Festival update: National Arts Festival discontinues audiences for #StandardBankPresents, Johannesburg June-July 2021

The National Arts Festival 2021 – hybrid Diary- key dates –subject to change as per pandemic

The Standard Bank Presents showcase – June 17 to July 4 – Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Gqeberha ❌ Johannesburg update– no audiences as per June 24 –shows will be filmed
The National Arts Festival Makhanda Live – July 8-18 in Makhanda
The National Arts Festival Online – during the month of July on the Festival website https://nationalartsfestival.co.za 

Bookings: https://nationalartsfestival.co.za     
 

The National Arts Festival announced today, June 24, 2021, that together with its partner, Standard Bank – Arts, “the decision” has been made “to discontinue all audiences for the #StandardBankPresents concerts on the Johannesburg programme.” Tickets will be refunded. This decision has come out of the current spike in Covid in Johannesburg. There will be no audiences but the plan is to film productions for the #NAFOnline which will go out from the NAF site, in July. We say “plan” because nothing is certain in these scary times, in which this pandemic is roiling. Hopefully, cast and crew of shows will remain in good health and the shows will be filmed/recorded. As of writing, Thursday June 24, on-stage shows on #StandardBankPresents, will continue in Cape Town and Gqeberha but best to check in with the NAF social media pages, before each live performance. Tickets are on sale on the NAF website. Meanwhile, check out the early release programme for #NAFOnline.

Hopefully, audience-in-attendance performances will be able to go ahead for #StandardBankPresents in Cape Town, for Qondiswa James’ new play, Ndinxaniwe which is scheduled for June 25 and 26 at 44 on Long (that was where the Space Theatre was – many moons ago – the 2nd venue of the iconic theatre). Who would have thought that we would refer to “audience-in-attendance performances”. James describes Ndinxaniwe as a “physical theatre piece” and “a contemporary adaptation of Credo Mutwa’s ‘The Coming of the Strange Ones’ from his internationally acclaimed collection of African tales ‘Indaba, My Children’.” She says: “The piece follows three teenagers who attend a Catholic school in the forest of a rural town in the Eastern Cape. The teenagers are troubled by a shadow of their past selves which calls them deeper into history. Through drug-induced hallucinations, the boys slip into a deep sleep and arrive in the past, at the first point of contact between the white colonialists and the Black indigenous population. This work is a critical analysis of the effects of patriarchal conflict, the conquest of the African continent, and its insidious effects on present-day rural boyhoodam. The performers are: Mphumzi Nontshinga, Mfundo Zono, and Sivuyile Dunjwa. Live sound composition is by Nkosenathi Koela and Iman Adams. Themba Stewart has designed the “immersive forest setting and lights”. Tickets are R75, and R40 for students/seniors:https://www.quicket.co.za/events/143439-ndinxaniwe/#/