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Cultural Programme

Cultural Programme Schedule (.pdf document - 63 kb)
Busking Programme Schedule (.pdf document - 16 kb)
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The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs are responsible for the Cultural Programme during World Conference Against Racism (WCAR).

The following individual programmes are planned to co-inside with the WCAR:

• Opening Ceremony
• Closing Ceremony
• Peoples Concert
• Tours
• Film Festival
• Theatre Festival
• Decoration of the Durban International Airport
• Decoration of the Johannesburg International Airport
• Cultural Groups Busking at certain Hotels in Durban
• Exhibitions in the Kwa Muhle Museum
• Exhibitions in the Durban Art Gallery
• Other exhibitions throughout South Africa

The theme for the Opening Ceremony is "Harmony in Motion". Indigenous, traditional and contemporary dance is the vehicle to demonstrate harmony between people of all races. The Opening Ceremony will take place in the ICC during the opening ceremony of the Conference on 31 August 2001. The Opening Ceremony is only open for delegates to the Conference.

The name of the group is "Gathering Forces" and the following artists will form part of the artist line-up: (in alphabetical order)

Other indigenous instruments that will also be included in the programme are:

• Voice;
• Animal Horns;
• Bells;
• Penny Whistle;
• Amanqashela***;
• Hand Drums; and
• Wooden Frogs.

The music is sometimes composed and in other instances improvised. The musicians build from the noise of a frog to a universe of rich natural sound. This is followed by a traditional Zulu song of caution about the threat of marauders. Finally the musicians play within their particular musical identities and then all together in a totality that represents a desired and better world.

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For more information on the Peoples Concert the website of Making Music Productions can be visited.

The tour will start starts and ends at the Kwa Muhle Museum. Other places to be visited during the tour are the John Dube house and the Phoenix Settlement.

Traditional South African Arts and Crafts of South Africa will be used to decorate the Johannesburg International Airport. Mukondeni African Art and Craft were the successful tenderer performing this task. The International Arrival Hall and the Domestic Departure Hall will be decorated.

• Venda;
• Tsonga;
• Ndebele;
• Sepedi;
• Sotho; and
• Afrikaner.

The BAT Centre in Durban is assisting the Department with the arrangements on the Durban International Airport.

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The following three theatre plays will be performed during the Conference:

• The Story I am about to tell;
• Fong Kong; and
• Sizwe Banzi is dead.

A synopsis on each of the above-mentioned plays follows:

The Story I am about to tell The story I am about to tell – Indaba engizoyixoxa is a workshopped production, which started in April 1997. The play opened in July 1997. The play aims to raise debate around the concept and process of truth and reconciliation. The one-hour performance is followed by a question and answer session with the audience. The play has also traveled to festivals in Munich Germany, Stockholm Sweden, Amsterdam and Rotterdam Holland and at the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). It featured on the main programme of the Grahamstown Festival, as well as at the Grahamstown Schools Festival, in 1999. Recently it was presented at the international conference on alternative forms of truth telling on Robben Island.

Fong Kong The name Fong Kong was made popular by a kwaito hit. It refers to the counterfeit merchandise sold by immigrants on the city’s pavements. The play depicts everyday sufferings of our neighbours in our country. From the home affairs office to their hawing stalls and the Lindelani Repatriation Centre, where they await deportation, only to jump off; return and beginning the circle afresh. It also has been on South Africans subconscious distinction of themselves from the rest of the continent. The play was workshopped by market laboratory students and there are 16 contractors in the play.

Sizwe Banzi is dead Written or set during apartheid years Deals with issues around dompass, influx control, group areas act Sizwe Banzi get killed by the apartheid securocrats for not adhering to the policies of right curfews Eventually got killed, and some-else desperate for a dompass used it as his own to avoid infringing pass laws conditions

The plays will be performed in the following venues:

Playhouse – The Loft Theatre
27 August until 2 September 2001
Name of play to be performed: Sizwe Banzi is dead
For reservations and tickets contact: Tel: (031) 369-9530

BAT Centre – The BAT Hall
2 September – 6 September 2001
Name of play to be performed: Fong Kong
For reservations and tickets contact: Tel: (031) 332-0451

Kwazuka Theatre –
29 August – 3 September 2001
Name of play to be performed: The Story I am about to tell
For reservations and tickets contact: Tel: (031) 309-2236

Tickets will be available at the door or can be reserved at the venue. An entrance fee will be charged per show.

