The Best of July 2010
Cape Creative Exhibition, 37 Main Road Greenpoint 10 June – 18 July
The Cape Creative Exhibition hosts a wide range of performances by emerging and established artists. This multi-disciplinary exhibition showcases the creative talent of Cape Town, bringing together selected ranges of craft, design, fine art, film and performing art. This exhibition forms part of a R6-million intervention to stimulate growth and support local creative talent. It brings together a variety of works produced by experienced designers and artists affiliated to the Cape Craft and Design Institute (CCDI), Cape Film Commission, Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA), Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA) and the Africa Centre. http://www.facebook.com/CCE2010
Cape Town Book Fair 30 July - 2 August
Walking through the aisles of an international book fair is like taking a whirlwind literary tour of the world. And at this year’s Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF), visitors will be met by a stronger international presence than ever before, coupled with a particularly impressive round-up of African publishing houses, making it the entry point for the world into the African book trade. Tens of thousands of visitors are expected to meander through the bustling stands, talking to authors and enjoying literary sessions in an atmosphere dedicated to enhancing the culture of reading and celebrating the written word. http://www.capetownbookfair.com/home
Cape Town Design Network 8 July
The Cape Town Design Network (CTDN2010) is a monthly gathering hosted by Creative Cape Town during 2010. This month’s Design Network will be held at The Cape Creative Exhibition, 37 Main Road Greenpoint. Time: 17h30 – 19h30. The guest speakers are Rod Stevens (Blueprint Architects) who designed the new Cape Town Airport as well as Roger Van Wyk and Lerato Berang (Educentric cc), the curators/project managers of the public art work installed at the new IRT stations around the city. The event is free with a cash bar. Rsvp: bronwyn@capetownpartnership.co.za to attend. www.creativecapetown.net
Soccer Kultcha 11 June – 10 July
Soccer Kultcha is an exhibition curated by Paul Weinberg, Warren Nelson and Leanne Barling in collaboration with Michaelis Art Gallery. Soccer Kultcha explores the footballers and their followers beyond the main stadiums. They play on any field they can find, sometimes with home-made balls or goals. This exhibition is about this vibrant soccer culture. Far from official photographs, grand stadiums and headline grabbing photojournalism, the photographs of Soccer Kultcha invite us to rediscover the game of football, and the lives and passions of ordinary people who play and celebrate the game. www.michaelis.uct.ac.za/
Joint Photographic Exhibition 3 June – 15 July
Play Jump Eat is a series of images shot all over Cape Town, exploring the themes of Joy, Play, Abundance, Beauty and Juxtaposition. In contrast to this stylised work will be the grainy images of five bright school children from Emasithandane Children’s Home in the township of Nyanga.http://capetowncreatives.co.za/blog
Evita se Perron: Soccerfree Zone June and July 2010
Soccer fever is upon us. They say there is no choice. Everything is geared to the game, like it or not. Balls will be kicked throughout the land. Wherever you go, you will be booted onto the team, vuvuzela in hand. And at a price. Evita se Perron in Darling will be the exception. The Most Famous White Woman in South Africa has declared her cabaret restaurant at the old railway station a SOCCERfree ZONE. “For every husband and son who will want to watch soccer, there will be a wife and a daughter who might not want it as badly,” says Mrs Bezuidenhout. “So let them come to Darling and share time, good food and laughter with me”. http://capetowncreatives.co.za/blog
Kehinde Wiley Exhibition at Studio One 24 June – 3 July 2010
Internationally acclaimed artist, Kehinde Wiley, has partnered with PUMA to create four original works of art inspired by three of football’s most decorated players, Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast. Wiley painted three individual portraits of each player wearing the Africa Unity Kit, and then a fourth ‘Unity’ Portrait was painted with all three players together, symbolizing the united countries of Africa.http://capetowncreatives.co.za/blog
Cape Town International Ballet Competition 13 – 17 July
Four of Cape Town’s funniest ladies star in ‘Cracks and the City’
A collection of some of the city’s most hilarious women will come together from July 5 to July 11 Flipside@ The Baxter. The line-up includes honorary ‘crack’ Marc Lottering, award-winning comic actress Anthea Thompson, two young actresses who are cooking up a storm on the comedy circuit, namely Shimmy Isaacs and Anne Hirsch, and the veteran award-winning columnist, Marianne Thamm.
Thamm, who has been hatching this concept for several years, believes that women make comedy differently from men and with ‘Cracks and the City’, ‘Cracks Only’ offers a more nuanced space for these female performers to make their comic magic.
Marc Lottering is an honorary ‘crack’ because he just is. One of this country’s most beloved comedians, Marc has become a household name since his stage debut in 1997. He is helping the sisters to do it for themselves because he can and they want him to.
Anthea Thompson is one the country’s most watchable stage and television actresses. She has had a long and successful theatre and television career and will be remembered for her triumphant performance in a recent production of Shirley Valentine at the Kalk Bay Theatre. Her television credits include Laugh out Loud for M-Net, Mazinyo.Q, Fela, Madam and Eve and Out on a Limb all for the SABC.
Shimmy Isaacs’s autobiographical play, Allie Pad Funny Worcester, has just been selected as one of two plays voted “Best of the Ikhwezi Festival” and enjoyed a two week run at the Golden Arrow Studio at the Baxter. The play combined stand-up comedy and physical theatre to tell her life story and introduce the characters that impacted on and shaped it. Shimmy’s first stage play, Dens Wit Me, was co-written with Levi Saville and Vicki Bawcombe, and became the sleeper hit of the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown in 2007. She played the role of Julia. Shimmy, graduated, with honours, from AFDA’s film school before heading for New York where she completed a three-month course in acting at the Black Nexxus Acting school. She has been performing stand-up in Cape Town for the past two years.
