Diary: National Arts Festival, Thandiswa live at the Lyric, Sisonke Afrohouse
Festival returns with fresh fire and fearless talent
For 11 days this winter, Makhanda becomes the beating heart of South African creativity and artistic innovation as the National Arts Festival lights up the Eastern Cape until 6 July.
A staple on the cultural calendar since 1974, the festival has long been a space for protest, play and powerful storytelling — and this year is no different.
The programme honours Youth Month by spotlighting bold new voices through the Standard Bank Young Artist Awards.
Six trailblazers — Asanda Ruda, Siya Charles, Muneyi, Calvin Ratladi, Modise Sekgothe and Nyakallo Maleke — will debut genre-pushing work across theatre, music, jazz, dance, poetry and visual arts.
It's a testament to the resilience and brilliance of South African youth and a celebration of the art that helps us reflect, reimagine and rise.
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Thandiswa live at The Lyric for one night only
Thandiswa Mazwai returns to the stage for an intimate, soul-stirring performance at The Lyric Theatre on 29 June at 7pm, marking a year since the release of her fourth studio album Sankofa.
Joined by a stellar jazz quartet, she will journey through songs from Sankofa and Belede — two albums steeped in memory, lineage and fierce artistry. Expect stories of mentorship, movement and music, with nods to the likes of Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela.
The show offers a celebration of pan-African sound, with reinterpretations of protest jazz classics and new material.
Tickets at Webtickets —
Get together for an Afrohouse event
Sisonke — We Are Together, an Afrohouse music event, is set to launch this weekend. The event is an experience rooted in unity, rhythm, culture, and energy.
Sisonke, which means 'we are together' in isiZulu, aims to connect music lovers through sound. The event will take place at The Nest in Johannesburg on Sunday 29 June from 2pm to 11pm.
'Sisonke brings together the immersive power of Afrohouse music and a carefully curated community experience.
'With an emphasis on premium, intimate settings, each Sisonke event offers a deep, soulful celebration of Afrohouse culture from South Africa to the world,' say the event organisers.
Rising South African artists Omagoqa and Thakzin will be gracing the Sisonke stage. The full line-up is set to be announced during the course of the week.
Tickets are available on Quicket for R300.
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Mail & Guardian
3 days ago
- Mail & Guardian
Contra.Joburg creates space for art that finds you
Street smart: The Living Artists Emporium, which forms part of the festival on at the end of the month. Pictures: Supplied Johannesburg is a city in tension. It's a city where bricks fall and buildings rise at the same time. Where potholes open underfoot — but murals bloom on the walls. Where people say, 'This city is falling apart,' yet artists continue to create, in spite of it all. And, in the heart of that contradiction, lives the city's most radical visual arts festival. Set to return on 30 and 31 August, this is not your average gallery crawl. It's something raw. Alive. Urgent. It's a festival that dares to ask: 'What if art interrupts you?' 'There's this perception that the city is dangerous; that you don't want to come here,' says Sara Hallatt, founder of 'But then you walk into these studios and people are shocked. They go, 'God, it's so amazing. It's so inspiring.'' For Hallatt, who has been working in Johannesburg's inner city for many years, first with Bag Factory, now with The Art House, that tension is both exhausting and electric. She's seen the city at its worst but also witnessed beauty in places most would overlook. 'We don't want to lie about where we are or what it's like,' she tells me. 'This is our home. This is where our friends are. 'It might be chaotic outside, but inside? It's clean, safe and beautiful.' While many cultural events rely on corporate polish and gallery grandeur, Contra flips that model. Instead of asking artists to bring their work to the people, it brings the people to the artists. Living art: Artist Bev Bukow demonstrates interactive body weaving. This year, over 170 artists, designers and makers will activate studios and galleries spaces across the inner city, places where work is made, not just shown. 'We've always been located in the city,' Hallatt explains. 'And it's never been spectacular in the traditional sense — not for decades. 'But within a 7km radius, we've got an array of artists doing incredibly interesting things.' She pauses, then adds with a smile: 'You've just got to know where to look.' Contra is deliberately hard to define. It's part art fair, part open studio, part social experiment. And that's exactly the point. 