Bonginkosi Mnisi performs at the theatre production AfriQueer in the Botanical Gardens on 30 June at the 2016 National Arts Festival. AfriQueer is an evocative site-specific journey through multiple solo performances from across Africa; an intimate evocation into the lives of men living on a continent that violently rejects the ‘other’; a dreamscape into a world that embraces queer in Africa. (Photo: CuePix/Ivan Blazic) Bonginkosi Mnisi performs at the theatre production AfriQueer in the Botanical Gardens on 30 June at the 2016 National Arts Festival. AfriQueer is an evocative site-specific journey through multiple solo performances from across Africa; an intimate evocation into the lives of men living on a continent that violently rejects the ‘other’; a dreamscape into a world that embraces queer in Africa. (Photo: CuePix/Ivan Blazic)
YOU would be forgiven for thinking that a Cape Storm had swept through the National Arts Festival this past week as the winners of the 2016 Standard Bank Ovation Awards were announced.
On Sunday at a breakfast marking the end of the 11 day festival awards acknowledging excellence and innovation on The Fringe were announced - 232 productions of the 318 production on the fringe were eligible for Ovation awards this year.
Artscape garnered three Ovations, two of them Silver Ovations for the epic Xhosa production Ityala Lamawele and Die Glas Ennie Draad, a hard-hitting drama interrogating the motivations of a gangster on the Cape Flats.
Henrietta with Love, the debut play written by Peter Voges and performed by Lee Ann van Rooi won them their third ovation.
Siv Ngesi’s ExploSIV Productions also received three ovations including a coveted silver for Dangled written by prolific and profane Louis Viljoen and performed by Rob van Vuuren.
The script is an adaptation of the Russian author Nikolai Gogol’s 1835 short story, Diary of a Madman and had festival audiences squirming and grimacing and provoked fierce discussion. Hopefully the production’s success in Grahamstown will secure a Cape Town run of this disturbing and brilliantly performed one hander.
There was only one Gold Ovation award, the fifth given to a theatre production since the inception of the awards.
It went to Rust Co-Operative for the exquisite Sillage written and directed by Penny Youngleson. Aside from presenting the very personal story of a mother and her daughter packing up their home, it wove a strong political narrative and an interrogation of whiteness into a profoundly moving script.
Michelle Belknap and Rebecca Makin-Taylor were both superb in a play which Adrienne Sichel member of the jury and past convenor of the panel described as being internationally recognizable. Rust Co-operative’s The Graveyard, a dark and evocative drama reminiscent of Sam Shephard won a Silver Ovation. Written and directed by Philip Rademeyer the play had audiences leaving the venue slightly shell-shocked and many remarking on the audacity of the text and the high quality of the acting.
One of the overarching themes of this year’s festival , even on the Fringe which is not curated, was that of the voice of young black women claiming their rightful place. Khutjo Green’s adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 play for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf also garnered her an ovation and the striking image of young women, bare breasted, speaking out against patriarchy and abuse will be one of the enduring images of the festival for me.
The main festival theme commemorated the 1956 women’s march and the 1976 Soweto uprising, but 2016 will take its place in theatre history for the beginning of a different kind of revolution. In the vanguard are a group of women performers across the country, collaborating across disciplines to create art that entertains and acts as a catalyst for social change.
Thenx recipients of an Ovation and performers of the hugely popular Aza-Nya is Five to Two, Kitty, MoMo, Zethu and Tumy are names to watch out for. Their biting satirical commentary takes no prisoners and holds nothing sacred.
Convenor of the Student Awards Panel Jacqueline Dommisse also remarked on the strong presence of women’s voices and the expression of female rage unmediated by a male voice.
The award for the Most Promising Student Playwright of the Year Award: went to Namisa Mdlaloze & Pueng Stewart for University Of Cape Town’s Figs and Thembela Madliki of Rhodes University was the winner of the Most Promising Student Director for Nyanga.
Sadly the festival was marred by a homophobic attack and the response by one organisation Drama for Life was just one of the reasons Ismail Mahomed cited when awarding them the 2016 Adelaide Tambo Award for Human Rights.
On Friday night they led a processional performance through the streets of Grahamstown ending at the Rhodes Box theatre with the placing of candles to commemorate victims of hate crimes.
Their production Afri-Queer on the main festival programme and their public performances and engagements continue to use the arts as a vehicle for social transformation and collective healing.
As the festival drew to a close on Sunday there was a sense of celebration in the air, not just for the winners of the various awards but for all who continue to forge a path in the creative sector in South Africa.
It is an arduous and rocky one but acknowledgements along the way do make the journey easier.
l Tracey Saunders is the convener of the Ovations Awards Jury and a member of the National Arts Festival Artistic committee