Expertmeeting Interactions SA-NL

Report Expert Meeting

Interactions SA-NL 21

st – 23

rd November 2011

Goethe Institute Johannesburg, South Africa

Introduction 1

Day 1: Sunday 21st November

Opening evening 2

Day 2: Monday 22nd

November

Opening Speeches 4

Overview project results Interactions SA-NL 2009-2010 6

Keynote speech

The challenges and possibilities of north-south cultural exchange and artistic

collaboration: negotiating unspoken power relations 9

Theme 1: Language, Identity and Artistic Expression 14

Theme 2: Towards Sustainable Collaboration 16

Theme 3: Community Arts, Building Bridges, Innovative Practices 21

Day 3: Tuesday 23rd November

Theme 4: Young People’s Theatre and Talent Hubs 24

Theme 5: Trends in Festival Programming and Audience Development 31

What Next? Future plans 36

What Next? Conclusion by policymakers 40

Report Expert Meeting Interactions SA-

NL.docx

1 www.tin.nl

Introduction

From 21st to 23rd November 2010, a successful expert

meeting of the Interactions SA-NL programme took place in

the Goethe Institute, Johannesburg. It was attended by more

than seventy professionals from the Dutch and South African

performing arts – makers, podia, festivals, policy makers and

sponsors.

The Netherlands was represented by Margriet Leemhuis for

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Willemijn in ‟t Veld from

the Cultural Participation Fund, and representatives from the

Theater Instituut Nederland (TIN), Music Center the

Netherlands (MCN), Cinedans, Introdans, de Appel, Siberia,

Likeminds, the Glasshouse, Yo! Opera, Furor Musicus,

Music Mayday, Zam Magazine and the Afrovibes festival.

For South Africa, there were representatives from the

National Arts Council, Business & Arts South Africa and the

Municipality of Johannesburg and the major festivals,

venues, dance, music and theatre companies from all over

the country.

There were showcases of co-productions from the

Interactions SA-NL programme. A sparkling performance of

the hiphopera Afrikaaps opened the meeting on the Sunday

evening, the community theatre production Afterschool at the

atmospheric Villa Arcadia rounded off the Monday, and the

theatre group Umsindo from Durban performed their

powerful new production To be like this Rock on the

Tuesday.

In his key note speech, Mike van Graan addressed the

challenges and possibilities of north-south cultural exchange

and artistic collaboration. He argued for the development of

a protocol for cultural exchange programmes like

Interactions SA-NL. The South African and Dutch partners

also talked about their projects: the process of collaboration,

results, and lessons learnt. There were also round-table

discussions with titles such as Towards Sustainable

Collaboration; Language, Identity and Artistic Expression;

Community Arts; Young People‟s Theatre; Talent Hubs in

Townships; and Trends in Festival Programming and

Audience Development.

To conclude the expert meeting, South African and Dutch

policy makers took part in a panel discussion. They reflected

upon what had been seen and heard at the meeting and the

Interactions SA-NL programme as a whole. They also

expressed how they wanted to see the programme continued.

After three inspiring days in which new insights, information

and ideas were exchanged, those attending stated that they

very much want to collaborate further.

The expert meeting was organised by TIN and MCN with the

African Arts Institute, the Dutch Embassy in Pretoria and the

Interactions SA-NL partners. It was financially supported by

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Participation

Fund.

The Interactions SA-NL team would like to thank everyone

for their participation and valuable contribution.

Jeanneke den Boer, project director, Interactions SA-NL

Day 1: Sunday 21st November Opening

evening

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Day 1: Sunday 21st November

Opening evening

Katharina von Ruckteschell-Katte

The expert meeting of Interactions SA-NL officially began

on Sunday 21st November at 6 pm. Katharina von

Ruckteschell-Katte (director of the Goethe Institute) opened

the reception with a few words to thank the organisation for

choosing the Goethe Institute as their host.

While guests were sipping their wine, Henk Scholten

(director, Theater Instituut Nederland) gave a brief overview

of the programme.

The first production was also performed: music from

Afrikaaps, a production from Glasshouse Amsterdam and

Baxter Theatre Cape Town in association with KKNK

Oudtshoorn. The cast, featuring Jitsvinger, Kyle Shephard,

Blaq Pearl, Shane Cooper, Moenier Adams, Bliksemstraal,

and Jethro Louw, „blew the audience away‟ with their largely

vocal performance. Strong lyrics in Afrikaans told the story

of the language. It was an expressive and earnest show by

great performers - each in their own style - and a convincing

message.

Participants at the opening session

Day 1: Sunday 21st November Opening

evening

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Afrikaaps The cutting-edge hiphopera Afrikaaps is about the language

of the people of the Cape and celebrates all of its many

influences. The theatre production is part of a bigger

movement to reclaim the Afrikaans language for all who

speak it. Afrikaaps was directed by South African-born,

Amsterdam-based Catherine Henegan, with Aryan Kaganof

as dramaturge and Dylan Valley responsible for video. The

line-up features hiphop poet, performer and musician

Jitsvinger; composer, pianist and jazz prodigy Kyle

Shepherd; singer and poet Blaq Pearl; bassist and musician

Shane Cooper; singer, actor and dancer Moenier Adams;

rapper and break-dancer Bliksemstraal; hiphop artist Emil

Jansen and poet and storyteller Jethro Louw of the Khoi

Khonnexion. These fabulous artists trace the origins of

Afrikaans all the way back to the 1600‟s and follow its

evolution through to the present day. Moenier Adams won

the KANNA award for Best Newcomer at the Kleine Karoo

Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn. By combining hiphop

and jazz with traditional Cape styles like Ghoema and

Kaapse Klopse, the performers set out on a journey to

discover the history of the language as it has developed over

the years.

After the show, everyone was invited to have dinner at the

Lucky Bean restaurant in Melville where participants were

able to meet and get to know each other. It was a fitting

warm up for the next two days.

Afrikaaps, Jitsfinger

Afrikaaps

Audience at Afrikaaps

Day 2: Monday 22nd November; Opening

Speeches

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Day 2: Monday 22nd

November; Opening Speeches

Opening session During this session there were speeches from Rob de Vos,

Margriet Leemhuis, Jeanneke den Boer, and moderators

Henk Scholten and Yvette Hardie presented the programme

Yvette Hardie (board member Arterial Network) and Henk

Scholten (director Theater Instituut Nederland), the two

moderators, explained the purpose of the expert meeting: to

evaluate the results, to share expertise and good practices of

collaborative projects, to network, and to discuss various

themes and ideas for future collaboration.

Henk Scholten

Opening speech

Rob de Vos, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the

Netherlands in South Africa

The opening speech was from Rob de Vos, Ambassador of

the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa, in which he

addressed the importance of international cultural

collaboration. He explained how the results of Interactions

SA-NL over the past two years had been extremely good.

The arts and culture sector in the Netherlands is facing a

severe crisis due to the plans of the new Dutch government

to cut funding by 30%. De Vos said: “Nevertheless, we'll

fight for the relationship South Africa – Netherlands,

because we believe it's worth fighting for”.

After 3½ years of working as ambassador, De Vos believes

that South Africa and the Netherlands can influence each

other. There is a strong chemistry between the two countries

and an intertwined cultural background. Art should make

people confident and proud of where they come from, and

the Embassy is proud to have been part of the Interactions

SA-NL programme.

Rob de Vos

Day 2: Monday 22nd November; Opening

Speeches

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Opening speech

Margriet Leemhuis, Ambassador for International Cultural

Cooperation

Margriet Leemhuis, Ambassador for International Cultural

Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the

Netherlands, thanked Rob de Vos for being an ambassador

who believes in the power of the arts and cultural exchange.

She went on to explain why Interactions SA-NL had been

initiated, and why it had been funded. She said that when she

began in her new capacity, she discovered that the cultural

exchange between SA and the Netherlands had „dried up a

bit‟. In subsequent discussions, Theater Instituut Nederland

(TIN) and Music Centre the Netherlands (MCN) expressed

the desire to reinvigorate this ailing platform for cultural

exchange. In 2008, TIN organised and coordinated a

delegation of six theatre makers/producers who visited the

ABSA KKNK festival and out of the resulting seminar,

Interactions SA-NL was born. Leemhuis explained how the

aims of the project were to create a solid foundation for

cultural exchange. She said she hoped this expert meeting

would demonstrate that a good foundation had been laid,

giving rise to new ideas and enabling the project to continue.

Margriet Leemhuis

Overview project results Interactions SA-NL

2009-2010

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Overview project results Interactions SA-NL 2009-2010 Jeanneke den Boer, project director

Project director Jeanneke den Boer presented a summary of

all the projects Interactions SA-NL has been involved with

over the two-year programme. She also presented various

success indicators taken from the results of the different

projects and the conclusions drawn from them. The

following is a summary of this presentation (a more detailed

synopsis of each project is available separately):

Jeanneke den Boer

Interactions SA-NL had four objectives:

1. presentation (or „export‟) of Dutch performing arts in

South Africa – resulting in tours throughout South

Africa by Dutch music, dance and theatre companies,

including workshops and lectures as well as

performances.

2. exchange and combination of expertise and talent –

collaborative projects between Dutch and South African

performance artists resulting in innovative co-

productions performed at prestigious festivals in South

Africa.

3. promotion of sustainability in collaboration and

exchange

4. dissemination of the expertise developed and the

lessons learnt amongst all the partners of Interactions

SA-NL and, later, with the rest of the cultural sector in

NL en SA, by means of an inventory of activities,

documentation and the expert meeting itself.

It had been agreed beforehand that all the activities and

projects should take place in South Africa.

Interactions SA-NL was realized in close collaboration with

the Dutch embassy in South Africa, Mike van Graan‟s

African Arts Institute and with various performing arts

partners in SA and NL.

Sustainability, and the willingness of the artists to

collaborate for several years after the Interactions SA-NL

project has ended, were important criteria in the selection of

partners. Other important criteria in the choice of projects

were the degree to which they accommodated a concrete

artistic need from the South African partner and

complemented existing cultural exchange programmes.

Interactions SA-NL co-sponsored most of the tours and

collaborations with these partners.

The total number of visitors Interactions SA-NL 2009 –

2010: 54 322

This can be split into the following:

Total number of visitors Interactions SA-NL 2009: 17 943

Total number of visitors Interactions SA-NL 2010: 36 379

TIN activities in 2009:

– Number of performances: 122

– Number of workshops: 30

– Number of visitors: 12 556

MCN activities in 2009:



TIN activities in 2010:


– Number of workshops: 42


MCN activities in 2010:




2009-2010

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An overview of the various Interactions SA-NL

projects in 2009

We started in 2009 with some cultural exchanges on request:

Site-specific theatre was requested by Brett Pyper, artistic

director of the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees

(Oudtshoorn). De Appel (The Hague), Tuig and De Jongens

(Groningen) performed at the festival and Joop Mulder of

Oerol Festival was guest curator.

Young people’s theatre was requested by Ismael Mahomed,

artistic director of the National Arts Festival (Grahamstown).

MC (Amsterdam) and Siberia (Rotterdam) performed and

collaborated with South African artists at the festival.

Pop music. Specific NL artists - Lucky Fonz III & Voicst -

were invited to the Oppikoppi Festival, held in the Limpopo

Province.

There were some remarkable collaborations in 2009:

Dance for screen

A dance film collaboration between Cinedans (Amsterdam)

and Baxter Dance Festival (Cape Town)

Contemporary dance and long-term partnership

Introdans (Arnhem) with Flatfoot Dance Company (Durban)

and various partners in South Africa like the Dance

Department of the University of Cape Town

Urban dance collaboration

Crosstown DH & Lloyd Marengo (The Hague) with young

dance talent in Darling, resulting in a short dance

performance for the festival Voorkamerfest (Darling)

Long-term collaborative programme

Theatergroep Siberia (Rotterdam) with Eager Artists

(Durban) and the Twist-project (Durban, and communities in

KwaZulu-Natal)

Participants expert meeting

One-off theatre projects in SA, selected because of their

content and topicality:

Stichting Julius Leeft! (Amsterdam) performed

Amandla, fragments of a struggle! in Elandsdoorn

and Johannesburg

Mike van Graan‟s Bafana Republic 3: Penalty

Shootout performed throughout South Africa

An overview of the various Interactions SA-NL

projects in 2010

Site-specific multidisciplinary performance Meet Market

A groundbreaking production on the Church Square in

downtown Cape Town, about the history of the location.

A co-production of Festival Infecting the City (Cape Town)

with Ibrahim Quraishi (Amsterdam)

Hiphopera Afrikaaps

Co-production of The Glasshouse (Amsterdam) and Baxter

Theatre (Cape Town) in association with KKNK Oudtshoorn

Children’s Opera

Collaboration of conductor Jurjen Hempel (NL) with Cape

Festival (Western Cape)

Community theatre

Collaboration of Melodi Music (Pimville Soweto),

Royal Conservatory (The Hague) and Yo! Opera

(Utrecht) resulting in the youth opera Afterschool

The creation of a new Arts Lab for young talent in

Soweto: Miracle Arts Lab

Collaboration of Miracle Arts Lab (Soweto) with

ISH (Amsterdam) resulting in the piece Kapa Zoon,

Kapa Planet

Contemporary dance collaboration

Introdans (NL) and University of Cape Town, Dance

Department: Workshop given by Ton Wiggers

NL Jazz at Standard Bank Jazz Festival Grahamstown

Performances and music meetings with South African jazz-

musicians and music education for 45 high school students

from all over South Africa with: Eric Vloeimans, Peter

Guidi, David de Marez Oyens, Hein van de Geijn, Paulien

van Schaik, Jeroen van der Vliet and Guli Gudmondsson

Urban dance collaboration

Lloyd Marengo (NL) and Voorkamerfest (Darling)


2009-2010

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Collaborations in the field of classical and contemporary

music

Johannesburg Music Society and Cape Town

Philharmonic Orchestra with the Dutch conductor

Arjen Tien and violinist Marlene Hemmer

KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra with the

Dutch conductor Conrad van Alphen and pianist

Ralph van Raat

Rhodes University Grahamstown with Dutch

musician/composer Michael Baird

Dutch accordion duo Toeac performed throughout

South Africa

Dutch violinist Daniel Rowland & ensemble

performed throughout South Africa

A new collaborative Early Music experience

The first Baroque opera in South Africa, Acis and Galatea,

was realized by Furor Music in collaboration with Arts

Dome Retreat (SA) and various South African singers and

musicians.

Conclusions Interactions SA-NL Most of the projects were very successful. Some examples of

the positive results and what has been learnt:

Fruitful collaborations leading to interesting new co-

productions in the field of:

site-specific theatre

community arts

youth theatre

contemporary dance

early music

township opera

Inspiring new concepts for festivals in South Africa with:

education programmes for youngsters (Standard

Bank Jazz Festival Grahamstown),

talent development strategies (NAFG, Cape

Festival and others),

a strong emphasis on the role of political and social

history in contemporary artworks (Infecting the

City)

Inspiring strategies for audience development

(Voorkamerfest, KKNK, Baxter Theatre and

others)

Multidisciplinary productions (music, storytelling,

dance and theatre; Afrikaaps, Meet Market, and

others)

Strong thematic approach (language: Afrikaaps;

social themes: Afterschool, Kapa Zoon Kapa

Planet; political themes: Meet Market).