Entrance fees:

• Adults R20,00 per person
• Children in uniform R10,00 per person

  
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A proposed line-up of films and show schedule can be made available by the Events Management Sub-directorate.

The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology is supporting exhibitions in the following institutions in Durban:

The following exhibitions can be seen during the conference:

The Arts Against Apartheid exhibition, previously only seen in Parliament in Cape Town, is mounted in the Durban Art Gallery from middle August to the end of October 2001. The official opening of the exhibition in the Gallery is on 30 August 2001. The exhibition will consist of 48 pieces from the original collection.

The concept of an Association "Artists of the World Against Apartheid" was devised in Paris in 1983 by Spanish artist Antonio Saura and French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest. 1983 was the year in which the United Democratic Front was formed in South Africa. International artists responded to an appeal by Saura and Pignon-Ernest to denounce apartheid's crime against culture and to fight for freedom of thought and the prospect of the new non-racial democracy.

This international collection was first shown in Paris in November 1983 at the Rothschild Foundation. Since then it has been exhibited in over forty cities worldwide. In 1995, a year after the first democratic elections in South Africa, the collection was presented to South Africa as a country. The works are now housed in Parliament.

Lines of Violation, Comfort Women Survivors is a plexiglass installation depicting the hands of 52 former 'comfort women' from the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea and Holland. These women were victims of the Japanese military policy of forcing young women in occupied territories during World War II into sexual slavery. The story of these women was hidden from the world for fifty years before a Korean woman broke her silence. Since then many women have come forward and told their stories of violation. Andrew Ward and IFOR UN Representative Jonathan Sisson travelled to Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines to meet the women survivors. Fifty-two women agreed to have their hands drawn by Andrew and have him record their stories.

The installation is made up of the drawings of their hands and recordings of the women telling their stories. Their voices tell of their experiences as victims fifty years ago, but also of their hopes and aspirations as aged women today who have attempted to regain their honour and dignity through the campaign for restitution from the Japanese government.

The installation had its premier at The Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in May, 1999. More recently it has been exhibited in Metro Manila and at the District Six Museum in Cape Town.

The installation will be opened on 9 August, National Women's Day and will stay on view during the World Conference Against Racism, whereafter it will be travelling to Bangalore, India and Thailand.

Imperial Ghetto is a photographic diary of people and events encountered by Omar Badsha in the Grey Street or Coolie Town area which grew in the face of white resistance at the heart of the then colonial and later apartheid city of Durban. The title Imperial Ghetto is an ironic play on the fact that the network/ labyrinth of streets at the heart of the ghetto were named by the colonial administration after Queen Victoria, her children and leading members of the Imperial establishment. The photographs taken between 1978 and 1986 covers the period when hundreds of families who had lived in the area since the early part of the 20th century were forced to move. It was the time of growing militancy, the rise of worker and community anti-apartheid and resistance groups of which the photographer was an active participant and witness as this collection of photographs show.

The exhibition will be on at the Durban Art Gallery from 20 Aug. - 20 September 2001.

Soul of Africa Art from the Han Coray Collection - 2 September - 25 November 2001. Han Coray was one of the first early collectors to exhibit African tribal objects as art, which he collected on aesthetic considerations in the early part of the 20th century. The collection has always been regarded as an art collection and never as an ethnographic one. The people for whom these objects were made, however, did not separate form from function. The aesthetic effects were part of the object's "correctness" to indicate status and importance.

While the concept of "art" in the Western European paradigm in these communities did not exist, the success of the work as signifier and in ceremony was linked to the craftsmanship. Structural principle was intrinsic to the object. In most of the cultures represented in the Han Coray Collection, "good" and "beautiful" are expressed by the same word. The many chairs and stools that were owned by persons of a high status are one example where they are ornamented with symbols that reflected their rank and prestige.

The exhibition is structured into six thematic areas that address royalty, proclamations of status, rituals of passage, religious practices, funerary and ancestral beliefs and ceremonial instruments.

