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South Africa's National Arts Festival (review)
Theatre Journal Pub Date : 2023-06-02
Bryan W. Schmidt

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • South Africa’s National Arts Festival
  • Bryan W. Schmidt
SOUTH AFRICA’S NATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL. Various venues, Makhanda, South Africa. June 23–July 3, 2022.

South Africa’s National Arts Festival (NAF) built its reputation on being a platform for vital social critique, a major draw for the Eastern Cape economy, and also a kuierfees—a social festival with an immersive, artsy atmosphere. After being forced to move online for two straight years, the 2022 live festival was held in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) to rousing critical accolade—but with markedly lower attendance than pre-COVID times. Art of all disciplines was still on offer in the many venues scattered around Rhodes University, the 1820 Settlers National Monument, and the central business district, but there was a palpable decline in the bustling street life that animated years past. High Street and Church Square usually brim with pop-up marketplaces, buskers, street musicians, parades, and local children performing as mimes. This year, the few street performers present seemed confined to the NAF’s curated marketplace, the Village Green, and most of the informal vendors who make a living by following the crowds left town after just a few days. The successful pivot to digital over the last two years has given the NAF nimbleness to cope with changing times (and some virtual programming remained available in 2022), but rebuilding the live event’s vibe remains a considerable challenge.

Continued caution around COVID was partially to blame for the turnout, but other factors like rapid inflation, gas price hikes, nationwide power outages, and competition from other regional arts festivals likely discouraged many from investing in the trip to Makhanda. But the NAF’s curated program still featured top-caliber work with stellar production values, and the fringe maintained a particularly robust showing from student groups and emerging professionals in the Eastern Cape, the Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal. For a festival that has made significant efforts in recent years to shed its image as an event held for a wealthy artistic establishment that skews disproportionally white, it was encouraging to see that enthusiasm for performing on a national stage continued to have a pull for Black African artists, especially those from rural areas.


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Andrew Buckland, Tshiamo Moretlwe, Siyamthanda Sinani, Mongi Mtombeni, Roshina Ratnam, Beviol Swartz (l-r) in Hamlet. Photo: Alan Eason.

Thando Doni, this year’s winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Drama, made the bold choice to stage his sponsored production Ngqawuse (The Death of a Nation) almost entirely in isiXhosa. Although this is the dominant language in Makhanda (and many fringe shows were also staged in artists’ vernaculars), the little English provided was somewhat uncommon for a featured work in the curated program. The language choice made a powerful claim within the space of Rhodes University, reinforcing the play’s pointed investigation of knowledge and epistemology as durable vectors of British domination. In recalling one of the Eastern Cape’s most tragic encounters with colonial power, Ngqawuse contended that contemporary social struggles in South Africa must be located within its history. It discusses events from 1856–1857, when Xhosa communities responded desperately to British violence by slaughtering their own cattle in fulfillment of a [End Page 81] millenarian prophecy, leading to mass starvation, and hastening their subjugation.

Over 150 years later, Doni showed how the psychic wounds stemming from these events continue to haunt contemporary social life. Like in Zakes Mda’s novel The Heart of Redness, which also examined the cattle killings, Doni created a porous relationship between the past and present. He juxtaposed to the 19th century history of the prophet-ess Ngqawuse (Chuma Sopotela) a contemporary love story between a young man and woman that unfolded from youthful exuberance to tragic ruin. The minimal set featured a dusty, leaf-strewn floor evocative of the Eastern Cape landscape, where both stories could unfold simultaneously through crafty visual composition.

Crucially, Doni’s staging self-consciously avoided leading the audience to place blame on Ngqawuse for the slaughter she urged, nor on Xhosa people still grappling with psychic trauma and generational destitution stemming thereof. Doni rendered both...