Multidisciplinary performances; a perfect blend of

music, dance, theatre and cultural heritage

(Afrikaaps)

Learning from the experience of collaboration was also an

aim of Interactions SA-NL. How does it work in practice,

what makes a collaboration successful? Factors which

contribute to the success of a project:

Thorough research of themes and topics, and

culturally-determined artistic forms and practices

involved, prior to embarking on the co-production

process (Afrikaaps)

Clear mission and goals with regards to

performance content. Collaboration on the basis of

reciprocity, respect and equal exchange

(Afterschool; Kapa Zoon, Kapa Planet)

Open collaborative process, space for artistic input

from all artists and professionals (Afrikaaps,

Afterschool, Man’s World)

Reciprocity and respect as basis for collaboration

(Afterschool, Kapa Zoon, Kapa Planet)

Reciprocal learning; openness to learn from each

other during the work process, e.g. from each

other‟s styles and methodology (Introdans

Interactie/FFD/UCT, Voorkamerfest)

Sustainability as a starting point; willingness to

invest in a long term partnership (all partners)

International collaboration as an integral element of

the long term company policy (De Appel,

Introdans, Siberia/Twistprojects)

Sufficient time to define a shared vision, clear

objectives and working strategy for the long term

(Siberia/Twist, Early Music partners,

Oppikoppi/MCN, Standard Bank Jazz

Festival/MCN)

Awareness of inequality of access with regards to

financial resources (Mike van Graan)

Acceptance of the role of political and social

history in contemporary artworks (Festival

Infecting the City)

Keynote speech 9 www.tin.nl

Keynote speech

The challenges and possibilities of north-south cultural exchange and artistic collaboration: negotiating unspoken power relations Mike van Graan (Arterial Network, African Arts Institute)

Mike van Graan is one of South Africa's leading playwrights,

cultural activists and public commentators. He currently

serves as the Director of the African Arts Institute in Cape

Town and heads the Secretariat of the Arterial Network, an

informal network of individuals and organisations committed

to the development of the African creative sector.

Mike van Graan

Mike van Graan‟s speech (verbatim):

Introduction

Thank you for this opportunity to reflect on Interactions SA-

NL, and to frame it in a broader context of north-south global

dynamics. I feel really privileged to have been part of this

from its inception, and while I‟ve had nothing to do with its

various activities over the last while, please indulge me a

brief reflection on its origins.

I was invited to undertake a visitor‟s programme to the

Netherlands from 28 August-5 September in 2007 under the

auspices of SICA - Stichting Internationale Culturele

Activiteiten - the Netherlands agency that coordinates such

programmes, that was just over three years ago. At that time,

I‟d also been invited by Theater de Appel to be a writer-in-

residence, as part of their building relationships with South

Africa.

One of the meetings that SICA set up was with the Theatre

Institute of the Netherlands. As Henk indicated last night, a

key suggestion emanating from this meeting, was that we

explore ongoing partnerships in the performing arts between

South Africa and the Netherlands. In my subsequent report to

SICA at the time, I wrote that Margriet Leemhuis, a former

cultural attaché in South Africa who left behind a hugely

positive legacy, has just been appointed to head the culture

section of the Ministry.

The conditions are ripe for a strengthening of cultural

partnerships that are mutually beneficial between South

African civil society and the Netherlands, and as a platform

for enhancing cultural development elsewhere on the African

continent. In my conclusion, I suggested „It would be good

for a delegation comprising representatives from these

organisations and from the Dutch theatre community to

undertake a trip to South Africa soon (e.g. March 2008) to

begin the process of establishing more coordinated and

mutually-beneficial cooperation between these countries

over the next five years.‟

The challenges and possibilities of north-

south cultural exchange and artistic

collaboration: negotiating unspoken power

relations

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To cut to the chase, in March 2008, TIN coordinated a

delegation of six theatre producers/theatre makers from the

Netherlands who visited the ABSA KKNK in Oudsthoorn

which was already being attended by Aus Greidanus and

Gerrit Dijkstra of Theatre de Appel. We arranged a seminar

between the TIN and Theater de Appel delegations and

South African theatre producers and festival managers, some

of whom attended the KKNK for the first time in order to be

part of this seminar. I think it is true to say that the visit

made a deep impression on the Dutch visitors who were then

determined to play some kind of ongoing role in the South

African performing arts sector, and out of this Interactions

SA-NL was born.

The purpose of this meeting is to evaluate the results, share

good practices of collaboration projects, and discuss various

themes and ideas for future collaboration. As we reflect on

the outcomes of Interactions SA-NL, there are three points

I‟d like to make arising out of this introduction:

1. the seeds for where we are today were sown a little

over three years ago, and they were watered by

many others along the way, before they bore fruit,

and these projects are themselves seeds for new

projects and relationships that will hopefully bear

catalytic fruit in one, two, three years time; some

sow, others water, still others prune and then others

reap in an ongoing, productive cycle

2. secondly, while these projects have been realised in

a relatively short space of three years, such

partnerships take time, energy and resources to

germinate and mature; whatever decisions are taken

as a result of this seminar, we need to be cognisant

both of the fact that time is needed for projects to

mature, yet, at the same time, Interactions SA-NL

has shown that excellent projects can be achieved

in a relatively short time and

3. thirdly, Interactions is by no means the first or only

Dutch-South African collaborative project, but it

does show that through a degree of coordination,

results can be maximised, best practice built upon

and networks extended.

As stated in the material that you were sent, „South Africa

and the Netherlands have been inextricably linked together

ever since the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in the Cape of

Good Hope in 1652. In both good and bad times, this

historical link is felt, seen and heard wherever you turn in the

streets of South Africa today. This heritage forms the starting

point of Interactions SA-NL. Over the last decades there

have been several forms of cultural collaboration and

exchange between both countries.‟

The Netherlands played an important role in supporting the

struggle against apartheid generally, but also in the field of

culture, hosting, for example, „Culture in Another South

Africa‟ CASA in Amsterdam in 1987, where ideas for a

post-apartheid cultural dispensation were mooted. After the

unbanning of the ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela in

the late 80s, while many foreign governments and agencies

shifted their support to other areas of need or certainly away

from culture, Dutch organisations continued to support South

African civil society organisations active in the arts during

this transitionary period. Then, after the country‟s first

democratic elections in 1994, the Netherlands made available

three experts to assist our government to formulate new arts

and culture policies and their work is now reflected in the

White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage.

When, a few years later, this euphoric period of government-

civil society co-operation was overtaken by mismanagement

of visionary policy so that numerous cultural organisations

began to collapse and there was a general feeling of despair,

again, the Dutch government provided funding to sustain

some of the country‟s leading dance companies, to fund the

lobbying activities of civil society organisations and to

support, for example, a Festival of Reading of New Writing

for theatre that helped to lift the spirits within the deflated

theatre community. This happened at a time when other

foreign governments that had supported civil society cultural

organisations were now shifting their support directly to

government or parastatal agencies instead, and when our

government was particularly critical of foreign governments

supporting civil society organisations that were critical of

government.

I think this reflected the Dutch government‟s understanding

that nurturing nascent South African democracy meant both

assisting the new government to acquire the skills, resources

and policies to deliver on the one hand, and on the other, to

build and consolidate civil society structures to advance and

defend democracy, for ultimately, democracy exists for the

governed, for their benefit, for their interests to be promoted,

and not simply those who govern.

South African democracy is still a work-in-progress. While

we have democratic principles and human rights enshrined in

our constitution, this does not prevent politicians from

seeking to suppress dissent, from marginalising critical

thought, from controlling the media. Which is why

Interactions SA-NL is not simply about arts projects, about

cultural exchange, about north-south collaboration, but

rather, it stands in the tradition of anti-apartheid struggle, of

building a post-apartheid democratic cultural dispensation

and now, of defending it. And, its significance is not only for

South Africa, but also for other countries on our continent

where the struggle for democracy, for human rights and for

artists to practice freedom of creative expression, simply

cannot be taken for granted.

The point I am trying to make is that whether artists within

the Interactions SA-NL programme recognise it or not,




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whether they are aware of it or not, whether they want to see

it or not, there is a broader context in which their individual

works and the programme as a whole take place.

Similarly, there is an even broader, global context for this

work, for your work as collaborators in Interactions SA-NL,

and for the programme as a north-south cultural

collaboration. Friday was the closing date for Concept Notes

– basically proposals – for EU funding for their Investing in

People programme.

Culture has been adopted by the EU as a key component of

its development strategies, particularly with the 2015

deadline for the Millennium Development Goals

approaching.

The basic idea for this call was that there would be an

applicant from the south with at least one other partner from

the south, and then one partner from Europe applying for

funding to collaborate on strengthening capacities within the

cultural sector, particularly within the global south.

The aims of the programme include improving governance

within the cultural sector, building leadership and sound

cultural policies, fostering access to culture among those

denied such access, promoting cultural diversity and the

involvement of civil society in sustainable development

projects and promoting regional integration, cultural

exchange and international networking, the latter resonating

very much with Interactions SA-NL.

Similarly, UNESCO‟s Convention on the Protection and

Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions ratified

by more than 100 countries to date, provides an international

context for what is already being done through Interactions

SA-NL. By way of introduction, the cultural diversity

convention came about when negotiations at the World

Trade Organisation led to the removal of barriers to free

global trade. Some countries in the north – notably Canada

and France – resisted the extension of unchecked „free trade‟

and market liberalisation to the creative goods and services

sector. They argued – rightly – that films, literature,

television programmes, etc were different to cars, toothpaste

and T-shirts in that embedded in creative goods, were ideas,

worldviews, ideological assumptions and values so that if

trade in creative goods and services was simply left to

market forces, goods and services from dominant economies,

particularly the USA, would flood national markets,

obliterate local creative industries, and people all over the

world would not only consume these products, but also

internalise the values, ideas and worldviews embedded in

them.

This posed the threat of homogenisation, of the loss of

languages, traditions and cultures and it was in this context

that the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and

Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was born,

an international legal instrument to allow governments to

take measures to develop and protect their creative industries

from rampant market forces and, in so doing, protect cultural

pluralism.

Article 13 of the Convention states that: Parties shall

endeavour to integrate culture in their development policies

at all levels for the creation of conditions conducive to

sustainable development and, within this framework, foster

aspects relating to the protection and promotion of the

diversity of cultural expressions – resonating with the EU‟s

emphasis on culture and development.

Article 14 calls upon governments to support cooperation for

sustainable development and poverty reduction, especially in

relation to the specific needs of developing countries, in

order to foster the emergence of a dynamic cultural sector

by, inter alia, the following means:

a. the strengthening of the cultural industries in developing

countries through:

creating and strengthening cultural production and

distribution capacities in developing countries;

facilitating wider access to the global market and

international distribution networks for their cultural

activities, goods and services;

enabling the emergence of viable local and regional

markets;

adopting, where possible, appropriate measures in

developed countries with a view to facilitating

access to their territory for the cultural activities,

goods and services of developing countries;

providing support for creative work and facilitating

the mobility, where possible, of artists from the

developing world;

encouraging appropriate collaboration between

developed and developing countries in the areas,

inter alia, of music and film;

b. capacity-building through the exchange of information,

experience and expertise, as well as the training of human

resources in developing countries, in the public and private

sector relating to, inter alia, strategic and management

capacities, policy development and implementation,

promotion and distribution of cultural expressions, small-,

medium- and micro-enterprise development, the use of

technology, and skills development and transfer;

c. the provision of official development assistance, as

appropriate, including technical assistance, to stimulate and

support creativity.

The role of the global north in opening up their markets to

creative goods and services from the south is hinted at in the

above clauses, but is more strongly articulated in Article 16

that states “developed countries shall facilitate cultural




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exchanges with developing countries by granting, through

the appropriate institutional and legal frameworks,

preferential treatment to artists and other cultural

professionals and practitioners, as well as cultural goods and

services from developing countries.”

Whether consciously or not, whether participants are aware

of the UNESCO Convention or not, Interactions SA-NL

resonates with many of the important clauses in the

Convention.

In a post-9/11 world, there are increasing security concerns

globally and culture has been identified as a key faultline –

differing values, belief systems, ideologies and worldviews

pose threats to some. Against this background, there has

been much emphasis on intercultural dialogue, on cultural

diplomacy, on the appropriation of culture and arts-related

strategies to build bridges between communities, to facilitate

understanding, to humanise „the other‟. With rising

nationalism around the world, cultural dialogue and

communicating through cultural means as encouraged by

Interactions SA-NL, affirms this programme in an

international context - again, whether participants recognise,

or are aware of this or not.

So! Here we are. Evaluating Interactions SA-NL and the

parts that make up its sum. But what are we evaluating?

Each project? On the basis of what criteria? Aesthetics?

Quality? Which standards of quality? Relevance to its

audience? Which audience? The South African or Dutch

audience? The growth of the participants in the project? How

the project has improved their skills? Changed their minds

about artistic practice?

Given the local or national contexts in which projects take

place, do we have additional criteria such as the contribution

of the project to meeting key local needs? Having an impact

beyond its own self as an arts project, and its participants?

Contributing to democracy and human rights, for example?

Or promoting intercultural dialogue? Social cohesion?

Improving understanding of “other”? How does the project

change or impact on the lives of most people in our country

who live on less than $2 per day?

And then, given the international context, do we evaluate the

project in terms of its impact on the meeting the Millennium

Development Goals, on promoting cultural diversity, on

improving access to regional and international cultural

markets so that Africa‟s share of global trade in creative

goods and services improves beyond its current less-than-

1%?

Finally, as another category of evaluation, do we consider

the sustainability of each project? Is it just a one-off? The

arts project equivalent of a one-night stand? Or has it left

behind skills, infrastructure, resources, networks for the

project to continue to exist and have its desired impact?

Many artists just want to make art. Interactions SA-NL offers

that opportunity. And to do it in an interesting way, in

collaboration with counterparts from other parts of the world.

But arts projects are not islands; they take place in local,

national and international contexts that have direct bearing

on those projects, whether the participants wish to

acknowledge or recognise that, or not.

The projects that are part of Interactions SA-NL would not

have happened had it not been for the support of the Dutch

government i.e. funding from the global north. It‟s not that

arts funding is not available in South Africa; quite the

contrary, there has never been so much funding available for

the arts from the budget of the Department of Arts and

Culture, the National Lottery, private sector sponsorship of

the arts, local government and even the individual arts

market where, general levels of poverty notwithstanding,

there are many more people with disposable income as an

elite – the elite that consumes art - has become wealthier. But

that funding is constrained by the political imperatives of the

day, and is unlikely to support north-south artistic

collaboration, especially when it is done for its own sake.

Insofar as funding then is chiefly provided by the

Netherlands, the individual projects – and indeed Interactions

SA-NL as a whole – are directly impacted upon by broader

global and national factors. The recession, for example, will

impact on Dutch government funding with the arts and

culture sector in the Netherlands itself facing cuts of at least

30%. The new, more right wing government in the

Netherlands will have less sympathy for notions such as

intercultural dialogue, with the extreme party simply wanting

to boot out „other‟ in the same way as Denmark offered

100000 krone to foreigners to leave, and the French offered

300 euros to the Roma people to leave. Increasing economic

and security anxieties will make countries in the north

concentrate more on their own well-being than on

international cultural exchange where they are generally the

donors with little tangible returns.

