their final assessment in college and also Waiting For Godot, written by Samuel Beckett. We also wanted to challenge ourselves in absurdism.”
l Arach-No-Phobia: Staged by Dance Direction International and Youngstar Productions, the show is built around the premise that we are all spiders and nothing is beyond our reach. According to choreographer, Gabriel Youngstar Masango, the production depicts the life cycle in the spider world (in a humorous way not dissimilar to the human life cycle). “We are portraying the life of a spider, how the mating game leads to the female destroying her beloved male to produce her young to continue the spider species.”
l Not the Grahamstown Festival runs at the Catalina Theatre from Thursday to June 20. Tickets range from R40 to R60. Book through Computicket.