sustained theatre

Further blogs from the Sector artists can be found be visiting this link The South Africa Blogs! Sector Artists Respond

A key extract from the blog written by Regional Hub member Johnathan Mann on his recent visit to Grahamstown Festival.

Johnathan Mann

This was my first visit to South Africa and the Grahamstown festival. I grew up hearing about the horrors of the apartheid struggle leading to the euphoric release of Nelson Mandela. However I arrived at the festival without expectations, just eager to see artistically what another continent had on offer.

It was an honour to be able to attend this festival, to see such strong African work and mixed audiences. I also met many theatre practitioners working passionately and without complaint despite the lack of resources, and I admired their practical attitude to theatre making.

Strategically, there appears to be a gap in resources, skills and knowledge with children’s theatre. This sector has is much more developed here in the UK, and sharing expertise could have a strong long term benefit to this less developed sector in South Africa and offer opportunities for dialogue and collaboration. Also it would be interesting to explore how universities here and abroad could work in partnership with artists to with mentoring, resource sharing and presenting work, a model that Rhodes University is pioneering on a local level in Grahamstown. And it was useful to see the value in finding ways in general to potentially collaborate and inspire each other here and there as artists.

My final thought - the Sustained Theatre group attending this festival were often referred to as “The Brits” which was interesting to see. It has been great to have been able to share my experiences with local artists here now I’m back in the UK, and to see the long term international opportunities, connections and partnerships that can be nurtured in the quest to tell new stories and create new work.