And what of the projects themselves? What of the dynamics

within collaborative projects that are funded essentially by

the north? What of the unspoken power relations within such

projects? Who ultimately decides on the aesthetics? Do those

from the donor country have more power, influence,

decision-making authority? Whose values, ideas,

worldviews, artistic standards, aesthetic forms come to

prevail? Is there a belief or acceptance that, that which

comes from the north is by definition better, and so needs to

be followed? Do beneficiaries, dependent on such funding,

disempower themselves by conforming to the ideas of

participants from the north for fear of losing such funding, or

travel opportunities to the north, whether colleagues from




relations

13 www.tin.nl

Holland assume a more dominant role, or not? Do Dutch

colleagues refrain from raising their concerns about issues

for fear of being regarded as patronising or neo-colonial, and

so, rather than deal with the issues, wait for the project to

end, never to return? Are they clear about what they would

like to get out of the project, and what levels of responsibility

they would like the partner from the south to have? Are they

able to express their misgivings about their partners‟ ability

to deliver on their expectations, and to take the necessary

corrective action mid-way through a project?

Collaborative projects between north and south are not

simply arts projects but are microcosms of a basically

inequitable world order, where some have many more

resources, skills, experience, infrastructure, etc than others,

but where we wish to work together for our common good,

and to achieve this, we need to negotiate a range of dynamics

that have to do with power relations, values, worldviews,

aesthetic traditions, differing markets, etc.

This is by no means unique to Interactions SA-NL, but is

common to all projects between participants from donor

countries and beneficiary countries, and would be the same

for projects on the African continent where South Africa is

the key donor, with participants from a less-resourced

country.

It would seem to me that – going forward – we need to

devise some kind of protocol, a template for north-south

collaboration, which participants work through at the

beginning of a project and which then sets the parameters

and manages the expectations and obligations of each party,

but also provides a sound basis for evaluating the project at a

later stage.

What might such a protocol include?

I would imagine that

1. there would be a preamble that

a. acknowledges the broader context in which the project will

take place and the possible challenges that this brings but

then also

b. spells out some principles of co-operation: that parties are

committed to mutual respect, to sound governance, to non-

discrimination on the basis of gender, colour, language, etc

2. there would be a clear indication of who the primary

funding partners are and their expectations of the project – if

it‟s government funding, what are the reasons? Cultural

diplomacy? Social cohesion? Political influence? Historical

partnerships? Such clarity would enable the parties to decide

if, and how they will engage with these expectations.

3. the managing entity e.g. TIN, would articulate its aims and

expectations – what it would hope to achieve either on behalf

of the funder, and/or in its own right, in the context of its

own mandate.

4. each party would spell out

a. their expectations of the project – what they would like to

achieve through it, and this would include what they hope to

achieve artistically, as individual practitioners

b. their expectations of the project regarding its broader

impact at a local or national level, and even internationally

given the manifold contexts in which the project takes place

c. their expectations of the project in terms of its legacy: how

will it contribute to greater sustainability in terms of human

development, infrastructure development, organisational

growth and continued income streams

d. what they bring to the project – their networks,

infrastructure, skills, resources, lived experience, etc, so that

it would be less of one-way street with resources essentially

emanating from the north

5. Then there would be negotiations and agreements around

decision-making, leadership, management of finances,

reporting, general governance of the project

6. The protocol would include a time framework for the

project, and the legacy and sustainability items that should be

achieved by then

7. Finally, there would be agreement about how to take

corrective action should things go wrong

This may seem bureaucratic, it may be awkward and

difficult, but I sincerely believe that projects will achieve

more and suffer from less anxiety if there was much more

clarity about expectations and obligations upfront.

Ultimately, collaborative partnerships, cultural exchanges

happen not simply between organisations, but between

people, people with histories, with fears, with expectations,

with emotions. Anything that helps to manage these better,

and provide a more sound basis for evaluation afterwards, in

my view, is helpful.

In conclusion, I‟m not sure how helpful this has been for the

evaluation of projects and of Interactions SA-NL over the

next two days, but hopefully, and these thoughts will

contribute in some way to strengthening Interactions SA-NL

in the future, as I sincerely believe it has within it the strong

basis for a programme that can serve as a model for many

international imperatives in the culture and development,

cultural diversity, creative industries and intercultural

dialogue fields.

Thank you for listening.

Theme 1: Language, Identity and Artistic

Expression

14 www.tin.nl

Theme 1: Language, Identity and Artistic Expression

First, the film Afrikaaps – The Film directed by Dylan Valle

was shown. After the film presentation, there was a

discussion about language, identity and artistic expression

with Catherine Henegan (director Afrikaaps), Brett Pyper

(artistic director KKNK Oudtshoorn) and members of the

Afrikaaps cast, Jitsvinger, Jethro Louw, Blaq Pearl and

Bliksemstraal.

Film presentation: Afrikaaps – The Film The documentary Afrikaaps - The Film tells the story about

the performance (and the making of) Afrikaaps: the

collaborations, the research, the cast, and the way the process

affected their lives. The film has two, parallel narratives -

one the creation of a ground-breaking, stage production and

the other of self-discovery, as this group of young Cape

Townians reclaim their language and heritage.

Film director Dylan Valley‟s note: “...There is a side to the

Afrikaans language, the Creole birth of the language, that has

been overlooked in our collective South African

consciousness. If Afrikaans is ever to be a language of

liberation, it has to be disentangled from its perceived

identification with white Afrikaner nationalism. In the film

we also delve into the history of Afrikaans, or rather the

version that was never taught to us; from the first Dutch

ships in the Cape, carrying slaves of varying descent, where

it was birthed as a „mongrel language‟; to the first book in

Afrikaans which was the q‟uran, and the nationalism of the

language in 1875 by the Genootskap van die regte Afrikaners

(the organisation of true Afrikaners). We will also look at the

famous Soweto uprising in 1976, where Afrikaans was

labelled as the language of apartheid, the great, prime evil of

our time.”

Discussion ‘Language, identity and artistic

expression’

Catherine Henegan, Brett Pyper, Jitsvinger, Jethro Louw,

Blaq Pearl, Bliksemstraal Catherine Henegan and the members of the cast explained

that one of the aims of the production Afrikaaps for the

Dutch - South African collaboration was to reclaim the

language, to trace its true roots and give it back to the people

who own it. The production moved people, it told the story

people had not heard before and the timing was impeccable.

The research for the project has had a great impact on the

creators, affecting them personally. They told the audience

how their lives had been changed; how they no longer felt

ashamed of their language; how they now know of its true

origins; how they all went through a shift in self-esteem; and

while it is still not generally acceptable, they themselves are

now proud to speak „Afrikaaps‟.

Discussion Language, identity and artistic expression

Both Brett Pyper and Fahiem Stellenboom emphasized the

importance of this production: it makes people aware of

language. Language is a fundamental part of identity in

South African society. The audience visiting KKNK speak

Afrikaans and this production can teach them many things

about the history of their language, and challenge the

perception that „Afrikaaps‟ is a language used only on the

Cape Flats by „lower intellectuals‟ (the stereotype now).

„Afrikaaps‟ is a language one should not be afraid to use.

Neither should one be ashamed of having an „Afrikaaps‟

accent whilst speaking Afrikaans or English. It is a language

that is very important to the identity of so many people.

Brett Pyper underlined how such a high level of production

could never have been achieved without the collaboration

between the artists, theatre company the Glasshouse, the

Baxter theatre and the KKNK festival. He also emphasized

the importance of research before a production: Afrikaaps

shows how research is the key to a high level of

understanding of what you want to address. “Although you

can have fantastic highlights like this project, they are not

Theme 1: Language, Identity and Artistic

Expression

15 www.tin.nl

really going to be sustainable if you are not doing ongoing

work, on the ground”. This project can be seen in a much

wider context than the Western Cape. Pyper explained how

we now live in a period when English is taking over in all the

international and national collaborations people engage in,

whilst there is still so much creativity and artistic expression

in local languages and their origins to be unlocked.

Catherine Henegan continued by saying how the

documentary has been made so that Afrikaaps can travel, so

that the message that it is trying to convey can reach as large

an audience as possible. The plan is to take the documentary

to schools throughout the Cape and beyond, where the artists

can also take part in Q&A sessions and possibly do

workshops. Whilst a whole performance of Afrikaaps costs a

lot of money, the documentary itself is a fantastic vehicle

with which to spread the message. All the parties involved

wanted to reach the communities on the Cape Flats, but

efforts to do so were met with limited success. So Henegan is

still looking for ideas of how to reach communities on the

Cape Flats.

Bliksemstraal, Brett Pyper

Steven Sack: “What is interesting about this project is that:

because it is about language and about identity rooted in

language, it becomes easier to talk about identity… So I'm

wondering, if we take the production to Johannesburg,

whether the audience is going to relate to this „Afrikaaps‟

identity, or whether it is an identity specific to Cape Town?”

A reaction to this came from the cast of Afrikaaps, Fahiem

Stellenboom, Brett Pyper and Phyllis Klotz. This story has to

be told throughout the whole country, because it is not only

about Afrikaans and the identity of the Afrikaans-speaking

people, it is about the identity of language, which is a

universal subject.

Margriet Leemhuis, Malcolm Purkey

The identity of Afrikaans and, in particular, this project, is

very much linked to Cape Town, but the questions this

production addresses are universal: How do we share our

languages? How do we communicate so that one can identify

oneself? We could find ourselves through language.

Language and identity are fundamentally connected. Hiphop

is an important tool in the production; it does not see skin

colour or differences. Hiphop uses different languages. The

message of reclaiming heritage, identity, language and

cultural politics is very important. ‘Afrikaaps’ can be a

language of aspiration.

Theme 2: Towards Sustainable Collaboration 16 www.tin.nl

Theme 2: Towards Sustainable Collaboration

Clear objectives and a shared long-term vision are a good

basis for sustainable collaboration. How does it work in

practice? How can sustainability be achieved? Three

examples of good practice in theatre, dance and music were

presented by the Dutch and South African partners. During

the presentations, the partners talked about their motivation,

their way of working together, the lessons learnt during the

collaborative process, the results of their collaboration in SA

and NL and how they think sustainability is best achieved.

What are the preconditions for sustainability?

Theatre: short presentation Gerrit Dijkstra (De Appel), Aus Greidanus (De Appel) and

Brett Pyper (KKNK)

Company De Appel is a theatre company based in The

Hague. They collaborated with the Klein Karoo Nasionale

Kunstefees [KKNK, Klein Karoo National Arts Festival, tr.],

an annual Afrikaans language arts festival in Oudtshoorn in

the Klein Karoo region.

Gerrit Dijkstra showed the audience film fragments of

performances produced by De Appel in collaboration with

students from theatre schools in South Africa and Holland.

He explained that De Appel has lengthy experience in

collaborating with actors and directors from South Africa

and it has, in partnership with students from theatre schools

in both countries, been involved in the organisation of a bi-

annual festival in South Africa since 2006. The collaboration

was repeated in 2008, but the partners were looking for ways

to expand it into an annual festival. In 2009, De Appel

produced ARARAT in collaboration with the KKNK festival,

its largest partner in South Africa, at a site in Oudtshoorn.

The play was directed by South African David Geysen and

involved actors from both countries. It was also shown at the

Oerol Festival in 2009, which is the biggest site-specific

theatre festival in the Netherlands. Part of the plan of this

collaboration was to develop more site-specific theatre at the

KKNK festival and to use the beautiful landscape as a

backdrop for performances.

In June 2010, De Appel collaborated with South African

artists again for a new bi-annual festival, BIG5INTOWN, in

The Hague. This time around, the collaboration was in the

Netherlands and was of a different nature. The

BIG5INTOWN festival involves other theatre companies

from The Hague, like Korzo and Filmhuis Den Haag, and

focuses on dance, theatre, film and other performing arts.

The festival has stimulated collaboration between Dutch and

South African artists. De Appel and KKNK will also

continue their collaboration in 2011.

Gerrit Dijkstra


During the BIG5 festival, South African partners stayed in

the Netherlands for a period of six weeks.

One of the partners in this festival is Korzo Theater, a

famous Dutch dance production house, and choreographer

and dancer Gustin Makgeledisa (Relay Productions), who

has previously danced in the Afrovibes Festival, told the

audience how he collaborated with Joeri Dubbe, Korzo's

dance teacher. Korzo Producties launched two choreographic

works for the BIG5INTOWN festival. Dubbe created a short

piece for Dutch and South African dancers and Makgeledisa

created the second piece, again with a mixed cast. The

choreographers also danced in each other‟s work.

Makgeledisa emphasized the importance of collaboration and

how he wants to bring the production to South Africa so that

the Dutch dancers get an impression of South Africa‟s dance

culture. The South African dancers all say that the

experience has learnt them a lot in terms of working with

different people, and learning new styles and methodologies.

To conclude, Brett Pyper and Aus Greidanus tried to answer

the question: why collaborate?

And there were three points Greidanus wanted to address.

Firstly, he suggested not talking about money too much

during the expert meeting, “because even if there is no

money at all, we will still continue with collaboration”.

Secondly, he asked: why are we doing this and for whom?

He stated that it all starts with a person‟s personal interest.

He explained how working together with directors from the

other side of the world who live in completely different

societies allows him to see himself. In addition to this he

decided to bridge the gap between school and the

professional field: in the coproduction they mix professional

actors with students from schools from both countries. He

was not interested in the performance but rather in the

dialogue. Thirdly, Greidanus talked about the historical

background of collaboration: he explained how the

Netherlands and South African are linked because of their

history, and especially their language. He ended his speech

by saying that he hoped we would discuss the essence of the

meaning of collaboration during the expert meeting, and

invited Brett Pyper to contribute to this discussion.

Pyper then continued, and expressed how he doubts “that any

north-south collaboration will be sustainable if the discussion

that advances the work we are doing is not reciprocal”.

When Pyper became curator of the KKNK festival he was

very interested in relationships with other festivals. One

good area of connection was the site-specific works De

Appel was making for the Oerol Festival in Holland. Another

is opening up the KKNK festival which is a South African

festival for Afrikaans speaking audiences. For Pyper it was

very rewarding that a production like ARARAT could actually

embody Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans in some sort of

collaboration.

There was not enough money to collaborate in 2010.

However, actors who had performed in ARARAT came to the

festivals with ideas for site-specific work inspired by both

the production they had performed in and the site-specific

works they had seen at the Oerol Festival. For Pyper, this

shows the importance and legacy of collaboration.

Dance: short presentation Dance Network Adriaan Luteijn (Introdans Interactie), Lliane Loots

(Flatfoot Dance Company), Sharon Friedman (University of

Cape Town)

Adriaan Luteijn

Adriaan Luteijn started by talking about the Introdans dance

company, which was founded in 1971 in Arnhem. The

company presents modern ballet productions on the themes

„Old Masters, Contemporary Partners and New Talent‟.

Various choreographers create ballets for Introdans, which

combines classical elements and modern techniques. Their

mission is to introduce new audiences to dance.

One of the reasons for Luteijn‟s presentation is that he is

keen to discuss the theme of sustainability. Introdans has

been working with different partners in South Africa for 15

years. Prime examples include the University of Cape Town

(UCT) and Flatfoot Dance Company (FDC). Luteijn believes


sustainability is something you have to believe in, and that is

what Introdans does.

Introdans has an educational department, Introdans

Interactie, with an outreach programme of dance activities

for schools and amateurs, for all kinds of people from 4 to

104 years. Introdans Interactie also seeks to initiate

(international) collaborations with festivals, dance academies

and countries like South-Africa, Indonesia, Brazil and

Morocco. In addition, Interactie develops dance projects with

its Introdans dancers and keen amateur dancers (seniors and

the physically and mentally challenged).

