This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

19th September 2009

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They’re odd creatures, teenagers; or, rather, they have an odd effect. Adult patrons at theatres, concert halls and other terribly sophisticated arts venues feel anxious shivers down their spines when a group of adolescents walk in – an anxiety confirmed by loud whispers during the overture and aggravated by sporadic giggles.

Every now and again, however, the tables are turned and adults find themselves in the minority. This happened to me at the Joburg Theatre last week, when I attended a matinee performance of the SA Ballet Theatre’s Giselle staged primarily for school pupils – an event forming part of Johannesburg’s Arts Alive Festival. In that context, a strange alchemy occurred: I heard in the whispers an enthusiastic engagement with the production (“Who is she?”; “What’s that one doing?”; “Look at his costume!”), while the giggles were signs of delight at the spectacle onstage and bemusement at the unwritten codes that dictate when it is appropriate to applaud. 

This article first appeared in SAWUBONA magazine 

September 2009

Let me tell you about a certain country.

Like the other countries with which it shares a vast continent, this land was for centuries a colony exploited by European powers. When it established independence from its “mother country” many years ago, this did not bring freedom to most of its people – the colonial legacy of ethnicity-based inequality remained. After a twentieth century dominated by militaristic and totalitarian rule, it has only comparatively recently emerged as a civil democracy and is now one of the leading “countries of the South”.

This article first appeared in THE MAIL & GUARDIAN

29th May 2009

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The first scholarly journal, it is commonly believed, was the Journal des Scavans (in modern French, savants: “those who know” or, more prosaically, persons of learning). It appeared in January 1665 and was followed, a few months later, by the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. As networks of “learned gentlemen” – encompassing both major and minor figures in Europe’s so-called Age of Enlightenment – became formalised on either side of the English Channel, similar publications accommodated a proliferation of scientific theories, political tracts and historiographical miscellania.

Critics such as Zygmunt Bauman have shown, however, that these self-styled hommes des idées et des lettres were not disinterested promoters of reason and the quest for knowledge. For Bauman, as “the Enlightenment reached its full maturity” in the eighteenth century, an age began in which “a managed society, a society consciously designed, planned and supervised by the centralised power [of the state]” was an implementable reality. Who would design the model? Les philosophes, of course – the intellectuals. Who would transfer it to the people? Les professeurs – the educators.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

25th April 2009

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We tend to think of the ancient Greeks as a serious bunch: bearded men in flowing robes engaged in earnest conversation about life, the universe and everything. This, certainly, is the image bequeathed to us by Italian Renaissance painters – Plato and Aristotle discussing philosophy at the Athenian Academy and so on.

But life in Athens had another side. The Greeks, like the Romans after them, preferred being entertained. In the theatre, comedies were written and staged more often than tragedies. While tragic tales of the suffering of noble individuals were depicted for moral or religious edification, the experiences of everyday citizens were portrayed comically. Moreover, commentary on current events was the terrain of comedy rather than tragedy.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

11th April 2009

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Things haven’t always been rosy in the relationship between Oasis and Coke (the cola, that is – although the same could be said, no doubt, of their relationship with the white powdery stuff).

The British supergroup, driven by the love-hate relationship and creative genius of Gallagher brothers Noel and Liam, has leapt from fame to infamy across the global music scene since it first topped the charts in 1995. But even before their second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? established them as bad-boy Britpop icons, the brothers had achieved a certain notoriety in the beverage industry.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

4th April 2009

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The Main programme of this year’s National Arts Festival was launched earlier this week, heralding a “new face” for the Festival in 2009 – or, more accurately, faces.

Two of those new faces are CEO Tony Lankester and Director Ismail Mahomed, who continue to joke modestly that the departure of former Festival head Lynette Marais after twenty years at the helm left a void that could only be filled by making two appointments.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

15th November 2008

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Tuesday 4th November 2008 will be remembered by most global citizens as the day Barack Obama was voted in as president of the United States. For a small group of South Africans, however, the day will have additional resonance.

As Americans went to the polls in their millions, the results of a different vote were announced at a ceremony in Johannesburg: the Standard Bank Young Artist awards in the categories of dance, drama, visual art, music and jazz.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

8th November 2008

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Some time ago, I spent a week with a group of journalists from Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. After a few days, conversation began to dwindle – and, in a misguided attempt to fill the awkward silence one dinnertime, I remarked on the twentieth-century connections between South Africa and Eastern Europe, and Russia in particular. I went through a brief list of apartheid-era exiles who spent time in Moscow, mentioned the support the resistance movement received from the Soviets, and concluded by observing that the SA Communist Party was an ally of the current ruling party and active in matters of government.

Perhaps I had seemed too light-hearted or too smug in rattling off these facts, because my Russian colleague wasted no time in telling me off: “You think that’s good? I can tell you, it’s not good. You ask any of the people at this table – we all lived behind the Iron Curtain. Communism was terrible! Communism is terrible!”

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

5th April 2008

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They were, in many ways, two exquisitely South African scenes. In the first, Vusi Mahlasela sang songs of forgiveness and joy and mourning to a multiracial – although predominantly pale – multigenerational audience. A cloudy Table Mountain presided over the occasion. It was the opening event of the Kirstenbosch summer season of outdoor concerts, and it was good. In the second, arch rocker and alternative-Afrikaner icon Karen Zoid and her band jammed with Selaelo Selota, whose acoustic guitar and lyrics fuse jazz with the music of mineworkers on the reef and traditional Pedi songs. The landscape was the same, although the weather was better: bright sunshine and blue skies. It was near the end of the Kirstenbosch season of concerts, but it was still good.

To the careful observer, however, both occasions were also replete with (specifically South African) moments of irony.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

8th March 2008

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You had to feel for Dawn Lindberg. She didn’t see it coming.

The fifth edition of the Naledi Theatre Awards (Lindberg’s “baby” – she is the Executive Director) had gone as well as could be expected. Some of the celebrities who were announcing the awards had botched their reading of the nominees; the presenters had made their fair share of shoddy jokes; a number of the recipients were not there to collect their awards; but, on the whole, a good time had been enjoyed by all.