Pianos and Pandemics
‘The romantic impulse is in all of us and sometimes we live it for a short time, but it’s not a part of a sensible way of living. It’s a heroic path and generally ends dangerously.’ – Jane Campion
Curating the Creative Agenda
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.’ – Martin Luther King Jr
For art’s sake
Most women writing in the 1800’s wrote romance, so for both novelists, adopting a masculine pen name achieved the outcome of not being blindly marginalized from the outset by mere virtue of their biology …
9 things I loved in 2019
‘To look life in the face. Always look life in the face. And to know it for what it is. At last to know it. To love it for what it is, and then, to put it away… Always the years between us. Always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.’ – Virginia Woolf…
CATEGORY IS: EMPERORS AND ACTIVISTS
BASA Column in Creative Feel, November 2019 For some reason, Danish author Hans Christian Anderson’s 1837 fable The Emperor’s New Clothes has been on my mind a lot lately… and I’ve been trying to figure out why… Perhaps it’s the lingering echo of 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg castigating the assembly of world leaders…
TRIBAL INSTINCTS AND WEAKEST LINKS
All tribes have rules and rituals. Some are homogenous in that members look, dress and behave the same. Others are more diverse and membership may vary. But there are always rules and rituals that must be obeyed at all costs. That’s how tribes work…
The inimitable Mr Maqoma
Where does Gregory Maqoma end and where does Vuyani Dance Theatre (VDT) begin? Since Lindiwe Letwaba took up the mantle of CEO, it has possibly been marginally easier to discern a distinction between the company and its creator, but the story of VDT will forever in my mind be inextricably bound up with the life…
Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo / You Strike A Woman, You Strike A Rock
Sometimes I wonder if Women’s Day and Women’s Month have gone the way of Christmas and Easter. Sometimes I wonder how many people have heard the names Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, Rahima Moosa, Helen Joseph and Lilian Ngoyi …
Beyond binaries
1001 is a binary number but 1002 is not. Neither is 99 or 999. Binary is 1 or 0. Binary is on or off. Like being pregnant (or Hamlet), in binary terms, you are or you’re not. There is no in between. There is no 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 or…
Creative highways and digital byways
Spiking the lens in a clip on YouTube from CNN’s Marketplace Africa, the disarmingly charming and exquisitely beautiful Zain Asher smiles into the camera. Across time and space, she looks directly at me from the screen of my iPad…
Pop icons, paraphernalia and shifting paradigms
A bridge must be built between the visionary and the decision-maker, between seeing and foreseeing, between creators and economists.’ – Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (‘The Cultural Dimensions of Development’, The Right to Hope)…