In 2024, the Festival Enterprise Catalyst (FEC) was established to support the longevity and financial sustainability of the arts. This year, five productions are scheduled to be staged at the National Arts Festival, thanks to the support provided by the FEC.
The Festival Enterprise Catalyst is a collaboration between Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK), the National Arts Festival, the Nasionale Afrikaanse Teater-inisiatief (NATi), Concerts SA, SAMRO, Woordfees, Aardklop, Suidooster Fees and the Tribuo Fund with the support from the Jobs Fund who matched contributions from the partners.
This two-year initiative aims not only to ease the pressure of a limited budget for showcasing new works but also to support touring productions, promote technical and artistic development programs across the country and provide free networking opportunities.
The FEC works featured on the National Arts Festival’s Curated Programme include:
Breakfast with Mugabe is co-produced by the National Arts Festival, The Market Theatre and the Festival Enterprise Catalyst (FEC) in association with the Calvin Ratladi Foundation and with the support of Standard Bank. The play is the 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre Calvin Ratladi’s directorial work and is premiering at the Festival. Staged at the Rhodes Theatre from 3 to 6 July, this award-winning script by Fraser Grace takes us deep into the troubled mind of Robert Mugabe, once the revered leader of Zimbabwe, now a man haunted by his own demons and political paranoia. A critical look into the fractured psyche of a leader at war with his past. It is a National Arts Festival highlight and an important work which will travel on to The Market Theatre from the 16 July – 10 August.
Also a premiering work at the National Arts Festival, Bridling is written by Nadia Davids and is the third collaboration between the playwright and director/choreographer Jay Pather. Davids’s adaptation of her 2024 Caine-Prize award-winning story of the same name, is an electric new work in which a young actor wins a prize role in an edgy performance art production helmed by a lauded male director.
Performed by Buhle Ngaba, and supported by dancer Shaun Oelf, the play charts the actor’s journey from audition to opening night, containing within it a dark, unsettling meta-commentary about creativity, feminism, compromise and rebellion.
Pather takes up Davids’ feminist tale – described by Caine Prize judges as “a triumph of language, storytelling and risk-taking”- to create an exquisite multi-disciplinary work that seamlessly merges text, movement, set and image in his singular, innovative style.
This is the first time these four artists have worked together since the much-lauded What Remains.
The work runs at the Festival from 3 to 6 July, thereafter touring to the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees Festival in October this year.
This work marks a return, after some absence, of a play by Rehane Abrahams, who also directs and produces it, with dramaturgy by Mandla Mbothwe.
Excerpted from the Epic of Java, Surat Centhini, with a translation by Elizabeth D Inandiak (2006), this sacred tale is a hero’s quest of five gender fluid young people into themselves and the world. By turns bawdy and sombre, erotic and meditative, this distinctly non-Western epic was written down during Dutch Colonial occupation and exhibits a joyful eco-erotic relationality that embraces all of life. Hidden for two centuries because of its provocative nature, the Surat Centhini’s re-emergence heralds a reclamation of BIPOC joy and liberation. This adaptation will be staged from the start of the festival, 26 to 28 June.
A key element of the FEC project is that works are sustained for a longer period by travelling from one Festival to another. Some of the works that have previously been staged are:
Adapted from Ronelda Kamfer’s novel of the same name, Kompoun explores themes of innocence, resilience and family struggles within the harsh South African context. From June 29 to July 1, The National will host this intimate and immersive experience with its theatre-in-the-round staging, directed by Lee-ann van Rooi, A co-production of Suidoosterfees, Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees and KKNK; supported by NATi, Het Jan Marais Nationale Fonds,the L.W. Hiemstra Trust, the Festival Enterprise Catalyst (FEC) and the Jobs Fund, the production house is BOSSIKOP Productions. At Suidoosterfees it played to sold-out audiences. Following the National Arts Festival it will also be staged at Woordfees.
Another production not to be missed is Die een wat bly, a Figure of 8 Dance Theatre production produced by the company and KKNK with FEC support. Dance and physical theatre are backed by text to expose loss and the special and intricate relationship between mothers and their sons on the road to healing. Die een wat bly was recently nominated for six KKNK Kanna Awards. It premiered at the KKNK before going on to be performed at Suidoosterfees. At the National Arts Festival it will run from 27 to 29 June.
Says National Art Festival’s Artistic Director, Rucera Seethal, “The Festival Enterprise Catalyst project has raised a much-needed framework to bring sustainable opportunities to the arts sector by creating opportunities to tour works. With Festival and partner collaboration on production investment, we are able to support artists to really invest themselves in their work to create quality work with national and international touring potential. The FEC model is new, and we are learning and adapting, but already there is so much potential for collaborative approaches to facilitate the earning possibilities of creative practitioners in the performing arts and music. ”