sustained theatre

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

Tyrone Huggins

My time in Grahamstown involved a lot of meetings. My previous visit here had been paid for on a credit card when I could not secure any funding. On that occasion I was seeing about six or seven shows a day. I was on my own, but soon hooked up with a few UK, South African and other international artists. This time I had the responsibility of taking back any insights I discovered to the West Midlands regional hub, as well as sitting in what should have been the seat occupied by Mukhtar Dar from The Drum in Birmingham who could not make it to the Festival but had asked me to represent him alongside Dutch, Belgian and UK producers who were planning a festival for 2010 called AfroVibes. This time I had the welcome company of the Sustained Theatre Representatives from the other regions and I was able to vicariously experience more shows through them.

AfroVibes held breakfast meetings every day at 9am for an hour or so and Sustained Theatre held meetings at 4pm most days then there were the network meetings at 6pm. I have to admit that I was keener to meet the people than to see the shows as I have ambitions to work in South Africa in collaboration with artists with whom I could relate.

But in amongst the meetings I had many wonderful inspiring and sometimes troubling conversations and made similar discoveries. And I did see some shows!

There were two artists I met who were truly inspiring. The first was Gregory Maqoma. He is a dancer and choreographer with his own company Vuyani Dance Theatre. He is also due to be artistic director of AfroVibe and Johannesburg’s Dance Umbrella in 2010. We shared a conversation in which he expressed his regret at the loss of so many good South African Dancers abroad, but a complete understanding of why such artists would need to do so for their own self development. It took me back to my time on the Board and as Chairman of Phoenix Dance company when some of those we spoke of joined us in Leeds. We talked of the infrastructure we were developing with Sustained Theatre, he was amazed to discover it and brooded on the impossibility of ever being able to summon up the resources in South Africa to achieve what we are achieving here in the UK. The second was Keorapetse Kgositsile or ‘Bra Willie’ as he is also known. I look forward to meeting him again when he arrives in the UK this Autumn as part of Beyond Words, a tour of five South African Poets.

I left South Africa with a mission to return there soon and get on with the work I dream of achieving there.