Since 2000, there have been continuing and increasing

activities with South African partners such as KKNK, the

UCT Dance Department (Sharon Friedman‟s Confluences,

collaboration project Iungo). There were performances in

Johannesburg, Oudtshoorn and Cape Town (with workshops)

and at The Jomba festival in Durban (lectures and

workshops).

A recent project is the Swing on South! Project, where

Introdans collaborated at various levels with various partners

in South Africa. Firstly, this was an exchange of artistic

ideas, with the UCT Dance Department: Introdans dancers

worked with Dance Department students to develop and

exchange new works, skills, ideas and expertise. Secondly,

there was an extensive collaboration project between 2008

and 2010 with the Flatfoot Dance Company (FDC), which is

a professional modern dance company based in Durban

which works primarily in the KwaZulu-Natal region.

An interesting, short film was shown about the various

projects. It was more of a report on the social elements of

collaboration rather than on the artistic product.

Sharon Friedman, head of the UCT Dance Department

explained more about the collaboration. The dance

department teaches different dance styles, of which the

contemporary dance field has become the meeting point. The

connection and interaction with Introdans is on two levels:

performance and research.

In terms of performance: Introdans has been presenting

shows with workshops at UCT to students for a few years

now. The process that Adriaan has introduced in these

interactions has been lasting, and UCT students have been

invited to the ITS festival (International Theatre School

Festival) in the Netherlands, which is a prestigious festival

for starters.

In terms of research: Introdans has had a significant position

in the international conferences UCT has run since 1997. It

has provided keynote speakers over the years and they have

brought an element of research to the practical field which

UCT has incorporated into its educational programme.

Sharon Friedman would love to see Adriaan back at the

conference next year, especially because of the work he has

done with elderly people. In the field of education, teacher-

training for dance has not been fully explored in the

Netherlands and South Africa. Sharon emphasizes that it is

not a one-way street where the North comes to teach the

South, it is a two-way process of collaboration and exchange,

of expertise and ideas.

Lliane Loots is artistic director of the Flatfoot Dance

Company (FDC) based in Durban and operating in the

KwaZulu-Natal province. FDC was formed in 2003 and is

housed within the Drama and Performance Studies

Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. FDC has an

extensive education programme for young people at schools

and special dance projects in townships and is supported by

HIVOS SA.

Sharon Friedman, Lliane Loots

FDC‟s mission is threefold: to offer a professional dance

theatre company that creates contemporary dance work that

engages with the specific context in which the dancers live;

to offer a young adult training programme to young dancers;

and to offer quality dance education and dance development

programmes in the KZN province. FFD is a performance

platform for dancers and choreographers, but is also a

training ground for new dance practitioners and is extremely

pro-active in generating community based dance projects.

FDC does a lot of dance development work and uses dance

as a methodology for life skill training. Dance development

work allows people to become „fully human‟ and is based on

the idea that art, and specifically dance, can be used to

intervene in areas such as gender, health and environment.

Lliane Loots explained that the three-year collaboration with

Introdans has been a profound and beautiful experience for

everyone, but that there were hurdles and problems along the

way.

The impact of Introdans Interactive's visit to Durban was

huge, educationally, as both companies have learnt much

from each other‟s teaching methods.

Last September, FDC visited Arnhem and worked on a large

community art project called Swing on South! together with

the dance teachers of the Interactie team. This was in

Malburgen, in Arnhem Zuid, one of a number of deprived

areas [Volgelaarwijken, ed.] receiving extra investment from


the Dutch government. The project lasted 10 days and

included workshops, performances and a conference.

Lliane Loots continued by making a connection with fair

trade, and started off by stating that sustainability is a

question of economics. In this respect she talked about the

importance of fair trade instead of free trade in international

cultural collaboration. The other aspect of sustainability is

relationships. It is important to invest in the partnership.

Money comes and goes, but relationships endure.

Music: short presentation Early Music Network Gerhard Benade (Dome Arts Retreat), Hans Huyssen

(Stellenbosch Baroque), Antoinette Lohmann (Furor

Musicus)

Stellenbosch Baroque is a new concert series curated by

Andrew Cruickshank and Hans Huyssen in collaboration

with the Stellenbosch Museum, and aims to present informed

performances of early music on period instruments in

historical spaces (especially the Cape-Dutch architecture) in

Stellenbosch.

Presentation Gerhard Benade

The baroque ensemble Furor Musicus Amsterdam, led by the

violinist Antoinette Lohmann, is made up of specialists in

historical performance practice in the Netherlands.

Antoinette Lohmann teaches baroque violin, baroque viola

and historical documentation at the Utrecht Conservatory.

Gerhard Benadé is director of the music seminar centre

Dome Arts Retreat, and member of the Early Music Forum

Africa. The Dome Arts Retreat, situated in the Vredefort

Dome World Heritage Site, runs educational courses in

music and related arts. They also organise master classes and

concerts such as the project they did with Huyssen and

Lohmann.

Benade's speech (verbatim):

The Early Music Forum Africa is an association of musicians

active in the Early Music scene in South Africa, with the aim

of fostering and promoting historical performance practice

on the subcontinent. While the Dome Arts Retreat will

continue with its activities, all activities relating to early

music will in future be co-ordinated by this organisation.

In September and October 2010, a series of 11 concerts and

master classes were presented in the cities of Bloemfontein,

Potchefstroom, Johannesburg and Pretoria, comprising of

four different programmes. Several secular cantatas by

Händel were performed, various purely instrumental pieces,

as well as a full stage production of Händel‟s opera Acis &

Galatea – the first performance on period instruments of its

kind in South Africa. The project was financially supported

by Music Center the Netherlands, by the Netherlands

Embassy, by the UNISA Music Foundation, by the Rupert

Music Foundation, and by the North West University.

The partners collaborating on this project were the staff and

students of the singing department of the North West

University, in particular professor Werner Nel; the

internationally acclaimed, Berlin-based tenor and erstwhile

student of Werner Nel, Kobie van Rensburg; the baroque

ensemble Furor Musicus led by violinist Antoinette

Lohmann from the Netherlands; and the South African

musicians John Coulter on harpsichord and myself on the

baroque bassoon. The baroque cellist Hans Huyssen from

Stellenbosch joined the ensemble for the two instrumental

concerts at the end of the project, and the South African

vocal soloists Linda van Coppenhagen, Lente Louw, Elsabé

Louw and Jaco Klopper sang the solo parts in the dramatic

cantatas by Händel. Four of the concerts were performed at

the Aardklop Arts Festival in Potchefstroom and two more at

the Händel-Schumann Musik Fest in Bloemfontein.

The project was a huge success - judging by the standards of

performance, audience reception and, perhaps to a lesser

extent, financial profit. However, by far the most important

measure of success for the participants was the degree to

which everybody had learnt from the experience and the

deep sense of joy and satisfaction derived from the very

intense music making process. Still, in a certain sense, this

success was very surprising. Why?

Firstly, Early Music, that is, the performance of non-

contemporary music according to the performance ideals and

on instruments of the time that the music was written, is a

niche in the classical music sector, which in itself is a niche

when one considers the general music scene. In Europe, after

a history of 40 years, Early Music has gained widespread

acceptance, but in South Africa it is very much a fringe

phenomenon. The reaction when one mentions the term

varies between ignorance and antipathy.

Secondly, there is the perception amongst many observers

from Europe that involving people from black cultures in

European art music constitutes a type of delayed cultural

colonialism, and that it would be more appropriate and

natural for them to make music closer to their own cultural

heritage.


So here we were, performing 300 year old European music,

according to a performance practice supported by a very

small minority, in an African country and with a cast

consisting of about 80% black singers. And yet, everyone is

madly enthusiastic about the music and performing at a very

high standard indeed!

Without going into the undoubtedly complicated reasons for

this seemingly incongruous situation, one explanation is the

very diverse and heterogeneous South African cultural

landscape, which makes it possible for South Africans to feel

at home in many different cultural environments.

One of the performances of Acis & Galatea was held in the

community hall of Ikageng near Potchefstroom. For

everybody, both audience and performers, it was a very

intense experience. After the performance, the singers

spontaneously burst into traditional African songs. One

moment they were singing Händel, the next moment African

rhythms were filling the air. There is nothing schizophrenic

about it, nothing unnatural. Both idioms are fully integrated

into their musical personalities.

To conclude, I would like to highlight the important aspects

of the project. Of course, it was good to make music at a

high level, involving musicians from within the country and

abroad, both professionals and students. It is very satisfying

to be able to look back on three years of such collaboration,

and to know that it will be sustained in the future. But most

important to me are the following two aspects: Firstly, it is

very exciting to be at the spearhead of establishing Early

Music in South Africa, and to know that there is so much

enthusiasm amongst my fellow musicians for this project.

Secondly, these young singers, all of whom aspire to a career

in music, are gaining experience in singing early music

which will be extremely valuable should they want to

continue their studies in Europe. It is very gratifying to know

that we have struck a vital nerve in the community of young

musicians in the country.

After Benade's speech, Antoinette Lohmann and Hans

Huyssen expounded upon the relatively unknown position of

Early Music in South Africa. Huyssen emphasized the

importance of Lohmann‟s visit with her Furor Music,

because „Antoinette brings us something we don't have in

South Africa.‟

Antoinette Lohman

The Baroque opera was a collaborative experience for Furor

Music Amsterdam and Arts Dome Retreat. It reached,

engaged and coached various communities in historical

performance practice. „Historically Informed Performance

Practice‟ (HIPP) is a musical approach where the performers

try to gain insight into the stylistic and technical aspects of

performances of a specific period. They do this by using

instruments/tools of that period and consulting historical

treatises and other evidence. The approach is applied to all

musical styles and periods and therefore an indispensable

part of musical education.

Through an intensive training programme, local vocal

students - black and white - gained important experience in

the performance of baroque music and musicians from

different cultural backgrounds also collaborated closely to

accomplish the unique project. Both Arts Dome Retreat and

Furor Music Amsterdam were very satisfied with the

outreach work and the fact that the performances reached

many people across the cultural divide.

Theme 3: Community Arts, Building Bridges,

Innovative Practices

21 www.tin.nl

Theme 3: Community Arts, Building Bridges, Innovative Practices

Yvette Hardie

Presentation 'Afterschool, Behind the Scenes' by Themba

Mkhoma (director) and Marjolein Stots (Yo! Opera; Royal

Conservatoire in The Hague). After the presentation, the

participants then went to a reception organized by the Dutch

Embassy in Villa Arcadia where they watched the production

Afterschool.

Presentation ‘Afterschool, Behind the Scenes’

Themba Mkhoma (director), Marjolein Stots (Yo! Opera;

Royal Conservatoire in The Hague)

A Serbian trumpet player, a Dutch singer, a South African

dancer and two directors, one from the Netherlands and one

from South Africa, coaching 14 classically trained young

musicians from Soweto to create the community opera

‘Afterschool’. How do you facilitate the creative process in

such a situation? How can a successful collaboration be

guaranteed between the leaders of an interdisciplinary team?

Besides teacher in Language, Literature and Communication,

Themba Mkhoma is a talent scout for the Market Theatre

Laboratory, travelling around the country identifying up and

coming theatre practioners and groups, and he is also a

founder facilitator of the Soweto From Here Theatre Project,

which teaches acting and performance to more than 50

youngsters in Soweto.

Marjolein Stots has been singing in numerous choirs and

ensembles since the age of eight and performs with her vocal

ensemble Wishful Singing in the Netherlands and abroad. As

a singer and supervisor she has collaborated on several

community opera projects with Yo! Opera. Marjolein studied

classical singing and graduated from the Royal

Conservatoire in The Hague with a masters (music) in New

Audiences and Innovative Practice.

During the presentation 'Afterschool, Behind the Scenes'

Marjolein and Themba explained the process of their

collaboration by asking themselves the following questions:

1) What competencies are required for teaching in a team

within an interdisciplinary context?

2) What competencies are required for working with young

talent in an interdisciplinary context?

Marjolein Stots, Themba Mkhoma

They addressed the following subjects during their

presentation:

I. Stimulate the creation of an interdisciplinary work of art

empower and encourage pupils to contribute to the

creative process. Pupils received homework to

encourage their involvement; they had a story to



22 www.tin.nl

tell and were able to give expression to this by

means of the creative process.

adjust the teaching methodology to match the

profile of the pupils. Themba emphasized how this

group of youngsters were the most disciplined

group he had ever worked with; they are classically

trained musicians who have been taught not to

break the rules. Eventually, they managed to

achieve a fusion of classical music and Kwaito -

Themba's style - in order to teach the young people

to abandon their rules.

help pupils own the final product. Monique van

Hinte, dramaturge and final director of

‘Afterschool’, gave feedback to the youngsters after

first giving them the power to decide what was

going to happen. This was the moment the pupils

realized that it was their project.

inspire pupils on the basis of their own artistic

background. Their instrumental skills were the

starting point for the process. Themba worked on

the story lines, while Marjolein and Nikola worked

on the pupils‟ music skills.

II. Create a positive learning environment

develop a non-judgemental, non-threatening

working relationship based on empathy, trust and

mutual respect. The team encouraged mutual

respect with the aim of getting the young people to

trust and open up to them in return. Despite this,

the pupils always went to Nimrod (director Melodi

Music and the person they trusted the most) or

sometimes to Themba – but not to the white

foreigners.

establish proper working conditions within the

organisation: staff support, scheduling, rooms,

material, etc.

create conditions that encourage openness, honesty,

informality and risk-taking

define boundaries and ground rules before

commencing the process

build a clear understanding of who does what and

why. It was sometimes confusing for the pupils

when all the team leaders were working with the

pupils at the same time.

III. Facilitate the reflective process of the pupils

encourage pupils to adopt a critical perspective

about the reasons and consequences of their

practice

encourage and empower pupils to explore new

frames of reference for thinking about their practice

in a wider cultural and disciplinary context

strengthen the pupils‟ ability to challenge their

preconceived views, to take risks, to make new

connections and to shift their perspective

encourage pupils to develop high standards of

artistic quality

IV. Establish effective team teaching in an interdisciplinary

team

use your experience and expertise as a

musician/actor/dancer to add to the creative process

and to complement the team

employ self-reflection and self-awareness in order

to nurture these qualities in others

ensure that the team is effective in planning,

structuring and providing the artistic leadership in

all of the interconnected elements of the process

Conclusions

Improve planning and organisation

Increase feedback sessions

Reserve time for training and developing

performance skills

Future plans

More performances throughout South Africa

Yo! Opera Festival in the Netherlands

Ongoing training in musical theatre

After the presentation there was some comment as to why

this project had been chosen to be part of Interactions SA-

NL. There was some discussion as to how the project fitted

into the Interactions SA-NL project because of the

community art factor and the fact that the youngsters were

not professionals.

Henk Scholten and Jeanneke den Boer explained that

Interactions SA-NL was aimed at every form of the

performing arts and every kind of performance project. The

project is an example of stimulating and educating new

talent, which is definitely part of TIN's and Interactions SA-

NL's policy.

Afterschool in Villa Arcadia



23 www.tin.nl

Afterschool performed at the cocktail reception of

the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in

South Africa in Villa Arcadia

After the third session on Monday, all the participants of the

expert meeting were invited to the magnificent location of

Villa Arcadia for a welcome cocktail, organized by the

Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa,

followed by the production Afterschool.


