DIRECTOR and playwright, Christiaan Olwagen, continues a great year, picking up an award as Best Director for his work at this year’s Woordfees, which finished in Stellenbosch last week.
The celebration of the Afrikaans word celebrated its 16th birthday this year, bringing the normally quiet town to life with visual arts, theatre, music, spoken word and even lots of food demonstrations.
The theme of this year’s festival was interchangeable and changing identities and Olwagen’s easy facility between English and Afrikaans and challenging stage work around identity supported this idea.
Olwagen is also the Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre at this year’s National Arts Festival in July, where he will present an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Doll House.
For Woordfees though, he was awarded for directing his self-penned Dogma (which interroages the role of the church and faith in contemporary society), Die Seemeeu (to a text adapted and translated by Saartjie Botha) and Son.Maan.Sterre. translated from Alice Birch’s Many Moons.
In addition to tackling the role of festival director for the first time, Botha also picked up an award for Best Production as the producer of Dogma; Tinarie van Wyk-Loots won Best Actress for her roles in Dogma and Juanita Swanepoel’s Orgie (an adaptation of the André Brink novel).
Earlier this month Olwagen also picked up a Fiesta award for Best New Afrikaans Production for Dogma.
Richard September is also on a roll, picking up Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of several characters in Rachelle Greef’s Rondomskrik, directed by Hennie van Greunen. This award comes after he picked up a Fleur du Cap for the same role and it started when he won a Kanna Award when the play debuted last year at the KKNK.
The cabaret Ont(Pop) proved to be the best newcomer at the Aan de Braak Theatre, giving newcomers Suenel van Schalkwyk en Sjanel Vosloo a chance to show their stuff.
While the Woordfees Awards celebrate the best on offer at the festival, it isn’t just theatre, with four different music categories rewarded: Best Solo Musician was Joshua na die Reën; Best Contemporary Music Group was Mango Groove; Best Classical Music Production was the US Kamerkoor’s Afrikaanse Lied under the leadership of Martin Berger; and the Best Musical Production was Zoid. Zanne. Zolani., a collabration between Karen Zoid, Zanne Stapelberg and Zolani Mahola.
The festival places a great emphasis on books, and the Most Popular Poetry was Antjie Krog’s Mede-wete, while Deon Meyer’s Ikarus was judged the Most Popular Prose and Abel Pienaar won Most Popular Lifestyle Book for Die Dans met God.
Sandra Hanekom won Best Visual Art Presentation for Museum: van Been en As, for her first solo exhibition since a three-year stint as the KKNK curator – a visual representation of the relationship between beauty and decay.