Perfect remedy for World Cup hangover

The City of Joburg figures the best remedy for South Africa’s post World Cup hangover is an exciting cocktail of dance, poetry, theatre, music, visual art and film at the 18th annual Joburg Arts Alive International Festival.

Councillor Teresa van der Merwe of the City of Joburg (COJ) said: “After hosting such a successful World Cup we need to raise the momentum again by saying ‘ayoba Arts Alive, ayoba.”

At last year’s festival, 10% of the performing artists were international which led to several COJ councillors raising concerns that what was needed was a 100% local festival.

But Steven Sack, director of the arts, culture and Heritage at the COJ, said the event would continue to have an international flavour.

He said: “While we strongly believe in supporting local art, Arts Alive is an international festival that allows artists to interact with their international counterparts and exposes audience to international art.”

Highlights at this year’s festival include:

» The annual Jazz on the Lake at Zoo Lake plays host to the likes of Lira, Caiphus Semenya, Kurt Darren, Afro’Traction and Auriol Hays.

» Theatre lovers who missed the National Arts Festival need not despair as the Best of Grahamstown programme brings down 10 of the festival’s best productions to the Wits Theatre complex from September 1 to 26.

» A partnership with the Indian High Commission in South Africa sees the Indian Shared History Experience form part of this year’s programme as a way of marking 150 years of indentured labour in South Africa.

From September 2 to 26 the city will come alive with 151 artists, 155 theatre stages mainly in Soweto, Alexandra and Diepsloot, 77 workshops, 20 music events, 17 dance pieces, 12 visual art exhibitions, seven comedy and four poetry shows spread across all seven regions of Johannesburg.