Grahamstown Festival
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Grahamstown Festival
The National Arts Festival (NAF) is an annual festival of performing arts in Grahamstown, South Africa. It is the largest arts festival on the African continent and one of the largest performing arts festivals in the world by visitor numbers. The festival runs for 11 days, from the last week of June to the first week of July every year. It takes place in the small university city of Makhanda (previously known as Grahamstown), in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The NAF comprises a Main programme and a Fringe festival, both administered by the National Arts Festival Office, a non-profit Section 21 Company. The Festival programme includes performing arts (theatre, dance, stand-up comedy and live music), visual art exhibitions, films, talks and workshops, a large food and craft fair and historical tours of the city. The NAF runs a children's arts festival over the same period and a number of other festivals take place in Makhanda over the period of the NAF, such as the Nat ...
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Standard Bank
Standard Bank Group Limited is a major South African bank and financial services group. It is Africa's biggest lender by assets. The company's corporate headquarters, Standard Bank Centre, is situated in Simmonds Street, Johannesburg. History The bank now known as Standard Bank was formed in 1862 as a South African subsidiary of the British overseas bank Standard Bank, under the name The Standard Bank of South Africa. The bank's origins can be traced to 1862, when a group of businessmen led by the prominent South African politician John Paterson formed a bank in London, initially under the name Standard Bank of British South Africa. The bank started operations in 1863 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and soon after opening it merged with several other banks including the ''Commercial Bank of Port Elizabeth'', the Colesberg Bank, the British Kaffrarian Bank and the ''Fauresmith Bank''. It was prominent in financing and development of the diamond fields of Kimberley in 1867. ...
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Nontsikelelo Veleko
Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko (born 19 August 1977) is a South African photographer most noted for her depiction of black identity, urbanisation and fashion in post-apartheid South Africa. Life and work Veleko was born on (19 August 1977 in Bodibe, North West (South African province) ). She studied from 1995 to 2003 at the Cape Teknion in Cape Town and attended Luhlaza High School in Khayelitsha. In 1995, she studied graphic design at the Cape Technikon. After moving to Johannesburg, she studied photography at the Market Theatre Photo Workshop (1999–2004), the institution that was organized by David Goldblatt, who provide the formal training to young photographers. In 2003, Veleko documented graffiti throughout Cape Town and Johannesburg, a series she titles ''The ones on top won't make it Stop!'' in her first solo exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. These photographs encapsulated the social and political atmosphere of post-apartheid South Africa. This same year, Velek ...
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Johnny Clegg
Jonathan Paul Clegg, (7 June 195316 July 2019) was a South African musician, singer-songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and anti-apartheid activist, some of whose work was in musicology focused on the music of indigenous South African peoples. His band Juluka began as a duo with Sipho Mchunu, and was the first group in the South African apartheid-era with a white man and a black man. The pair performed and recorded, later with an expanded lineup. In 1986 Clegg founded the band Savuka, and also recorded as a solo act, occasionally reuniting with his earlier band partners. Sometimes called ''Le Zoulou Blanc'' (, for "The White Zulu"), he was an important figure in South African popular music and a prominent white figure in the resistance to apartheid, becoming for a period the subject of investigation by the security branch of the South African Police. His songs mixed English with Zulu lyrics, and also combined idioms of traditional African music with those of modern Western ...
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Bonnie Ntshalintshali
Bonnie Ntshalintshali (1 January 1967 – 31 December 1999) was a South African ceramicist and sculptor. Early life Bonnie Mayvee Ntshalintshali was born on a farm in the Winterton district of KwaZulu-Natal in 1967. As a girl she survived polio and was considered unsuited to heavy physical farm work, so she was apprenticed to learn ceramics with Fée Halsted-Berning at Ardmore Ceramics. They first worked together in 1985. She had some further training at the University of Natal in 1990. Career At Ardmore, knee grow was at first an apprentice, but in time she and Halsted ran the studio more as partners. In 1988 Ntshalintshali won the Corobrik National Ceramics Award. She and Halsted were jointly named winners of a Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 1990. The catalogue for this exhibition, written by South African fine artist Andrew Verster, described Ntshalintshali's ceramics as follows: "The characters in Bonnie's work, the animals, the birds and the people are all individuals ...
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Robyn Orlin
Robyn Orlin (born 1955) is a South African dancer and choreographer, born in Johannesburg. Nicknamed in South Africa "a permanent irritation", she is well known for reflecting the difficult and complex realities in her country. Integrating different media (text, video, plastic arts) she investigates a certain theatrical reality which has enabled her to find her unique choreographic vocabulary. Choreographies *198? : ''I'm Skilled at the Art of Falling Apart'' *1990 : ''If You Can’t Change the World Change Your Curtains'' *1996 : ''Naked on a goat'' (prix FNB Vita) *1999 : ''Daddy, I’ve Seen This Piece Six Times Before and I Still Don’t Know Why They’re Hurting Each Other'' *2000 : ''F.(Untitled)'' (On Trying to Understand a Classic) *2001 : ''The future may be bright, but it’s not necessarily orange…'' in collaboration with Ann Crosset *2001 : 'We Must Eat Our Suckers With the Wrapper On' *2002 : ''Ski-Fi-Jenni'' *2004 : ''Although I live inside... my hair will ...