Afterschool is a collaboration between The Royal

Conservatoire (The Hague), Stichting Venancio (The

Hague), Yo! Opera Festival (Utrecht), Melodi Music

(Soweto). Afterschool is a music theatre production by 14

young performers about the time between the end of school

and parents getting home; a time in the daily lives of young

people when everything is possible. The 14 performers are

students from the Melodi Music School in Pimville/Soweto,

led by director and founder Nimrod Moloto. The students

(varying in ages from 12 to 21) chose and composed the

music and wrote the story and songs themselves. In the

production, they play music, sing and act. The production

tackled subjects that the youngsters themselves had come up

with: pregnancy, peer pressure, sickness, dating, bullying,

etc. Nikola Tosic and Marjolein Stots from the Royal

Conservatoire The Hague were the music directors (for their

dissertation project); Themba Mkhoma was the drama coach

and director and Monique van Hinte was dramaturge and

final director.


Day 3: Tuesday 23rd November Theme 4:

Young People’s Theatre and Talent Hubs

24 www.tin.nl

Day 3: Tuesday 23rd November Theme 4: Young People’s Theatre and Talent Hubs

Programme

To be like this rock performed by Umsindo

Panel discussion: „Collaborations for a new

generation‟ with Xolani Dlongolo (Umsindo

Durban), Emma Durden (Twist Durban) and Jerry

Pooe (Eager Artists Durban/Windybrow

Johannesburg)

Presentation Phaphama Miracle Arts Laboratory by

Afrika Mzaku

Discussion „Talent Hubs in Townships‟ with Afrika

Mzaku, Judy Connors, Jabu Mashinini, Clement

Seabi (Phaphama Miracle Arts Lab), Karin Muller

(Music Mayday) and Themba Mkhoma

(Afterschool)

To be like this rock performed by Umsindo,

Durban Written by Neil Coppen based on a workshop production by

the group, and directed by Debbie Lutge with Xolani

Dlongolo and Musawenkosi Shabalala. Performers:

Snelisiwe Radebe, Skhonzile Jele, Nomvuselelo Myeza,

Nondumiso Mzobe, Gugu Nkosi, Nosipho Mkhize, Brian

Silindana, Thabani Gwala, Sbonelo Dlamini Stage manager:

Bongumusa Shabalala Lighting designer: Xolani Dlongolo

Sound tech: Musawenkosi Shabalala

Umsindo theatre group

To be like this rock

This is the harrowing story of Tinny and four girls who work

together in a quarry breaking rocks. Tinny loses her way at a

market and is led away by a woman professing to know her

mother from church. She is taken from the north coast of

KwaZulu-Natal near the Mozambique border to Durban.

Here she meets the other four girls. Their lives are all

different but they have all been taken from their homes by

human trafficking to feed the same sex trade. All they want

is to be „like this rock‟ which feels nothing as they break it.

Each of these five women responds differently to the dual

enslavement: by day, the quarry's forced labour; by night,

exploited by sexual predators. By encouraging Tinny to

attempt escape, the women shift from passive victims to

active participants - but the ending is left open. The audience

has to decide the final outcome for itself. The siren heard at

the end of the play could signal either ambulance or police.



25 www.tin.nl

„This performance is a collaboration of creative professionals

(director and playwright); a partnership between academic

training and community talent (Durban University of

Technology and Umsindo); a merger of professional and

community texts in performance, seeking to cross boundaries

and ignite solidarity. Therefore, the project corresponds

exactly to what had been mandated: the straddling of three

spheres of the theatrical ambit: professional, academic and

community.‟

(note by Debbie Lutge)

Umsindo, actress

Panel discussion ‘Collaborations for a new

generation’ Xolani Dlongolo (Umsindo Durban), Emma Durden (Twist

Durban), Jerry Pooe (Eager Artists Durban/Windybrow

Johannesburg)

Emma Durden, project director, began her presentation by

explaining about Twist.

The Twist Theatre Development Project is a dynamic

networking project that aims to promote and develop theatre

in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), running ten projects a year.

Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the

Netherlands in South Africa, Twist brings together

supporting partners who make up a diverse group of theatre

organisations and institutions. These include the Theatergoep

Siberia (based in Rotterdam), the Performing Arts Network

of South Africa (PANSA), Eager Artists (based in Durban),

Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre, the Stable Theatre, the

Department of Drama at the Durban University of

Technology (DUT), and six community theatre groups from

KZN. The six groups are being mentored through a

development process by seasoned theatre practitioners

Edmund Mhlongo and Jerry Pooe over the course of two to

three years. Rather than creating new projects, TWIST has

been working with existing projects, organisations and

festivals to see how they can develop community theatre in

KZN and make it sustainable.

Theatergroep Siberia, based in Rotterdam, makes theatre for

all ages and at all kinds of locations. With a young cast of

actors, the artistic directors make dynamic theatre

productions based on stories from urban daily life. Siberia

has been working with Twist and Umsindo for several years.

Jerry Pooe, Xolani Dlongolo, Emma Durden



26 www.tin.nl

Within the context of Interactions SA-NL 2009, Siberia and

Twist collaborated on a playwriting project known as the

Novel Script Project. This project brought together a range of

playwrights from the Netherlands and South Africa under the

mentorship of award-winning playwright and poet Kobus

Moolman.

As a result of the project, the participating South African

writers have been commissioned to work with the Twist

community theatre groups to develop their work into new

productions. The theatre group Umsindo just presented their

new play „TO BE LIKE THIS ROCK’ as a result of this

dynamic collaboration.

Umsindo was started in 2002 by Xolani Dlongolo,

Bongumusa and Musawenkosi Shabalala with the aim of

supporting upcoming artists in the Umlazi township of

Durban and surrounding areas. Since its inception, the

company has grown from strength to strength and has

produced several educational plays which have toured

schools and community halls around Umlazi and Durban.

The company has also trained and developed a number of

artists who are now recognised professionally. Umsindo has

worked with highly respected theatre companies such as The

Playhouse Company, Eager Artists productions and Siberia.

The six community theatre groups have been preparing for

their new productions over November, working with

established playwrights and directors to build their concepts

into new plays. These plays were performed publicly for the

first time at the Isigcawu Festival in KwaMashu on 27th and

28th November. The groups will now go on to perform these

plays in their own communities.

Jerry Pooe, Xolani Dlongolo

Xolani Dlongolo, one of the directors of Umsindo, explained

the problems and difficulties they faced during the

collaboration. There was a six month period of research into

the subject beforehand, but it was difficult because people

did not want to talk about the subject. But that is precisely

the reason why a theatre group in a community has to stand

up and talk about these issues which are happening

everywhere. They also conducted workshops on playwriting.

The collaboration was between three directors from Umsindo

and a professional director and a writer brought in by

TWIST. There was no rehearsal room, and money was a

challenge. Umsindo wants to take young people/children

from the street and to create jobs for the people in the

community.

Jerry Pooe

Jerry Pooe (Umsindo mentor; director Windy Brow Theatre)

started by saying that international collaborations are very

challenging. He has been working with Roel Twijnstra

(Siberia) for ten years now, of which the first years were

sometimes difficult. In a collaboration, one wants to please

the partner with the money; there is often no equality.

Twijnstra and Pooe argued and debated and finally they

opened up to each other, becoming very close, which in turn

led to many projects like TWIST. Twijnstra and Pooe came

up with the idea of working with six groups for a period of

three years, so that by the time they leave, the groups will be

able to stand on their own feet. During these years the groups

will have been exposed to other forms and styles of theatre,

which they can bring back to the community. Pooe

emphasized the importance of creating platforms for these

collaborations, such as community theatre festivals where

productions can be shown. He also brought up the issue of

money and ownership. A community group often does not

trust the person with the money and consequently does not

open up; they do not say what they want and think. The

group often does not feel that it really owns the production.



27 www.tin.nl

Durden went on to talk about the connections to festivals and

the need for „showcases‟, the need to take the productions

further after performing only once or twice.

Fahiem Stellenboom told Umsindo that he wants to get them

to Cape Town, to the Baxter Theatre. Ismail Mahomed

commented on the integrity in the production of Umsindo.

He sees an ideal partnership in Twist where the non-South

African partner does not just come to South Africa to tell

people what he wants, but recognises what there is and

begins to work from that. This is viable and sustainable.

According to Mahomed, this collaboration should be used as

a model because it is a workable.

Discussions at expertmeeting

Presentation Miracle Arts Lab Soweto

Afrika Mzaku

The Phaphama Miracle Arts Laboratory is the recently-

formed arts division of the 20 year-old Phaphama Initiatives

and is based in White City Jabavu in Soweto. Their mission

is to be a sustainable, artistically innovative and

professionally-run community arts centre in Soweto.

The initial activities of the Phaphama Miracle Arts Lab were

successfully launched between 12th June and 11

th July 2010,

to coincide with the FIFA World Cup. These activities

included 63 performances over 21 days creating exposure

and employment opportunities for a total of 319 amateur,

semi-professional and professional artists whose membership

is spread around 23 community-based arts organizations of

Soweto.

The entire initiative was linked to Phaphama‟s community-

based tourism work. This enabled the artists to showcase

their talent to a paying audience of 189 international tourists

and 1000 local people , which is rare for the community arts

sector in Soweto. In the process, further jobs were created for

30 community members who provided security, cleaning and

other technical support.

It was during - and in the run-up to - this period that the

Miracle Arts Lab collaborated successfully with Stichting

Balls, also known as ISH Amsterdam.

The Arts Lab-ISH collaboration was motivated by the fact

that both organizations share similar values: to support and

bring out the best in people. For both organizations, the

performing arts are a way of helping people who would not

normally be involved in the arts discover and use their talents

to regain their dignity and contribute to society.

The objective of the collaboration was to put on a show

during the World Cup which would inculcate an artistic

discipline and equip people with skills that they could pass

on to others and possibly generate an income for those

involved.

Three members of the Amsterdam-based, crossover

performance company ISH, Ken, Carl and Roy, spent three

weeks in Soweto. During this residency, ISH, eight ex-

offenders or X-Cons (as they became known) and 3 young

community members exchanged artistic skills. The X-Cons

were people Phaphama had drawn from their life skills

programme in prison. ISH provided artistic guidance for the

text written by the X-Cons, and once they had had left, the

ex-inmates continued exercising the skills of discipline and

artistic rigour whilst performing a number of shows on their

own.

The show Kapa-Zoon Kapa Planet was performed 20 times

during the World Cup programme. The production was also

performed at the Oranje campsite in Pretoria and at the

Dutch-Denmark after-match event at Holland House in

Johannesburg.

Representatives Phaphama Miracle Arts Lab

Lessons learnt

ISH learnt Gumboot and Pantsula Dance to take home with

them. They also learnt to strike a balance between a solely

task-driven approach on the one hand, and a more people-

centred approach on the other: learning something about

Ubuntu or African people in the process.

The ex-inmates improved their commitment and discipline

and began to see the possibility of art as another means of

making a living.

Phaphama learnt how the energy of the street which can be

so destructive can be transformed into constructive artistic



28 www.tin.nl

energy. Above all, they learnt that it takes a special kind of

artistic partner (which ISH certainly is) to respect the

integrity of the inmates‟ deeply personal and honest stories

whilst crafting them into compelling theatre.

Although the collaboration contained excellent artistic

elements, it also had a well received social spin-off in its

strong anti-crime theme and its spirit of post-prison

rehabilitation by means of the arts. The techniques and skills

developed by means of the collaboration will be passed on

in-house to succeeding ex-offenders by those who have

already benefited.

The participants of this programme will continue improving

and will create productions aimed at redressing some of the

social ills of their communities. In any given season these

productions will be performed for young people in places

like schools and community centres. Phaphama Miracle Arts

Lab believes employment opportunities will be created in

this way by engaging the Department of Social

Development. Should funding allow, they envisage

continued cultural and artistic encounters with ISH,

particularly in respect of youth-at-risk.

Phaphama-Miracle Arts Lab intends continuing its quest to

advance the community arts sector in Soweto by means of a

three year plan, put together with the assistance of

beneficiaries, peers and experts in the creative and cultural

industry.

The Arts Lab wants to support and continue activities such

as:

Arts development and advancement

Event hosting

Platforms (festivals, etc)

School programmes

Arts as social commentary and recreation

Twinning and cultural exchange

Sustainability

Mzaku emphasized the importance of implementation. The

Arts Lab has started with small steps towards implementing

a longer-term, more ambitious plan. They have started

dance-classes every Thursday, following a train-the-trainer

model where two dance captains or choreographers from

each of the ten participating groups are taught new skills.

Parallel to the dance classes, group leaders of the ten

participating groups take part in capacity building workshops

that are aimed at assessing leadership and administration

gaps. To achieve this, group leaders are given various tasks

such as profile development and marketing strategy. They

are also tasked with organising mini-concerts. Teambuilding

workshops are also part of the process.

The Arts Lab has also facilitated a successful panel

discussion on the „Unique Nature of South African

Community Arts‟. Phyllis Klotz from the Sibikwa

Community Arts Centre, Matjamela Motloung from the

Market Theatre Laboratory and Jerry Mabuza from the

Gauteng Arts and Culture Council were the panellists of the

session which was attended by 29 community-based arts

practitioners, community members and government officials.

The next discussion will be held on 3rd

December 2010 led

by new panellists.

„The community arts sector in Soweto has enormous

potential for growth. At the same time, there are many

challenges affecting the sector. These challenges include,

among others:

Survivalist syndrome: I‟m going to spend all my

energy chasing gigs, etc, which means I have no

energy left for a longer-term (development)

perspective for my group. I can‟t spend time in

capacity-building workshops with the intention of

laying a more solid foundation for the future of my

group because I need to run around looking for job

opportunities.

„Quick buck‟ syndrome: I‟m part of this group to

make money and I‟ll try and get as much as

possible out of it for myself.

A street culture of gender and other violence: it

would be futile to nurture talent but remain blind to

the violent ways in which many young performers

treat one another and themselves.‟

In 2011 the Arts Lab will continue with performing arts

workshops focusing on two disciplines, namely African

drumming and street performance. The Performing-Arts-in-

the-Streets concept will look at tools to create successful

street theatre and other performing art forms in public places,

as well as street parades.

“We view collaboration broadly. Therefore, the Arts Lab

hopes to establish twinning communities both nationally and

internationally. Naturally, given our existing links with the

Dutch, we have identified the communities of the Bijlmer

Park Theater and ISH as possible international twining

communities. The communities of Alexandra and Yeoville

(characterized by inhabitants from all parts of Africa), have

so far been identified as the local twining communities. The

twinning or linking of Soweto to other like-minded

communities is to spread to other communities outside

Gauteng and within the continent over the years.

This broader collaboration-oriented concept foresees benefits

that are not limited to artistic and cultural exchange but

extends to the exchange of audiences, tourists and hopefully

the exchange of euros and rands… in reality, it will most

likely be a one-way flow of euros!”



29 www.tin.nl

Discussion Talenthubs in Townships

Discussion ‘Talent Hubs in Townships’

Discussion Talent Hubs in townships with Afrika Mzaku,

Judy Connors, Jabu Mashinini, Clement Seabi (Phaphama

Miracle Arts Lab), Karin Muller (Music Mayday) and

Themba Mkhoma (Afterschool)

Jabu Mashinini, Clement Seabi, Afrika Mzaku, Judy Connors

Townships like Soweto are bursting with artistic talent and

cultural entrepreneurship and are ideal places to discover

new trends in music, dance, theatre and design. Where can

artistic partners and new talent be found? How should

international creative partnerships be pursued?