A Children Art Exhibition related to the theme is planned in the Durban Art Gallery Main Foyer. Detail still need to be developed between the Department of Education and the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. It is envisaged that the exhibition will be opened with the Art Against Apartheid exhibition in the Durban Art Gallery on 30 August 2001.

The following exhibitions will be on show during the conference:

The 1949 riots were a brief but destructive event that left deep tears in Durban’s social fabric. "The 1949 Riots" exhibition deals with the conflict between the African and Indian communities in Durban in January 1949. The exhibition provides a critical analysis of the riots within the context of racial segregation in Durban. The exhibition demonstrates that social segregation, competition over scarce resources and stereotypical attitudes were contributing factors to the riots. The exhibition draws on a selection of photographs, newspaper articles and oral interviews to bring clarity to the context in which the riots occurred. The exhibition will be on display at the Old Court House Museum from 20 August 2001 to February 2002.

"Apartheid Architecture, Urban Design and Spatial Policy"   The exhibition examines the use of architecture, urban design and spatial polity in the implementation of apartheid. The exhibition draws on Foucault’s writings and elaborations on Bentham’s Panopticon as a model for the organization of the Apartheid city. The exhibition shows that in South Africa, the control of the black majority was based on the same principles as the panopticon, which is the epitome of surveillance; a machine for controlling people, a laboratory of power. The exhibition will use text, documents, photographs and artifacts (including apartheid signs) to show the way in which apartheid was implemented, drawing mainly on the experience of Durban. The exhibition will be exhibited at the Kwa Muhle Museum. The exhibition will be ready by 20 August 2001 and will run until the end of February 2002.

An additional exhibition that may be of great interest is the exhibition on: "The House of Senzangakhona: The Zulu Kings", an exhibition that will be on display at the Old Court House Museum from 1 August 2001 to 30 March 2002. In 20^th century Africa, opponents of white settler racism looked to the Zulu as paramount symbol of Southern resistance to Northern colonization in the age of West European Empire. The exhibition "House of Senzangakhona: the Zulu Kings" presents a concise profile of one of Africa’s best-known dynasties, based on recent research, and displays personal effects of individual monarchs, together with a 3-D map showing the Zulu Kingdom’s major towns.

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Cultural groups will busk at the following Hotels in Durban from 2 until 5 September 2001. The relevant Hotels are:

• The Hilton Hotel;
• The Royal Hotel;
• Holiday Inn Garden Court, North Beach;
• Holiday Inn Garden Court, South Beach;
• Holiday Inn Garden Court, Marine Parade; and
• Holiday Inn Garden Court, Crown Plaza.

Cultural groups from KwaZulu-Natal will be included in the contingent.

The performing times for the groups are as follows:

• 09:30 until 10:30;
• 12:30 until 13:30;
• 14:30 until 15:30; and
• 16:30 until 17:30.
  

The curtain raiser for the football match will be a women’s football match organized by Kwa-Zulu Natal football association.

Northern Flagship in Pretoria

• An existing exhibition on the Hananwa people of the Northern Province. This exhibition will open at the African Window Museum in August 2001.

• An exhibition on Marabastad and its people.

Southern Flagship in Cape Town

• A retrospective of photographs by Omar Badsha at the South African National Gallery. South Africa’s racist past is the context of many of these images. Sue Williamson’s work, "Can’t forget, Can’t remember", focusing on the TRC hearings is also included.

• The Face-to-Face Project at the South African Museum deals directly with racism and other forms of prejudice experienced by children. Young people of all races are invited to share their experiences with each other and with a facilitator who guides the process towards reconciliation.

• Repositioning the San Diorama. This takes the form of a public debate and consultative process about the recently closed San Diorama that some people regarded as racist. This important project addresses the power of museums to reinforce or counteracts racial stereotypes.

• At the Slave Lodge the People’s Collection exhibition and oral history project addresses the perception that museums serve elite, mainly white, audiences. People of all races are contributing to the collection, which will reflect the cultural diversity of Cape Town. The exhibition will open on 24 September 2001.

The Afrikaanse Taalmuseum has some material on racism in the form of printed media articles that they will exhibit.

The current exhibitions programme accommodates the needs of races as far as culture, history and language are concerned. The same applies to their educational programmes and art exhibitions. This is illustrated in the history of our region exhibition as well as the Maseke exhibition in Oliewenhuis Art Gallery.