中文翻译:

南非国家艺术节(回顾)

代替摘要,这里是内容的简短摘录:

审核人:

  • 南非国家艺术节
  • 布莱恩·W·施密特
南非的国家艺术节。各种场地,Makhanda,南非。2022 年 6 月 23 日至 7 月 3 日。

南非国家艺术节 (NAF) 因其作为重要社会评论的平台、东开普省经济的主要吸引力以及 kuierfees 而享有盛誉——一个沉浸式艺术氛围的社交节日。在连续两年被迫转为线上后,2022 年现场音乐节在 Makhanda(前身为 Grahamstown)举行,获得了一致好评,但出席人数明显低于 COVID 之前的时间。散布在罗德大学、1820 年定居者国家纪念碑和中央商务区周围的许多场馆仍在提供各种学科的艺术,但过去几年活跃的熙熙攘攘的街头生活明显减少。高街和教堂广场通常充满了弹出式市场、街头艺人、街头音乐家、游行和表演默剧的当地儿童。今年,在场的少数街头表演者似乎仅限于 NAF 精心策划的市场,Village Green,大多数以随波逐流为生的非正式小贩几天后就离开了小镇。过去两年向数字化转型的成功让 NAF 能够灵活地应对不断变化的时代(一些虚拟节目在 2022 年仍然可用),但重建现场活动的氛围仍然是一个相当大的挑战。

围绕 COVID 的持续谨慎是造成投票率的部分原因,但其他因素,如快速通货膨胀、汽油价格上涨、全国停电以及来自其他地区艺术节的竞争,可能会阻止许多人投资前往 Makhanda。但 NAF 策划的项目仍然以一流的作品为特色,具有出色的生产价值,而东开普省、自由州和夸祖鲁-纳塔尔省的学生团体和新兴专业人士的表现尤为强劲。对于一个近年来做出重大努力以摆脱其作为为不成比例地偏向白人的富有艺术机构举办的活动的形象而言,令人鼓舞的是看到在国家舞台上表演的热情继续对非洲黑人产生吸引力艺术家,尤其是来自农村地区的艺术家。


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哈姆雷特中的安德鲁·巴克兰、齐亚莫·莫雷特维、西亚姆坦达·西纳尼、蒙吉·姆托姆贝尼、罗希娜·拉特南、贝维尔·斯沃茨 (lr) 。照片:艾伦·伊森。

今年标准银行青年艺术家戏剧奖得主 Thando Doni 做出了大胆的选择,几乎完全在科萨岛上演他赞助的作品Ngqawuse(国家之死) 。虽然这是 Makhanda 的主要语言(许多边缘节目也用艺术家的方言上演),但提供的少量英语对于策划节目中的特色作品来说有点不常见。语言选择在罗德大学的空间内提出了强有力的要求,加强了该剧对知识和认识论作为英国统治的持久载体的针对性调查。在回忆东开普省与殖民势力最悲惨的遭遇之一时,Ngqawuse认为南非的当代社会斗争必须置于其历史之中。它讨论了 1856 年至 1857 年发生的事件,当时科萨社区通过屠宰自己的牛来实现[End Page 81]千年预言,导致大规模饥饿并加速他们的征服,从而对英国的暴力行为做出了绝望的反应。

150 多年后,多尼展示了这些事件造成的心理创伤如何继续困扰着当代社会生活。就像 Zakes Mda 的小说《红色的心》一样,该小说也考察了杀牛事件,多尼在过去和现在之间创造了一种多孔的关系。他将 19世纪女先知 Ngqawuse(Chuma Sopotela)的历史并列在一起,讲述了一个年轻男女之间从青春活力到悲惨毁灭的当代爱情故事。最小的布景铺满了尘土飞扬的落叶地板,让人想起东开普省的风景,两个故事可以通过巧妙的视觉构图同时展开。

至关重要的是,多尼的表演有意识地避免让观众将她所鼓吹的屠杀归咎于 Ngqawuse,也不将责任归咎于仍在努力应对精神创伤和由此产生的世代贫困的科萨人。多尼渲染了两者...

更新日期:2023-06-02
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