'It's more interesting than going to a convention centre,' Hallatt says plainly. 'That's not real. If you want to know what's happening in real South Africa, come see what people are doing with their hands. Ask them. They're just trying to be Africans and do their thing.' So, the festival opens up spaces usually closed to the public: working studios, rooftops, courtyards. It offers intimate access to artists at every level of their careers, from established painters to shoemakers, muralists and designers. 'Very few cities in the world have what we have,' Hallatt says. 'Most places are pushing creatives out of the city because it's too expensive. But here, we've still got this huge concentration of creative energy, in one place.' Contra is also deeply practical. For many artists in the city, accessing formal gallery spaces is difficult. Contra fills that gap by creating both visibility and opportunity. 'We've been excluded from the market,' Hallatt says. 'We're not getting invited into spaces anymore. So, we thought let's just use what we've got. Use the studios. Use our databases. Use our community.' The result? Nearly R3 million in direct art sales since the festival began in 2022 — money that goes straight into artists' pockets. Not gallery commissions. Not red tape. Just real support. And it's not just for established collectors: 'Some people come with beer money, some with bubbly money,' Hallatt jokes. 'We try to make the work accessible. We've even got a shuttle service — all designed to remove barriers. For many Joburgers, the inner city still feels off-limits. Some haven't set foot downtown in 10, even 20, years. But Contra is changing that, one bus ride at a time. 'One woman told me she hadn't been to the city in 25 years,' Hallatt recalls. 'She was horrified but she loved it. She came back the next year.' That kind of return, literal and symbolic, is part of the festival's purpose. 'We're building pathways,' she says. 'Not just for people to see art, but for people to see the city again. To see that it's still alive. Still worth investing in.' Child's pay: Kids get a chance to be creative at Contra is run by a tiny team: Hallatt and two interns. There's no major funding body. No municipal support — yet. But there is vision. There is grit. 'We've had no help from the city,' she says. 'But we know what this could be. You bring 10 000 people into the inner city for an event like this and that's tourism, that's the economy, that's urban regeneration.' She believes this festival, and others like it, could be a blueprint for how culture can rebuild cities from the inside out. 'This isn't just about art,' she says. 'It's about economic stability. It's about giving people reasons to come back to the city. Who knows what that sparks down the line?' The festival measures success in many ways: social media buzz, ticket sales, artist commissions and studio visits. But, for Sara, one metric matters most. 'We ask people: 'Are you an art buyer? Or are you just art-curious?'' she says. 'Because, if we can convert the curious, then we're doing something right.' It's working. Some visitors become repeat buyers. Some start supporting artists directly. Some keep coming back, drawn by the energy, the surprise, the possibility of being moved. Joburg isn't an easy city. Hallatt knows that. 'There are definitely days where I'm like, 'What is this madness?'' she admits. 'But there's something so real here. You see both ruin and rebirth. You see people trying, really trying, to make something meaningful.' She reflects on the diversity of the Contra crowd: 'You've got people in their 50s and 60s, you've got 18-year-olds. You've got the queer community, the creatives, the art lovers, the curious. They come together in this very Joburg way and a little wild, a little messy, but full of heart.' And at the centre of it all? A community. A network of artists supporting one another, not for fame or fortune, but for the love of the game. 'We're not making big money. We don't have huge sponsors. But we have each other,' she says. 'We're building something weird and wonderful. It's not perfect, but it's real.' What if art interrupts you? What if, walking through Johannesburg's broken streets, you stumble into a courtyard and hear music? What if you step into a sunlit studio and see something you never expected — a painting, a shoe, a sculpture — and that changes the way you see this place? That's Not an exhibition, a performance, just real people doing real things.
Mail & Guardian
5 days ago
- Mail & Guardian
Diary: FNB Art Joburg returns for its 18th year, Lu Dlamini to perform at the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music and Kaleidoscope Festival returns this August
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The Herald
5 days ago
- The Herald
From rapping to racing, Early B heads to Aldo Scribante
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