Archive for the ‘arts journalism’ Category
Pictures of people — and life
Photographs. Faces. Each face a person; each person different; and each different person an inspiration. A boxer, a beggar, a steelworker, a paramedic, an artist, a biker, a sangoma, a priest’s son. Framed in black and white, each intimate portrait is part of Justin Dingwall’s exhibition Portraying Life at the Imaging Hub Photographic Studio in Pretoria. Read the rest of this entry »
A Sense of unease
Wim Botha, Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year winner for Visual Art is erudite and reserved, accommodating and wary, as he talks about his exhibition Premonitions of War on display at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. “I work with art history, but not Art History as an academic discipline”, explains Botha. He draws on iconic and venerated images from art and religion over the ages, “things that people perceive as being great” he says, “for whatever reason. Read the rest of this entry »
Treasure magically imagined
By mixing sunlight with imagination the students from the Ningizimu School for children with mental handicaps have created magic, finding treasure (Umcebo) in the rubbish and debris of daily life. Read the rest of this entry »
A Hostile Takeover
In Hostile Takeover, three characters, played by Martin le Maitre, Lindelani Buthelezi, and Mpho Molepo, meet over a freshly dug grave and what ensues is a strange kind of debate about Black Economic Empowerment, the new South African economic policies, religion, morality; “It’s very very contemporary, right on the nub of this weeks ANC stories, and its comic, and strange and perverse and very dark humour”, explains Purkey. Read the rest of this entry »
The fabric of life
Women from the Hamburg region of the Eastern Cape have taken the fabric of their daily lives and literally woven a tapestry of hope so rich and so magnificent that it dominates the quiet interior of the Grahamstown Cathedral. The Kesikamma Altarpiece, which is in Grahamstown for the 2005 National Arts Festival, is a product of the Keiskamma Arts Project. Read the rest of this entry »
Zimbabwean Debris at Grahamstown Festival
The shades of fallen winter leaves colour Roxandra Dardagan’s exhibition ‘Debris’ literally and metaphorically, as she sifts through incidents from her own life and the last three decades of Zimbabwe’s history. The exhibition is a collection of work in which Dardagan explores some seminal moments in Zimbabwe’s past, including the Viscount disasters in which Dardagan lost both her parents, the Matabele massacres of the 1980’s, and the more recent land invasions. Read the rest of this entry »
The sting in Buckland’s tale
Andrew Buckland has developed an interest in arachnids, those creatures with long segmented tails ending in a venomous sting. His original play The Scorpion, performed by UBOM! Eastern Cape Theatre Company opens on June 30 and runs until July 9 at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Read the rest of this entry »
Fear’s Finesse
Women dancing, moving, sweating, breathing, bleeding, dying. There is silence and poetry, the sea, and the sounds and shades of fear as Juanita Finestone-Praeg, in collaboration with Tanya Poole and a cast of 11 extraordinary performers, explores the subliminal space where “the inside and outside collide”. Read the rest of this entry »