Karin Muller of Music May Day began by explaining how

Music May Day is a non-profit organisation that stimulates

talent factory projects. The connection with Interactions SA-

NL came about after Interactions SA-NL had organised a

tour by Eric Vloeimans, a Dutch jazz trumpeter. Interactions

SA-NL had supported Vloeimans and his Gatecrash band‟s

contribution to the Standard Bank Jazz Festival in

Grahamstown. Music Mayday profited from Vloeimans‟

presence in South Africa by organising a number of extra

concerts for him in Johannesburg and the surrounding area

and by broaching a collaboration with a South African soul

singer. Music May Day and Interactions SA-NL also came

up with a programme of collaboration with Miracle Arts Lab.

Various Dutch artists, such as Typhoon, visited the Miracle

Arts Lab in Soweto to give workshops and to perform. These

collaborations were captured on a CD and the proceeds from

the sales contribute to new collaborations. Muller then

continued by asking herself how South African groups and

artists otherwise involve the private sector. According to

Muller, this approach of involving businesses in community

arts should be explored more. If one is willing to do that,

new opportunities will arise. One should not rely on subsidy

alone.

Jabu Mashinini, one of the directors of Phaphama Initiatives,

continued by explaining how their project (the Arts Lab) is

not only helping people with their artistic or organisational

skills, but with life skills as well: it is about surviving, about

responsibility, and keeping people on track. However, whilst

trying to work as mentors on all of these holistic approaches,

the biggest challenge is working on two issues at the same

time, respecting and supporting the integrity of people and

their work, whilst not making them too dependent.

Clement Siabi, one of the participants of workshops given by

Miracle Arts Lab, stressed the importance of the Miracle

Arts Lab. Besides the space to rehearse and to perform and

the opportunity to learn from other community groups, he

and other group members get taught administration skills as

well as dance to complement their performance skills.

At the same time, it is very challenging to be in the arts

community, because it is faced with so many of the

challenges already mentioned during the meeting. Money is

an issue and it is difficult to keep a group together. Not

abandoning hope when you can only pay five Rand each for

performers who have worked very hard. Clement had been

working with ex-convicts and it was only the teambuilding

workshop that Phaphama Miracle Arts Lab had organised

which prevented his group from splitting up, despite the

discipline of the performers. Clement also thanked the

Netherlands, because the Dutch are the ones who sent him to

train with Moving into Dance, skills which he could bring

back to the community. “We should stop crying all the time,

we should educate.”

An important aspect in Afrika's presentation was the level of

networking, comparable with the Twist project. Twist also

works with community groups; is there contact between the

various talent hubs? Between Twist in Durban and Miracle

Arts Lab in Soweto, for example? How can exchange be

facilitated? Or, how can we strengthen the work that there is

and this level of networking without duplicating what

already exists?

Themba Mkhoma does not think that it is a case of

duplication if there is a project in Soweto and a similar

project in Khayelitsha, for example. “What is very important

about starting an arts project, any project that is meant to

empower and develop people, is that it should be people-

centred. There won't be duplication if whoever starts a

project looks first at the needs of those particular people, the



30 www.tin.nl

needs of the community itself… If projects are created by the

needs of people, if they are people-centred, then I think

duplication can be avoided”.

Jabu Mashinini (verbatim):

“We (Miracle Arts Lab) had 24 community groups

performing in our centre. We were the only venue, apart

from the „fan parks‟ for the World Cup, which put together

so many community groups in one space. I think one of the

things about duplication is that there are many groups, but

not many hubs where people can get together and share

information and see each other‟s work. And to see who they

are connected with. As Phaphama Miracle Arts Lab, we

don‟t have a group, we didn‟t start one group, we started

creating a space, a platform. The more of these hubs there

are in various communities, the better… People will not

connect with the community in KZN as an individual group

but hubs will, and then the effect [is] quicker and bigger.”

Group discussions Three groups were formed for discussions focusing on the

issue of sustainability. Two important questions were

formulated that needed to be answered:

What do we need to ensure sustainability?

How can international collaboration encourage

sustainability (what is the most valuable

contribution it can make?)

The chairs of the three groups were Roel Twijnstra, Emma

Durden and Phyllis Klotz.

The groups‟ conclusions were presented to all the

participants and are summarised as follows:

What do we need in order to ensure sustainability?

shared artistic vision

equality of ownership, recognition of who the

owner is: the group or artist, but not the funder

Firstly, why should a project be funded in the first place?

Why sustainability? What do we want to achieve?

Assuming that funding was no object, what should then be

the focus of this international exchange between the

Netherlands and South Africa?

Innovation and growth in the arts

Finding your own artistic voice in excellence, in

drama, dance or music

- Development of a young generation of artists

Sharing information: a lot of organisations and

artists are working in isolation in the Netherlands

as well as South Africa.

Equality in the artistic process so that ownership is

equitable. This moral position relates to the funders

in both countries as well as to the practitioners.

Group discussion

The following conclusions can be drawn in the light of the

vision of sustainable international cultural exchange as

expressed above:

A project is stronger and more sustainable if the

demand, plan or idea comes from the South African

side. This means that organisations on the Dutch

side need to be well informed about the artistic,

social and political context of initiatives in South

Africa. It is questionable whether this is always the

case.

Use of expertise, experience of existing projects

from both the Netherlands and South Africa as

reference points or support.

Local funding is of paramount importance for

healthy exchange, respect and ownership.

In some areas, incoming expertise is very important

for the South African side. There needs to be more

information about the expertise available and where

it can be found. In other areas, there is already

enough experience and expertise, it is just a

question of matching and organising it.

Main conclusion:

Every international exchange project has to have some

financial support, in whatever proportions, from South

Africa as well as from the Netherlands. This is a position that

might be achievable in the long term and it should be worked

towards in any case.

Theme 5: Trends in Festival Programming

and Audience Development

31 www.tin.nl

Theme 5: Trends in Festival Programming and Audience Development

Presentation by festival directors. Festival directors

presented their fresh and innovative programme formats and

strategies for audience development.

Mischa Loots (Oppikoppi Festival),

Wim Visser (Voorkamerfest, Darling),

Hans Huyssen, representing Samson Diamond

(Cape Festival),

Ismail Mahomed (National Arts Festival

Grahamstown),

Brett Pyper (KKNK Oudtshoorn),

Georgina Thomson (The Dance Forum / Dance

Umbrella)

Trends in Festival Programming and Audience Development

Oppikoppi Festival

Misha Loots

Oppikoppi is an annual music festival held in August near

the mining town of Northam in the Limpopo Province of

South Africa. The festival began in 1994 with 27 artists

performing rock music to a small group of enthusiasts. It has

since grown substantially, now playing host to a variety of

genres on a number of stages for an audience of thousands.

Cheap tickets ensure that anybody can come resulting in a

mixed audience of 35 thousand and Oppikoppi will be

launching a series of concerts in Soweto where tickets will

also cost a minimum.

The Oppikoppi festival features mostly South African bands

but in 2009 and 2010 it presented Dutch bands Voicst, Lucky

Fonz III and C-mon & Kypski in collaboration with

Interactions SA-NL; Lucky Fonz III appearing in 2009 and

2010. The concerts given by the bands generated a great deal

of press interest, the bands were often invited onto radio

shows and their concerts reached a varied and predominantly

young audience. The Oppikoppi programmers had been to

Noorderslag in the Netherlands and had been able to get a

good impression of the Dutch pop music scene. Lucky Fonz

III has since become famous in South Africa after touring

three times and whilst Voicst and C-mon & Kypski have

been well received, they have yet to build up a reputation.

Micha Loots, director of the Oppikoppi Festival and Arjen

Davidse, Music Center the Netherlands, presented a short

film about the collaboration with the Netherlands. Various

film shots of Voicst‟s successful, energetic performance

were shown and it was clear how enthusiastically the festival

audience responded to the band. Voicst also performed in the

open air in a nearby township with little technical support

and the children in the audience went wild. Voicst said

afterwards that this was one of their best performances in

South Africa.

Voorkamerfest Wim Visser

Voorkamerfest is not a „festival‟ festival, it is a niche

festival. Music is performed in the front rooms - voorkamers

- of houses all over Darling. The Voorkamerfest is a unique

festival with an element of surprise for the audience: they do

not know where the venues will be or performers are until

they arrive at the various destinations on their particular

route. Each of the seven routes has three „voorkamer‟ stops,

with 25-minute performances in the front rooms of homes

ranging from small township houses to grand Victorian

mansions. Everyone meets at a central point, Evita se Perron,

half an hour beforehand and transportation is by means of

local taxis. The Voorkamerfest was initially conceptualised

by the Dutch impresario Inge Bos, together with Wim Visser



32 www.tin.nl

from the Royal Carré Theatre in Amsterdam, assisted by the

team at Evita se Perron, which is a small theatre established

and led by the famous South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys.

The Voorkamerfest was initiated in order to bring Darling

people of different backgrounds together, the focus of the

education programme that they are also setting up. Under the

aegis of Interactions SA-NL, choreographer Lloyd Marengo

gave workshops for a group of 45 children from different

schools in 2009 and 2010. The workshops resulted in short

dance performances presented during the festival in which

hip hop and South African Kwaito and Gumboot were

combined.

The workshops were meant to introduce children to each

other‟s worlds, to stimulate them creatively and to keep them

off the streets and away from crime. The resulting

performances proved that, regardless of cultural background

or class, children could easily work together towards a

performance.

Visser has a dream of a long term educational programme.

After the second workshop programme in 2010, the

organizations applied for subsidy via various funds and

institutions to continue for the next three years. The plan is to

organise four two-week long workshops between January

and early September. These workshops will focus on five

disciplines: dance, music, theatre, journalism and

film/documentary, and final performances will be presented

at the Voorkamerfest. International coaches will share their

expertise with chosen 'leaders' within the group. These

talented potentials can then become coaches, who can

continue leading the workshops after the professional

teachers have gone.

This festival has the added bonus of promoting a sense of

community: everyone in the town has to work together to

make the festival work. Naturally, the choice of music is

restricted to what can be performed in a makeshift theatre.

Stripped of complicated sets, sound and light effects, pure,

dramatic styles are encouraged. It is not possible to stage a

classical ballet or full opera, but the Voorkamerfest is

nonetheless doing something quite extraordinary.

Wim Visser, Hans Huyssen

Cape Festival Hans Huyssen

The Cape Festival is an international music festival working

to develop South Africa's musical future. Launched in March

2010, the Cape Festival changes lives through music by

supporting educational initiatives at all levels of South

African society. The festival, directed by Shirley Apthorp, is

a platform for creative exchange aiming to show the value of

music as a positive force for social change. The festival

identifies the most progressive, cutting-edge and inclusive

South African organizations and individuals who create

social value through music, empowering them by means of

international partnerships and cultural exchange. South

African and international music educators are brought

together by the Cape Festival‟s Music Development Forum.

In 2010, the Cape Festival invited the famous Dutch

conductor Jurjen Hempel to conduct a performance of

Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde. He also directed

rehearsals and led workshops. The Cape Festival aims to

create lasting, positive change in South Africa‟s musical

landscape by means of national and international networks

and innovative initiatives in music education. Noye’s Fludde

was a pilot project for the Cape Festival‟s educational

activities in the field of music theatre.

The ambitious opera projects involved two children‟s choirs

with a total of 120 gifted, young singers from disadvantaged

communities close to Cape Town. The collaboration also

bridged the rift between two population groups (black and

coloured). The tensions between the black and coloured

communities in the Western Cape region generally keep

them apart. The aspiring, young, professional singers of the

Chamber Choir of South Africa also participated in the event

bringing their conductor, Michael Dingaan, along with them.

Diverse groups with their respective skill sets were brought

together for an intense working period to prepare for the

ultimate concert. They included musicians, singers and vocal

coaches from Berlin (Germany), Norway and Venezuela.

Workshops were also held in schools and community halls.

The aim of the workshops was to introduce them to the

challenging subject material via interactive educational

activities devised by affiliates of The UdK Berlin.

Cape Festival‟s plan was to organise workshops with various

groups in the lead-up to the Festival‟s conference and to

present the results in an open showcase event. But a happy

combination of enthusiastic students and repetiteurs, the

addition of a chamber choir from Johannesburg and the

unexpected attendance of both the Norwegian and

Venezuelan string quartets meant that Cape Festival

suddenly had enough forces to put an electrifying

performance together.

The end result was a concert of a remarkably high standard

for a small audience. Shirley Apthorp was extremely pleased



33 www.tin.nl

and the performance was seen as a major, first step towards

future projects on a grander scale.

Jurjen Hempel will direct Henry Purcell‟s King Arthur at the

2011 Cape Festival. Contemporary and African music will

be combined with the music of Henry Purcell. The King

Arthur project has been conceived as a follow-up to Noye’s

Fludde. It will involve all the previous as well as new

participants. The planned workshops, rehearsals and

performances are part of a strategy for sustainable musical

and social development for all partners. The Cape Festival is

planning to present the King Arthur Project in Europe at a

variety of forums between July and October of 2011.

Hans Huyssen, Ismael Mahomed, Brett Pyper

National Arts Festival Grahamstown

Ismail Mahomed

The National Arts Festival Grahamstown, held annually in

July, is the biggest celebration of South Africa's rich and

multi-faceted culture. From theatre to dance, opera to

cabaret, classical music to jazz, poetry readings to lectures,

every art form imaginable is represented in this very diverse

festival. The National Arts Festival presents about 600

events in the Main and Fringe programmes and almost 1800

performances. For 15 days every year, more than 50,000

people visit the city to enjoy the festivities. The National

Arts Festival is a multicultural festival. The National Youth

Jazz Festival and the Standard Bank Young Artist Awards

also take place during the festival.

The Artistic Director of the National Arts Festival (NAF),

Ismail Mahomed, emphasized that when it comes to

intercultural collaboration “the focus is on the process. With

collaboration, one should try to establish common ground,

negotiate and compromise.”

The key determinant for a festival is excellence, but a

commitment to talent development is at the core of the

festival programming. The National Arts Festival wants to

promote and stimulate young artists, and so they have

developed a programme with youngsters. For example, the

Standard Bank Youth Jazz Festival provides students with

the opportunity to be taught by international jazz musicians

performing in the main festival. There is also an 18 month

commission to provide musicians with the opportunity to

grow as an artist.

Ismael Mahomed had programmed several Interactions SA-

NL productions in the National Arts Festival; e.g. Siberia

and Eager Artists with the Twist-project and Afterschool.

Mahomed explained more about the various elements of the

festival which were increased in 2010, how they ensure that

young talent is included in the festival and how they

contribute to professional development. Artists and children

from the streets of the townships are also involved in the

festival. The festival provides a sort of stepping stone model

of development.

The Phezulu Project, Arkworks Project and Art-Factory

In an attempt to revive the traditional, vibrant and festive

atmosphere of the festival arts and craft markets, the

National Arts Festival launched The Phezulu Project, which

helps street artists get their feet off the ground. Phezulu

(meaning „upwards‟) has started teaching stilt walking to a

small number of disadvantaged street performers. The

Phezulu Project is one of four new development initiatives to

revive busking and street theatre in Grahamstown.