An exhibition and collection of portraits of leaders in the political history of South Africa. The exhibition will show the major shift in the re-thinking of old concepts and ingrained prejudices, which highlight the differences between people. The exhibition aims to show the errors made in the past, to describe the background to these old ideas and to emphasise how and why we have changed our outlook on life. The exhibition will go a long way in addressing some of the insensitivities of the past.

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Mobile Video Education Project

MVEP has been operating along the KwaZulu North Coast for the past 6 months showcasing film material dealing with issues of racism, racial intolerance and xenophobia amongst local African communities. MVEP regularly hosts screenings to rural, peri–urban and township audiences using the short film "The Foreigner" and the documentary "Aliens or Broers" to help raise awareness about the problem of Xenophobia. In close collaboration with local elders, schools and church group, over 10 000 persons have been reached directly or indirectly through publicity efforts in support of this project. Some of the towns reached through these mobile exhibitions include Eshowe, Ulundi, Richards Bay, Empangeni, Jozini, and Vryheid.

Tertiary Institutions African Film Club

This initiative is led by the Visual literacy desk at Film Resouce Unit (FRU) and is aimed at fostering cross cultural awareness by creating student based and managed African film clubs at Universities, Technikons and colleges across the country. To initiate student interest in forming these African film clubs, FRU’s Audiovisual campaign against Xenophobia and racism was extended to tertiary institutions. The 17-minute short film "The Foreigner" by Zola Maseko has proved effective as a base for facilitating discussions on the issues addressed (viz Xenophobia). Facilitated discussions, using a questionnaire booklet specifically designed for this purpose, are organised by the visual literacy desk involving trained facilitator, filmmaker and resident lecturers (in drama/film and/or TV). To this end screenings have already been hosted in select institutions in Gauteng (RAU, Wits, and Vista), North West Province (Potchefstroom, University of the North West), Northern Province (University of the North, Venda). These film clubs will go a long way in fostering inter-cultural relations amongst Africans particularly students who will in due course become the captains of industry and political leaders of our Continent.

FRU - Ster Kinekor Mobile Agreements

FRU has also entered into exhibition agreements with Ster-Kinekor Mobile to showcase select African short films from FRU library on Ster Kinekor mobile exhibition circuits made up of 10 vans catering all nine provinces. This circuit reaches out to communities in peri–urban towns and villages with programming lasting an entire month on circuit. Together with the screening of African films as a build up to the WCAR conference end of August, SKM is currently flighting a FRU/Roll Back Xenophobia 60-second Public Service Announcement (PSA) in all their circuits.

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Film Resource Unit’s activities during WCAR

FRU currently has a three pronged activity plan for the months of August and September with a focus on areas surrounding the Conference venue.

FRU-Ster Kinekor

FRU has recently reached exhibition agreements for the Launch of select African films at Ster Kinekor Outlets. Beginning mid-July FRU in collaboration with Ster Kinekor Theatres will launch the title "La Petite de Soleil" – the last film production by the great Djibril Diop Mambety. This title will be packaged as a compilation retrospective on this film genius to be screened in select Ster Kinekor outlets in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

During the months that follow FRU is looking at Launch premiers of the feature "Lumumba" which addresses the positive depiction of an African hero and "Mama Africa" a compilation of short films from women directors in the Southern African region. Exhibitions of these titles will follow the Ster Kinekor route in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Township film festival

During the month of August the MVEP team will be based in Durban and surrounding townships of Umlazi and Kwamashu to host screenings in consultation with local leaders, chief elders and relevant community based NGO's and organisations. In the build up to the WCAR film festival in Durban, MVEP will continue to showcase titles on Racism and Xenophobia in the towns alongside the Southern Coast of Kwazulu. Select filmmakers and other relevant specialists will be invited as guests and panelists to participate in the discussions scheduled to take place after the viewing of the films. Township community halls and other venues in townships will be used to host these screenings and panel discussions.

Enquiries on the Cultural Programme for the WCAR

For more information on the Cultural Programme for the WCAR, please contact Mr Corney Wright at tel: (012) 337-8003 or Ms Cleon Sardinus at tel: (012) 337-8508.

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