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Sibongile Khumalo
Sibongile Khumalo (24 September 1957 – 28 January 2021) was a South African singer and song writer. She sang classical, jazz, opera and traditional South African music. She was noted for singing at the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in 1994, as well as the final of the Rugby World Cup the following year. She was appointed to the Order of Ikhamanga in 2008. Early life Khumalo was born in Orlando West, Soweto, in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 24 September 1957. Her mother worked as a nurse; her father, Khabi Mngoma, was a Professor of music. He inspired her to pursue music and Khumalo started learning when she was eight years old. She studied music at the University of Zululand, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts from that institution. She proceeded to earn a second Bachelor of Arts (with honours) from the University of the Witwatersrand, along with a Postgraduate Diploma in Personnel Management from the Wits Business School. Career Academia Khumalo taught at her alma mater ...
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Jane Alexander (artist)
Jane Alexander (born 1959) is one of the most celebrated artists in South Africa. She is a female artist best known for her sculpture, '' The Butcher Boys''. She works in sculpture, photomontages, photography and video. Alexander is interested in human behavior, conflicts in history, cultural memories of abuse and the lack of global interference during apartheid. Alexander's work is relevant both in the current Post- Apartheid social environment in South Africa and abroad. Biography Alexander was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1959. She grew up in the peak of South African Apartheid in the early 1980s. Growing up during the time of apartheid in South Africa, Alexander was sheltered from the police and street violence of the time until she moved to Braamfotein, South Africa to be closer to her university. Apartheid – an Afrikaans word meaning “separateness” - was a system of racial segregation in South Africa that lasted from 1948-1994. Apartheid legislation creat ...
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Bongani Ndodana-Breen
Bongani Ndodana-Breen (born 1975, in Queenstown, Cape Province, Republic of South Africa), is a South African-born composer, musician, academic and cultural activist. He is a member of the Xhosa clan. He was educated at St. Andrew's College and Rhodes University in Grahamstown (where he graduated with a PhD in Music Composition) and also studied composition in Stellenbosch under Roelof Temmingh. In 1998 Ndodana-Breen was the first Black classical composer to be awarded the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, by the National Arts Festival and sponsored by Standard Bank of South Africa. He was one of Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans and was profiled on CNN ''African Voices'' for his work ''Harmonia Ubuntu'' commissioned for the centenary of Nelson Mandela and based on his writings and speeches. He is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University for the 2019/2020 academic year. Dr. Ndodana-Breen's music is a blend of African and classical ...
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Brett Murray
Brett Murray (born 1961) is a South African artist mostly known for his steel and mixed media wall sculptures. He was born in Pretoria, South Africa. Murray has a master's degree in fine art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, 1989. Referred to by critic Brenda Atkinson as "the dark prince of South African pop (art)", Murray is one of the country's most popular artists, often using easily recognisable media images with the addition of a subversive and bitterly funny twist. Murray's work addresses the wars of the cultures, the clash between Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism, the old and the new South Africas. "With my work I hope to critically entertain. Through satirical and tragic reflections on South Africa, I hope to shift people's perspectives and change people's minds, indulgent, arrogant and pretentious as this might sound," he says. More recently, his work has explored his own personal experiences and identity. Murray was also the founder of the sculpture department at ...
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Sello Maake Ka-Ncube
Sello Maake kaNcube (born 12 March 1960) is a South African actor. He has worked in his native land as well as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Europe. Early life Maake kaNcube was born in Orlando, Soweto, South Africa. He later moved to Atteridgeville, Pretoria, where he grew up. He changed his surname to Maake kaNcube in honour of his stepfather and his biological father. He holds a master's degree in script writing from the University of Leeds. Work Theatre He performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company and at London's West End. The plays he performed in include: *Othello, based on William Shakespeare's play, Othello *The Suit, based on Can Themba's short story, '' The Suit'' *Smallholding *Raisin in the Sun *The Good Woman of Sharkville *Guess Who's Coming for Dinner *Prophets in The Black Sky *The Lion King, based on the 1994 animated classic, ''The Lion King'' *Aaron *Titus Andronicus, based on Shakespeare's play, ''Titus Andronicus'' Filmography He has ap ...
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Berni Searle
Berni Searle (born 7 July 1964 in Cape Town, South Africa) is an artist who works with photography, video, and film to produce lens-based installations that stage narratives connected to history, identity, memory, and place. Often politically and socially engaged, her work also draws on universal emotions associated with vulnerability, loss and beauty. Searle lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa and is currently Associate Professor at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. Early life Searle was born on July 7, 1964 in Cape Town, South Africa to parents of African and German-English ancestry. As a mixed race person growing up during apartheid in South Africa, Searle was categorized as "Coloured," a label that she later rejected and challenged through her art post-apartheid. Education Searle received her BA in Fine Art in 1987 and a postgraduate diploma in Education in 1988 from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Afte ...
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Tutu Puoane
Tutu Puoane (31 May 1979, Atteridgeville, Pretoria-) is a South African Jazz singer. She grew up in the township of Mamelodi, Pretoria. By 1997 she had already been performing in Johannesburg downtown. Realizing her passion for singing, Tutu went on to study jazz vocals at the University of Cape Town with Jelena Reveshin and Virginia Davids. She received several awards from major South African jazz competitions. In 2000 she won the old mutual jazz encounters for Cape region and in 2001 she received a merit award for young promising talent at the Daimler Chrysler South African jazz competition. When she completed her vocal studies at the music college of the University of Cape, a recording contract from a major South African music record label was already offered to her but she turned it down. She accepted a greater opportunity offered by Dutch pianist Jack van Poll – who was living and teaching in Cape Town at the time – to go and study in Europe and enhance her career as ...
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