The Arkworks Project is an equally exciting project which

will see street artists converting plastic bottles into exciting

banraku-styled puppets for street performance.

The Art-Factory is a partnership between the National Arts

Festival and the Sakhuluntu Community Arts Project which

works with children on the streets. During the ten day

festival period, The Art Factory offers street children training

in life skills as well as in various arts. Children who attend

The Art Factory also receive nutritional lunch-packs. Those

who attend the entire course are given the opportunity to

perform in a community concert as well as to take home a

bag of groceries for their families. The Art Factory is a year-

long project based in Grahamstown.

ArtsReach Programme

The ArtsReach Programme is the means by which the

National Arts Festival takes the arts to hospitals, clinics, old

people‟s homes and rural areas. A number of artists on the

Fringe volunteer their performances for the ArtsReach

programme during the Festival. The Arts Encounter Project

distributes a number of tickets to disadvantaged individuals

enabling them to enjoy productions from the Festival‟s Main

and Fringe programmes.

Innovation Hub

Another exciting development is the Innovation Hub, a

partnership project between the Festival, Rhodes Investec

Business School and the Makana Municipality. Following a

call put out by the three partners for proposals for small

business projects related to the festival, six individuals were

invited to attend a series of seminars at Rhodes University‟s

Investec Business School on how to refine their business

plans.



34 www.tin.nl

Hands On! Masks Off!

Mahomed explained how artists, when they step off the stage

or out of their studios, often struggle to manage the business

and strategic side of their careers. Hands On! Masks Off!

aims to fill those gaps and is a programme of workshops,

discussion forums, networking opportunities and seminars

for artists, providing them with the skills and insights they

need to effectively manage their careers. The programme is

sponsored by Business and Arts South Africa (BASA).

Covering the practicalities of presenting a production or

exhibition, securing funding, marketing and publicity and

technical issues, these interactive „hands-on‟ sessions are an

opportunity for artists to obtain a greater understanding of

every aspect of the industry.

The Remix Laboratory

The Remix-Lab project is an intensive 10 day workshop. It

includes performance skills, writing, and other theatre skills,

as well as administrative and management skills.

Importantly, the programme also allows the participating

groups to showcase their work, to see a wide range of

productions from other groups, to develop their critical eye

and to broaden their horizons by exposing them to a greater

world of theatre.

Arena

The Arena programme is funded by the South African

National Arts Council as an additional Festival platform to

bridge the gap between the Festival‟s Main and Fringe

programmes.

It was Mahomed‟s ambition to focus on children‟s and

young people‟s theatre for the next few years and so Dutch

theatre companies were invited in 2009 (MC and

Theatergroep Siberia in collaboration with Eager Artists) and

2010 (the co-production ‘Afterschool’).

Asked if he has any dreams, Mahomed answered that he only

has realistic plans, not hopes or dreams. One has to be

realistic and work within the available funding. He does want

to develop new audiences to make it an even more of a

multicultural festival, and he also wants to programme some

different styles. “We have a connection with the audience

that engages in the festival.”

Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees

Brett Pyper

The Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) is an

Afrikaans arts and culture festival in the Karoo town of

Oudtshoorn. The festival takes place in April and was

initiated as the Afrikaans counterpart to the popular English

National Arts Festival Grahamstown. KKNK is supported by

ABSA bank to promote art and culture among Afrikaans

speakers. The KKNK annually attracts more than 100,000

visitors to the town of Oudtshoorn. The curator of the

festival is Brett Pyper. There are performances in the open

air and in the street as well as indoors. 90% of the audience

is coloured and speaks Afrikaans. For the last couple of years

KKNK has wanted to do outreach work with more culturally

diverse audiences and to expand its activities to neighbouring

townships. The real challenge is reaching the next

generation, who will probably speak English as well as their

first language, Afrikaans. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to

involve local communities, because they are not used to

theatre, they do not go to the theatre. Pyper wants to invest

effort in developing this audience.

Ismael Mahomed, Brett Pyper

Pyper explained that Afrikaans is not the sole proprietary of

whites anymore. It has been his ambition to develop and

stimulate ideas with regards to addressing language identity,

which was one of the main reasons for collaborating with the

Glasshouse for the co-production „Afrikaaps'.

The KKNK accomplished its second goal, which was to give

site-specific theatre a more prominent position in the

programme. The collaboration with the Dutch theatre groups

in 2009 resulted in useful curating and technical training for

site-specific theatre.

Pyper emphasized the importance of intercultural

collaboration where one can share methodologies and

technical and curating skills. The collaboration is helping the

festival to open up to the rest of South Africa and Africa.

The Dance Forum / Dance Umbrella

Georgina Thomson

The Dance Forum is a non-profit organization based at the

Dance Space in Newtown. It is one of the main drivers of

contemporary dance and choreography in Southern Africa.

This includes the annual Dance Umbrella and New Dance

festivals; residency programmes and workshops for

contemporary choreography and other related projects. The

Dance Forum has the expertise and experience to facilitate

and manage various developmental programmes in the

regions they want to partner with.

The Dance Forum has been resident in the Dance Space, the

new home for contemporary dance and choreography in

Newtown, Johannesburg, since June 2009. The main

objective of the Dance Space is to further develop



35 www.tin.nl

contemporary dance by means of workshops, residency

programmes, master classes as well as arts administration.

They also hope to create a reference library for contemporary

dance and a training space for arts administration. Georgina

Thomson is the director of the Dance Forum and Dance

Umbrella.

Comments and questions from the audience:

Malcolm Purkey from Market Theatre:

The role of festivals in South African theatre is huge, much

bigger than that of theatres. Festivals are also taking over the

role of education. This is demonstrated by the fact that there

are only festival directors giving a presentation here at the

expert meeting and no representatives of the theatres of

South Africa like Market and Baxter.

There are basically six cultural institutions, six big theatres in

South Africa, performing 25 plays. The rest of the time, the

theatre is empty. The government supplies money to the

theatre to be there as an empty shell. Until we in South

Africa improve the organisational structures, this will not

change.

Mahomed‟s response was that an educational programme

like Hands on! Masks off! works: practitioners learn more;

they get various kinds of lessons, workshops and lectures

which increase their chances. The Twist project discussed

earlier is a good example of this.

A small discussion started about where sponsorship should

come from. Visser told the audience that even when a show

sells out, the festival still loses money. His way of dealing

with the money issue is that he invests his own money each

year and he involves private companies in the

Voorkamerfest. Until last year, different theatres or groups

from the Netherlands 'adopted' front rooms making the

festival performances possible. However, the amount of

money for the 7th Voorkamerfest was less so Visser worked

with volunteers and raised the entrance prices. For 2011, he

will organize four tents and ask artists/producers to host

these and present their own programmes in them. In this way

the approach will extend and increase, without the

organisation losing sight of its goal.

Huyssen emphasized the importance of improving skills.

One has to develop from an early age, so the emphasis for

the future will be on education.

All the participants agreed on one thing: funding should not

just come from one side, it should come from different

directions to avoid certain economic issues around the

artistic process, like the question of ownership.

What Next? Future plans 36 www.tin.nl

What Next? Future plans

During the What Next session, partners and other artists and

organisations gave short presentations about their future

plans that had not yet been included in previous sessions.

Those giving presentations were:

Hans Huyssen, Early Music Forum Africa

Caspar Nieuwenhuis, Likeminds

Gustin Makgeledisa, Relay Productions

Lliane Loots, Flatfoot Dance Company

Georgina Thomson, The Dance Forum / Dance

Umbrella

Hans Huyssen, Early Music Forum Africa The Early Music Forum Africa (Hans Huyssen, Gerhard

Benade, Antoinette Lohmann) has various plans for the

future. The forum was started to promote early music in the

whole subcontinent, to raise funds, to organize concerts, to

coordinate educational projects throughout South Africa and

to involve interested musicians.

Under the auspices of the Forum, a national Institute for

Performance Practice Studies (IPPS) will be hosted at the

music departments of the Stellenbosch University and the

University of the Free State. The institute will act as an

agency providing the infrastructure to support tuition and

acquisition of Historically Informed Performance Practice

(HIPP) resource material (such as instruments and literature).

The institute will also support project related collaborations

and exchange with international specialists, linking these

activities to official academic institutions.

The partners plan to found a professional South African

Baroque Ensemble using period instruments under the

tutorship of members of Furor Music. The first rehearsal

session for this new ensemble is scheduled for July 2011,

with subsequent concerts in various cities. Potential members

are already being contacted at current master classes and

performances.

Another Händel project, an oratorio directed by the well-

known South African singer Kobie van Rensburg, will be

staged in August 2011 in cooperation with Furor Music.

Further smaller educational projects and performances will

also be organised, targeting and involving local musicians

and singers and creating performance opportunities in

historically informed performance practice.

Hans Huyssen

The forum is, however, the main objective and it is their

objective to train students there. Antoinette Lohmann will be

a central figure in these plans even before the Forum begins.

She will be able to bring the various parties together more

easily because she comes from outside of the South African

community. Lohmann can teach music theory as well as give

music lessons. Working with Lohmann went so well that the

partners are now thinking of hosting an international teacher

more often.

Other plans for the future:

2011 - Rock ensemble tour in South Africa

February 2011 - Collaboration with the Cape Festival

July / August 2011 - Continued collaboration with Gerhard

Benade

September 2011 - Mini baroque festival of eight varied

programmes

They would also like to organise a short tour for the Furor

Music choir in 2011


Likeminds, Caspar Nieuwenhuizen

Caspar Nieuwenhuis, Likeminds (verbatim): We‟ve been talking about sustainability for two days now. In

my opinion - and based on what I‟ve heard during this expert

meeting - sustainability has two imperatives:

It‟s imperative to invest in a next generation

It‟s imperative to provide education in the

standards of high quality art, in order to set new

standards for the future.

So here‟s the plan that will combine these two imperatives of

sustainability. In a way, the plan is like a puzzle which

contains five pieces. And I think, in terms of Interactions, we

should all put the pieces of this puzzle together, together.

The first piece is to gather a group of six young but

experienced theatre makers, who are willing and able to

work collectively on new pieces of theatre. I think they

should be somewhere in their late 20‟s, so they‟ve reached a

certain level of maturity. And I think that they should have

multiple talents and skills; in musicals, dancing, acting,

writing and production skills. In order to form a group that

can work completely self-sufficiently, without any

interference from a director or executive producer. What

they should have in common is the dream to use the theatre

as a stage to express themselves.

The second piece is: their own theatre. Their house, their

base. A theatre where they can create, perform - and fail.

And where they are coached by the artistic and business

director of the theatre, reflecting their artistic development,

to educate them in how to manage a business and how to

address funding opportunities, and (if necessary) to give

them direction when they seem to be lost.

The third piece of the puzzle: they need a distribution

network. They only need five theatres committed to this

project. Only five venues where they can perform their

pieces. But it‟s imperative that these venues are located

throughout the country. They should also pass on their

experience to a whole new generation. They should provide

workshops at schools, as a part of the distributional

infrastructure.

The fourth piece: time! They need – as Mike mentioned

earlier in his speech – time to mature. I‟d say, let‟s give them

three years to develop their own artistic signature and

business model. But it‟s important that these three years are

full time, without any obstructions whatsoever. After three

years they should be able to fly on their own.

And, then, the fifth piece of the puzzle. The most difficult

one to collect. Money. Well, I‟ve been calculating and asking

around what amount of money it would take to facilitate this

kind of group for three years. My conclusion is that, besides

the facility costs of the home theatre, it would cost us 1

Million Rand per year. That is around 90,000 Euro per year.

That‟s a lot of money, especially in the light of the budgetary

constraints in both of our countries. So how to collect that

amount of money? Well, where there‟s a will, there‟s a way.

So let‟s start in this room.

The other night I was looking at the list of participants of this

meeting, and I counted 40 participating organizations. So, 1

Million divided by 40 equals 25000 Rand per year, per

organization. For the Dutchies, that is 2,250 Euro per year,

per organization.

So, if we are really interested in sustainability, if we don‟t

want to hold a young man back from realising his dream, we

should take our credit cards right now and each pay that

25000 Rand or 2250 Euro. And the puzzle will be completed.

I‟ll hand you over the list of participants and you can fill in

the amount of money you are willing to contribute behind

your name. I‟ve already done that as you can see.

But before you all grab your credit cards and contribute these

large amounts of money, I‟ll finish my statement. In terms of

reciprocity, the question arises: what‟s in it for us? What

could be the outcome of this project? I don‟t like these kind

of questions, but they‟re on the tip of cynical tongues, that‟s

why we need to answer them.

First of all: a theatre group will have been formed with its

own artistic signature and able to sustain itself financially.

Secondly: they will have created a range of new theatre,

which could eventually be described as a library of a

particular period of time. The pieces would represent a

historical blueprint of a generation.

Thirdly: the group could be a terrific artistic partner for

Dutch groups with a similar profile. And there are a whole

bunch of them in Holland.

And last but not least: they‟ll be a landmark for future

generations with similar dreams, talents, skills and

ambitions.

I think these criteria could be a manageable and effective

blueprint for sustainability. So who‟s willing to commit?


Gustin Makgeledisa, Relay Productions Relay Production would like to continue the collaboration

with the dancers from Korzo in the Netherlands. Gustin

Makgeledisa would like to work in particular on a production

with Korzo for the New Dance Festival in the Windy Brow

Theatre in September 2011.

He also emphasized how valuable his experience in the

Netherlands was - the six weeks that he spent in The Hague

at the invitation of Big5inTown Festival taught him a lot. He

would like the Dutch dancers to come to South Africa in the

future. The dancers he brought with him from South Africa

also learnt a lot from the exchange. He talked about the

techniques learnt, the different methods and various dance

styles. But apart from these skills, the experience of being in

another country and another culture was also very valuable:

he, as well as the dancers, now see his work in a different

perspective. Such an exchange should happen more often,

and Makgeledisa is hoping to continue the collaboration in

the future.

Gustin Makgeledisa

He does not just want to work with Korzo at the level of

production, but he would also like to involve schools and

develop education programmes. Audience development can

also take place in this way, outreach work can be extended.

This is another of Makgeledisa‟s plans for the future:

audience development.

Lliane Loots, Flatfoot Dance Company Flatfoot Dance Company (FDC) has been collaborating with

Introdans for three years now, and the best practices

developed from the collaboration will be presented in 2011.

Introdans will be coming to Durban in 2012 for a dance

festival. The collaboration between the Flatfoot Dance

Company and Introdans will be developed as follows:

Lliane Loots

February 2011 - one of the Introdans dancers/Interaction

teachers will come and work with Flatfoot Dance Company

for 2 weeks. They will perform with FDC at the Dance

Umbrella 2011 in a work created by Lliane Loots called

‘Bloodlines’. They will also give workshops in both Durban

(with FDC) and in Johannesburg - as part of the Dance

Umbrella platform.

September 2012 - Introdans will travel to Durban, South

Africa to perform at the JOMBA! 2012 festival and

alongside this performance they will give workshops and

master classes. Adriaan Luteijn and his team will also run a

development programme with young Durban-based dancers


coming from Flatfoot's community dance projects. The work

will premier at the JOMBA! Festival. Many of these young

dancers have worked with Introdans in 2009.

The two dance groups share methodologies and skills. With

the involvement of the University of Cape Town (UCT), the

collaboration will be developed with regards to education.

