In many ways, the Fringe programme is the beating heart of the National Arts Festival (NAF). It’s where works are debuted, ideas are tested, reviews are garnered, and awards are won. It’s where some of South Africa’s best-known theatre-makers have started out, and where they
Dave Mann is a monthly contributor for Creative Feel, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. I am thinking about work. There are two reasons for this, one of them being that as I write this, Johannesburg – the city where I make a living – is busy lurching into action as the
Dave Mann is a monthly contributor for Creative Feel, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. ‘I just go with the flow. With my work, I don’t sketch, I just go straight onto the canvas. I don’t like planning, that’s the thing – I draw what I
Drawing, electrical engineering, the making of The Lion King, and devotedly staring at the front of The Market Theatre are only a few of the unlikely threads running through the story of South African theatre-making outfit, Theatre Duo. As the name implies, Theatre Duo comprises
On a dry and windy afternoon in Johannesburg’s Maboneng, Lidudumalingani Mqombothi is seated in the corner of a small coffee shop, watching the day play out on Fox Street. Inside, it’s quiet and secluded – a bit of respite from the city, and a room
Dave Mann is an editor and award-winning arts journalist. Back in 2013, if you were to drive along Johannesburg’s M1 freeway you might have seen a custom-designed billboard that posed a single question to the city: Who is Anastasia Pather? A Durban-born Johannesburger who, as a
Creativity @ Work is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. Jake Singer is always busy with something. When the Johannesburg-based sculptor and multimedia artist’s not working with his hands, it’s his mind that’s busying itself through books or conversation, and
Creativity @ Work is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. ‘Arriving in the Netherlands was shocking. Because I realised immediately, something I oddly enough had never experienced before: that I am African,’ explains multi-disciplinary artist and educator Heidi Sincuba
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. On a busy Saturday morning, theatre-maker, writer, and visual artist Sue Pam-Grant is inside her studio, quietly working away as she does most mornings. Outside, cars and trucks struggle up
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. Towards the close of 2018, a commonly accepted time for reflection, I spent an afternoon digging through a collection of dusty boxes containing the various items I’d collected
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. Earlier this year, I enjoyed the strange experience of watching a live theatrical performance play out from multiple angles and perspectives just a metre or two away from
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. The collage forms an important, but often overlooked role in the realms of visual art. It’s provided a longstanding metaphor for the advents of mass-production and consumption, as
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. When it comes to pieces of performance or visual art such as dance and theatre, or media such as sculpture, painting or film, music is often seen as
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. From the outset, the Goodman Gallery’s On Common Ground seemed like an exhibition that you should be interested in. The joint photographic exhibition, which featured the work of
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. It’s that time of year again when a rather large amount of attention is driven towards that quiet Eastern Cape city dotted with a few churches, university students,
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. In an age of online-first, visually-driven content, what is the value of writing about art or performance? And is writing about art even necessary? For someone
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. ‘The longing had always been a place to call my own. Now my problems are with the council, dealing with things like water and electricity and all of
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. In case you missed the headlines or the social media activity, Swedish multinational clothing-retail company H&M recently took American graffiti writer Revok to court after using one of
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. Why do we keep art in our homes? What does it mean to have a framed print, a painting, or a sculptural work in place of stock canvases
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. It’s an early Saturday morning at a coffee shop in Cape Town’s Greenpoint and the place is packed. Cyclists, joggers, and other fit folk are moving in and
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. Taking the time to sit down and put your entire year into perspective is a strange practice, but it has its benefits. For the better part of this
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. As far as major South African cities go, Durban is easily one of the prettiest. Cape Town has its mountains and seasides, Joburg has its gritty charm and
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. Cities are inspiring spaces and they are complex spaces. Often, they can be very difficult spaces, too. It’s not surprising, then, that they inspire so many unique artworks.
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. How much do we demand of performers? This is a question I’ve often thought about, but a month or so back, when timelines and front pages and magazine
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. It’s funny how such great and important parts of your life can sneak away from you so quietly. Then, upon returning, they do so with such a force
The Art of Performance is a monthly column written by Dave Mann, an editor and award-winning arts journalist. It’s Festival time again. Depending on what you do or which circles you move through, those words could mean nothing at all, or they could only really