Artists and audiences are building up to the 49th National Arts Festival taking place in Makhanda from 22 June to 2 July 2023. The programme is a multi-genre feast, representing a broad spectrum of South African arts. The Festival provides South African artists from across the country with the increasingly rare opportunity to stage new, experimental or reinvented works and also includes works from the African continent and elsewhere in the world.

2023 is a homecoming of sorts for artists as they mark the passage of their careers and particular works. Gregory Maqoma (2002 Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance) revisits NAF this year with his extraordinary piece Exit/Exist; a work that explores his Xhosa ancestry. Another dancer/choreographer who brings a work motivated by her highly acclaimed 2007 solo work HATCHED, is Mamela Nyamza (2011 Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance) with the premiere of HATCHED ENSEMBLE performed by ten dancers trained in ballet, an opera singer and an African traditional instrumentalist.

More powerful dance performances at NAF includes a Jazzart triple bill to mark their 50th anniversary: Requiem (a South African Response), which will have it’s South African premiere at NAF, as well as Survive (winner of the 2022 Toyota Woordfees award for Best Dance Production) and In Body as One.

Threads of the personal continue when Nadia Davids’ critically acclaimed new work, Hold Still, about one family’s generational traumas that must be confronted on a single, life-changing night. Directed by Jay Pather, the cast includes Andrew Buckland (1986 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre ) and Mwenya Kabwe, who was awarded a 2023 Fleur du Cap for Best Performance by a Lead Actress in a Play. The work also garnered a Fleur du Cap for Best New South African Script.
Droomwerk, written and produced by the poet Pieter Odendaal in collaboration with Woordfees, makes its stage debut at NAF. Based on Odendaal’s exploration of his heritage as a white Afrikaans-speaking male with slave ancestry, it’s directed and designed by Kanya Viljoen, with Lwanda Sindaphi as associate director.

The 2022 Standard Bank Young Artists will be presenting exhilarating works at this year’s Festival. Koleka Putuma (Poetry) was the winner of NAF partnership award the Distell National Playwright in 2019 and returns to NAF as a Standard Bank Young Artist just four years later. Lady Skollie will be making her NAF debut as the Visual Arts Standard Bank Young Artist winner and Theatre Duo (Billy Langa and Mahlatsi Mokgonyana) who are the 2022 Standard Bank Young Artists for Theatre have spent much time on the stages of Fringe and curated programme over the years. Linda Sikhakhane is the 2022 Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz. No stranger to the NAF, after having brought shows like Pop to the Festival, Thamsanqa Majela returns holding the title of Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance and Msaki will come full circle with her Standard Bank Young Artist for Music performance at the National Arts Festival where she first performed on the Fringe in 2014.More will be released about these shows soon.

This year’s Distell National Playwright winner Sibongakonke Mama will present her debut script Ibuhlungu le Ndawo, a story about the notions of home, its meaning, and its creative analogy. The work is directed by Mandla Mbothwe and stars Chuma Sopotela, Indalo Stofile, Nasfa Ncanywa and Siya Makuzeni.

Conceived by Swiss artist Simon Senn with Uruguayan developer Tammara Leites, dSimon introduces us to an Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the personality of the artist (Simon Senn). Simon Senn’s performative conference Be Arielle will also be presented at the Festival. Swartwater, a theatre piece by Nama Khoi Productions, reimagines the loss that was experienced by the Nama indigenous people through colonization and the discovery of diamonds.

Comedy is strong this year with established and emerging comedians forming a line-up that includes Mojak Lehoko, Stuart Taylor, Chester Missing, Khanyisa Bunu, Kate Pinchuck and Tseliso Masolane. isiXhosa comedian Tsepiso Nzayo brings his first one man show to NAF; Single and Sober is a story told in a mix of isiXhosa and English, that follows his journey through quitting alcohol.

Daniel Buckland and The Cirk present Castaways, an ensemble of physical theatre and circus work in which a ragtag collection of characters from different worlds are thrust together on a tiny raft and forced to reckon with themselves and each other in their desperate dance for survival.

Returning to NAF are two 2022 Standard Bank Gold Ovation Award winners; Emsini, a fierce strike at the cultural challenges in post-apartheid South Africa, and Île by Sophie Joans. Joans has also been invited to perform on the Arena Programme (a platform curated from Standard Bank Ovation winning works) to present Dog Rose, about a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship.
NAF favourites MacBob Productions from KwaZulu-Natal, return to the Fringe with a clutch of works. They are joined on the Fringe by a raft of works from musical drama producers Wela Kepela.
Another well-known face at Festival, Rob van Vuuren, brings the ‘healing vibes’ with his satirical kombucha-swigging character gone viral Namaste Bae and last year’s Fringe sensation Whistleblowers is back after travelling nationally and to the Netherlands. Fringe Festival veteran Justin Wilkinson of the Butler’s series will celebrate 25 years of coming to the NAF this year.

Younger audiences can expect to be enthralled by a range of productions aimed at families. Thabo the Space Dude from Ticket to the Moon Youth Theatre Company and Balloonacy by NCT.

The National Arts Festival’s hometown of Makhanda has also begun to stir post-Covid, and the popular Village Green at Victoria Girls’ High School provides a market hub for visitors to the Festival to explore local wares, buy souvenirs and enjoy the food trucks and bar while they gather with friends in the sunshine.

After the unexpected escalation of load-shedding during last year’s Festival, the NAF team has been working on practical solutions to limit the disruption caused by power outages. This year the National Arts Festival is ensuring that all our venues have a back -up power supply, which will ensure a full schedule of uninterrupted shows. In addition, a more robust flight schedule to Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) has been reintroduced but Festival goers are advised to start their travel planning soonest.
The complete 2023 National Arts Festival programme will be revealed and open for booking through the Festival’s online portal https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za on 1 May 2023.