The Dance Forum

Georgina Thomson

The contemporary dance community in Southern Africa

works in an isolated environment and for many reasons, such

as lack of funding, accessibility, lack of resources and

network, they do not have a regular and supported

programme of development within the sector, especially in

areas that are considered rural and/or remote.

The Dance Forum in association with Associação Centro de

Pesquisa Coreográfica (Mozambique) and Emio Greco | PC

(the Netherlands) want to create a two-year project that will

focus on the development and support of people who are

interested in working in contemporary dance in the Southern

Africa region. It will be a partnership that focuses on the

training of selected dancers/choreographers as well as on the

support of marginalized sectors within these regions.

There is not a formal training infrastructure or

companies/organizations within the region that the Dance

Forum wants to collaborate with and one of the main

objectives in their absence will be to try and assist potential

dance practitioners to build a career within the sector whilst

maintaining themselves. The process will be to set-up

ongoing training programmes addressing various aspects of

practitioners‟ needs. The partnership will ensure that each

party in the programme will have an opportunity to work in a

region that is not their own in order to start the creation of a

dance network.

Georgina Thomson, Gerhard Benade, Adriaan Luteijn

Part of the process will be to send selected participants to

Amsterdam for a special training programme with Emio

Greco | PC. Emio will also come to South Africa to facilitate

a workshop that will include South African and Mozambican

artists. Partnership is of great importance for the funding of

the festival.

The main objective of the project will be to create a network

of dance practitioners in the Southern Africa region which

includes experienced teachers, choreographers and dancers.

The intention of this is to generate activity in the Southern

Africa region itself rather than dance practitioners from the

region only meeting at festivals and dance events abroad.

What Next? Conclusion by policymakers 40 www.tin.nl

What Next? Conclusion by policymakers

In this What Next? session, the following policy makers

drew their conclusions from the past three days

Margriet Leemhuis, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

(NL)

Willemijn in 't Veld, Fund for Culture Participation

(NL)

Annebelle Lebethe, CEO National Arts Council

South Africa (SA)

Michelle Constant, Business Arts South Africa

(SA)

Arjen Davidse, Music Center the Netherlands (NL)

Henk Scholten, Theater Instituut Nederland (NL)

Mike van Graan, Arterial Network / African Arts

Institute (SA)

Chirikure Chirikure, HIVOS Regional Office,

Southern Africa (Zimbabwe)

Dutch and South African policymakers

Mike van Graan, Arterial Network / African Arts

Institute Conclusions:

1. Place the Interactions SA-NL programme in the

context of the UNESCO Convention regarding

cultural co-operation, dialogue, etc. The focus of

the past days has been on organic South African -

Dutch performing arts collaborations. Locate this in

the context of the UNESCO Conventions, which I

discussed in the keynote speech.

2. We talked about funding, about direct

development. EU funding might be available if the

programme satisfies development criteria

3. The most important question is: why the

Netherlands? Why South Africa wants to work with

the Netherlands has to be clearly justified. There

are old ties and a shared cultural background.

Arterial Network is in fact a pilot for South Africa and the

rest of Africa, given that it connects different countries,

companies and groups in the field of art and culture with

each other.

This could also be used as a pilot for Europe: we could build

direct relationships. The markets should be opening up so

that artists have access to all the cultural markets around the

world, they should be able to go back and forth between two

countries, two cultural markets.

When Dutch performing artists or groups come to South

Africa and start collaborating with SA partners, there are a

number of things that they should be aware of:

1. You have to respond to South African needs. You

have to listen to what partners say they need and

what sort of collaboration they want. It has to be

clear why the Dutch are „needed‟, and what both

partners can offer each other.

2. You have to take into account, and work with, the

resources that are available. South Africa has a

great deal to offer. However, you have to be aware

that there is a lack of certain resources such as the

technology which the Dutch are perhaps used to

using.

3. The expertise available in South Africa, as well as

the expertise that the Dutch partner can bring,

should be identified. What can be expected and

learnt from each other?

4. Collaboration should be stimulated in both

countries. Not just the Dutch coming to South

Africa to perform and co-produce, but vice versa as

well. The exchange has to be reciprocal to be a

genuine collaborative programme, a genuine

exchange.


So the question is: who is going to take it further? Should we

have three people in the Netherlands and three in South

Africa? I believe that there should be a project manager in

South Africa, like Jeanneke den Boer in the Netherlands, but

we need one here, to facilitate the process and to investigate

what cultural programmes there are in South Africa.

We need to draw up an inventory of funding possibilities and

relevant international programmes in the Netherlands. And

we also have to draw up an inventory of what there is in

South Africa - what companies or organisations can support

international and intercultural collaboration.

Is there still money available in the Netherlands? There

probably is, but via organisations. They have resources.

What is our programme and is there an organisation we can

apply to? The government provides a lot in the Netherlands,

but we have to find other means of support.

One idea could be to instigate people-to-people initiatives.

There are plenty of Dutch people interested in this country,

interested in the art and culture, and interested in

intercultural collaborations. What if we find as little as 700

people who are interested and willing to commit 85 Euro a

month?

Another means of raising money are events. We can organize

huge concerts, and the profits can go into a trust that will

support these SA-NL collaborations.

Or we could use the fact that South Africa is such a popular

holiday destination. Tourist programmes structured around

festivals and other cultural events where 1000 Rand could go

into this trust. Or joint CD releases.

There is another option: twinning. What if we twin a city in

Europe to a city in South Africa? The local government can

get support and organize cultural events and intercultural

collaborations can be started.

UNESCO promotes diversity, and it has access to other

international resources.

What is important is that there are alternatives. We must

think outside the box.

Annabelle Lebethe, Mike van Graan, Chikurere Chikurere

Annebelle Lebethe, National Arts Council South

Africa We should find and use different approaches. We should

identify other players. How do we identify businesses that

are willing to commit themselves to the arts and culture

sector? The funding should come from these businesses. We

should not rely on government money only. If you as a group

want to engage a commercial company in your collaboration

as well, see if there is something in it for them, then there

would definitely be money available. Try to engage them, try

to open up to these possibilities. We can find 60 companies

who are willing to commit for a period of three years, and we

can continue with the programmes and projects. We can

make it broader as well.

Do research. Broadly speaking, there are many potential

partners throughout the country, just ask the festival panel.

What is the policy of each festival? […] The range of

festivals is huge, but the gap between them and the artist is

too wide. We, the National Arts Council, are willing to open

up, willing to engage with partners, willing to sponsor

projects.

There should be professional markets for our national artists,

we should be exposing them to the world. We should use a

stepping-stone methodology, to ensure that young talent

from very different cultural backgrounds can develop within

the arts. We must create an audience, nationally and

internationally.

Michelle Constant, Business & Arts South Africa Mike raised the idea of the „protocol‟ which is a good idea. It

could serve as a framework for international collaboration.

There is a need for checks and balances. We need a

framework. We need a certain infrastructure.

Do we need a project manager, etc? We must look

internationally to see who else wants to come onboard. It is

not only the Netherlands which wants to collaborate with

South Africa, we can build on this and then make the

collaboration more extensive. But a framework is needed, we

need a format, a structure, for transparency – „where does the

funding come from?‟ and questions like that.

Another issue she addressed is the concept of collaboration.

What does this mean? A collaboration demands equal

partnership. It is too easy to say: „give me the money‟. Both

partners should benefit from the collaboration, should get

something valuable; we are talking about synchronicity.

When we talk about funding, the relationship is unequal. We

should rebalance these relationships.

There is a question of value, what is the value of these

collaborations? How do we measure this? It is a different

model in arts and culture than in sport, for example. We must

figure it out and see what it is, what kind of model we can

use.


She said she is talking about the principles that Mike already

given us, approaching individuals. Look at Business Arts

South Africa (BASA), it offers a mentorship programme

with 80 mentors giving guidance to managers in the field of

arts. They are businesses people: instead of money, they can

offer intellectual, moral, financial and marketing support and

advice. There is a possibility for structural mentorship, which

can be beneficial for both parties.

This matching of not-for-profit arts and cultural

organisations with suitably qualified business professionals,

enables the arts organisations to fulfil their governance

requirements, whilst also securing the necessary expertise at

a strategic board level. In this two-way relationship, the arts

sector becomes more sustainable by improving its corporate

governance, and business professionals gain the opportunity

to satisfy Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the

arts sector. Look at Boardbank, for example, bringing

together arts organisations and business professionals.

What is sustainability? What is absolutely necessary for

sustainability?

1. Organisational abilities in place.

2. Planning: plan three years in advance. A 3 year

policy plan like Miracle Arts Lab has, is

fundamental.

3. Funding.

4. And most of all: passion. “Passion is the most

important thing. One should be passionate about

this, I am.”

Itumeleng Mokgope, Chirikure Chirikure, Henk Scholten

Chirikure Chirikure, HIVOS Regional Office,

Southern Africa (Zimbabwe) We have local offices in South Africa, and a collaborative

programme with partners in South Africa. One level where

we can help out practically: festival support. We can help

festivals open their doors to community groups.

Emancipation, democratization and poverty alleviation -

these are key to the work of HIVOS in the developing world.

HIVOS is a secular organisation that operates according to

humanist principles. In terms of arts and culture, HIVOS

stimulates and supports projects in Southern-Africa die

betrekking hebben op:

Artistic production;

Cultural and artistic exchange;

Promotion, marketing and distribution;

Cultural infrastructure;

(Member) organisations of artists;

Economic or educational services for the arts &

culture sector;

Organisations that provide a podium for artists;

Capacity-building initiatives;

Research and feedback [on the organisation and

management of] the arts.

An example of a project supported by HIVOS is the Flatfoot

Dance Company. HIVOS also made the JOMBA! festival

possible.

Arjen Davidse, Music Center the Netherlands These past three days have been very inspiring. The question

is: what next? An important reason why we're asking this, is

because we are not finished yet after at least three of four

years of co-operation – and careers. Four music careers have

been started here in South Africa. We now want a „vice versa

effect‟, we want to make the relationships equal. There are

lots of South African bands and projects in the Netherlands

but what we need to do is to have South African careers

grown in the Netherlands as well as Dutch careers in South

Africa. We should use the same relationships we're using

now, but take them further. What we need is: trust, the right

people, a network, we should invest time and one should do

one‟s job properly.

Margriet Leemhuis, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in

the Netherlands Trust. That is exactly what we need. When we started with

Interactions SA-NL, we knew we wanted to support

collaborations between the Netherlands and South Africa.

TIN and MCN did not have a plan but I trusted them. I knew

the Dutch – South African relationship had existed for a long

time already, all we needed to do was to pick this up again.

What we need is passion. Energy. I need passion and energy

to do my job, and based on what I have seen these last few

days, that is what there is: passion and energy. And I am very

much encouraged by the fact that directors of national arts

institutes like Performing Arts Network of South Africa

(PANSA), Business & Arts South Africa (BASA), National

Arts Council of South Africa (NAC) and of theatres and

festivals were also here for the full two days.

There needs to be a South African project manager, maybe

even more then one, maybe an organisation or organisations.

To go back to what Mike just said, that an inventory of

relevant international programmes is needed, we should take

a look at the organisation SICA: the Dutch Centre for

International Cultural Activities. They have already


produced a list of the organisations, funding organisations

and programmes in the Netherlands that are involved

internationally with culture. They will also be updating the

website Power of Culture which can provide a lot of relevant

information. I am very interested in the continuity of the

cultural relationship with South-Africa. It needs to grow

organically, we need to continue, but on an equal basis.

Willemijn in 't Veld, Fund for Culture Participation Our organisation (Fund for Culture Participation) encourages

people to take part in art and culture. We, as an organisation,

focus on community arts, on the non-profit field. Our budget

is meant for the Netherlands only, but we would like to

investigate the options to broaden this, that is one of the

reasons I am here. We want to open up, we want to invite

international artists to come to the Netherlands. And I have

seen beautiful things and projects here.

Henk Scholten, Michelle Constant, Willemijn in 't Veld

Henk Scholten, Theater Instituut Nederland Most of the things I‟d like to say have already been said. I

just want to thank everyone for contributing, participating in

this meeting. I am very moved by everything I have seen and

heard. And this makes it necessary to go on. Why did the

Netherlands start this programme? Michelle has answered

that already, but let me explain why TIN got involved.

We came in contact with South African artists and felt

strongly connected, we wanted to work with South African

artists. We are working with artists who are focusing on the

artistic process and artists who are focusing on society. The

arts are engaging more and more with community audiences.

The community and the arts are becoming intertwined. In our

perspective, it is very important to support theatre arts at

every level; not only at a professional level. We, the TIN, are

there for everyone. We found it very important for Dutch

artists to collaborate and to take this experience back to the

Netherlands, which means that Interactions SA-NL is a

reciprocal programme. That is one reason why every single

collaboration supported by Interactions SA-NL has been

fruitful.

One of the conditions of Interactions SA-NL was that we

would only support collaborations or productions in South

Africa so we were not able to fund a South African project in

the Netherlands. I think we should change this in the future

and support productions in both countries.

So how do we continue? Are we ready to continue? But we

should not only be dependant on the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs for funding. We need to look for other possibilities

on the Dutch side. We could maybe form a coalition of

partners. But what is very important: the conditions cannot

be the same. This programme cannot be just supported from

the Dutch side. It should not come from one side only.

What Next? After the policy makers had expressed their findings, it was

time for „What Next‟. Everyone had made suggestions and

now it was the audience‟s turn:

Everyone wants to go on and they see possibilities

for worthwhile collaboration between the

Netherlands and South Africa: the passion is there

in any case

A relationship of equality is required for further

collaboration/co-operation

Equal funding is a precondition; the funding has to

come from both sides to ensure that an equitable

relationship can develop

Together with the audience, it was decided that we needed a

panel of people to write a proposal and that these people

would have to be South Africans. The majority of

participants agreed that they would be Mike van Graan,

Michelle Constant, Annebelle Lebethe and Yvette Hardie.

The four people will come together as individuals, and not as

the representatives of organisations, and they will draw up a

document about how the Interactions SA-NL project can be

taken further. The participants will receive this proposal at

the end of January.

Conclusion Expert Meeting After two inspiring days in which new insights, information

and ideas were exchanged, it was a significant result that

those attending would like to collaborate further albeit with a

protocol for equitable collaboration. The small commission

of South African delegates is going to draw up a proposal as

to how that can be given form from the South African side.

We have received a lot of enthusiastic responses and we are

very satisfied with the three days. The Interactions SA-NL

team would like to thank everyone for their participation and

valuable contribution to the expert meeting.

44

www.interactions-sa-nl.nl

Colophon

This is the report of the Expert Meeting Interactions SA-NL.

Report compiled by:

Heske van den Ende

Editors: Jeanneke den Boer Mawgosia Bos

Heske van den Ende

Terry Ezra

Translations:

Terry Ezra

With contributions from:

All participants of the expert meeting

With thanks to: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Pretoria

Performing Arts Fund, The Hague

Fund Culture Participation, Utrecht African Arts Institute, Cape Town

Goethe Institute, Johannesburg And many others

Design:

Atelier van GOG

Photography: Jeanneke den Boer

Heske van den Ende

WWW.TIN.NL

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Nederland

Postal address:

Theater Instituut Nederland

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Expertmeeting Interactions SA-NL

Documents

interactions sanl programme

south cultural exchange

artistic collaboration

south africa introduction

business arts south

successful expert meeting

theatre companies

process of collaboration