Anne Hirsch, born and raised in Bloemfontein, moved to Cape Town where six years later she emerged from UCT with a Masters degree focusing on comedy. She has performed and co-written three successful one-woman shows and went on to win SABC’s So You Think You’re Funny? (Season 2) crowning her the funniest new stand-up comedian in the country. Since then she is the only white woman to have ever performed as part of David Kau’s Blacks Only comedy tour performing to sold out audiences in Bloemfontein, Joburg, Cape Town and Durban. She is currently running Comedy Wednesdays at Stardust Theatrical Dining in Tygervalley, which hosts the best comedy line-up in the Cape.
Whilst Marianne Thamm is better known as an award-winning columnist and journalist (she writes for Fairlady, The Sunday Times and many others) she has led the secret life of a comedian for several years. She first tasted fame (but not fortune) with the Cape Comedy Collective in the late 1990s but opted to return to the more unstable world of freelance journalism. Marianne won the 2007 South African Comedy Award for Best Humourous Columnist. She performed her comic lecture “Survivor 1970s” for the first time at the command of her Excellency Evita Bezuidenhout at the 2009 Voorkamer Festival in Darling. The show is rumoured to be funny.
Cracks and the City is at Flipside@Baxter from 5 to 10 July at 9pm and 11 July at 6pm with tickets costing R85 per person or R170 for the show and a meal from Tuesday to Thursday only. PG 13. For block bookings and charities call 021 680 3962.
New work by Chip Snaddon
Chip Snaddon, one of the talented illustrators featured on Cape Town Creatives, has a degree in Fine Art and has been working as an illustrator, cartoonist and storyboard artist for the past twenty years. We are excited to feature some of his recent work – especially because the theme for most of the work is our beautiful country!
Chip has created a map of Cape Town’s central city – for the use of the Cape Town Partnership in their ‘City Views’ broadsheet – showing the CCID (Cape Town City Improvement District), fanwalk and more.
Nothing is immune from football fever this month! Chip’s World Cup-themed cartoons take a light-hearted look at the influx of foreign tourists to South Africa.
On a more ’serious’ note, Chip has also recently produced a striking logo for the Centre for Public Mental Health.
To view Chip Snaddon’s complete portfolio on Cape Town Creatives, click here.
Death at a Funeral Movie Review: Dead Again?
The first thing you’ll be thinking is… why, oh why, oh why did they remake a film only 3 years after the original Death at a Funeral? Well, the first guess would be money. If the cow’s not dry, there’s milking to be done and Hollywood hasn’t got any time for charity, although you’d be forgiven for thinking that considering some of the film productions that actually make it past the conceptual phase. It’s just easier to get an audience, rake up a bit of press and run with a title and plot that everyone’s enjoyed already. They did it with The Italian Job, creating a movie that involved a heist with Mini-Coopers spawning a sequel in The Brazilian Job. Thankfully, the new Death at a Funeral had the decency to familiarise itself with the source material, Frank Oz’s hilariously dark comedy, Death at a Funeral (2007).
Death at a Funeral (2010) isn’t trying to hide the fact that it’s a carbon copy of the original, it’s embracing the characters to the point of reprising Peter Dinklage’s pivotal performance as the little guy. What’s it about… death at a funeral. This time Chris Rock’s in charge of proceedings at his father’s funeral and it’s set in the United States instead of the English countryside. The opening credits cleverly start with a heart monitor flatline that becomes a series of roads and networks for the hearse to bring us to the opening scene.
The new Death at a Funeral actually has loads of potential arming itself with a winning ensemble including: Chris Rock, Keith David, Danny Glover, Loretta Devine, Tracy Morgan, James Marsden, Zoe Saldana, Luke Wilson, Martin Lawrence and Peter Dinklage. That’s quite a comedy arsenal if you ever considered doing a comedy remake. The cast share the film quite well with Rock guiding the narrative and the supporting posse adding weight for the laughs in a scene-for-scene translation of the original by Neil LaBute.
The chemistry is there with James Marsden going all the way, but one gets the impression of a nervous hesitation… and possibly an over-commitment to the original. Death at a Funeral (2007) was distinctly British with a little American comedy thrown in and the remake is an antithesis when it comes to casting, location and flavour. The original was regarded as something of an art house film playing to a niche audience in the line of other dark comedies like Eulogy. The remake gives the film wider scope, mainly due to the big name cast, allowing the comedy to be more accessible to a commercial market.
The result is actually pretty decent as a winning premise, ensemble and comedy come together with a fresh spin on the original. LaBute keeps no. 2 faithful, yet presents it for a wider American audience. The big problem is that the ship has sailed and the broken champagne bottle is still on ice. It’s difficult to forget such memorable comedic twists and such a hilarious farce as Frank Oz’s Death at a Funeral (2007). It’s so fresh in our minds that you could almost do a parallel scene-by-scene comparison without having to watch the original again.
The idea was great, the comedy is passable a second time around, but the remake just seems completely pointless three years down the line. As a stand-alone comedy it’d be a satisfactory production, but compared with the original – it falls short. They should have waited until its 10 year anniversary before attempting a remake because this just seems irreverent, even more than bowling a cadaver out of a coffin. If you haven’t seen the original, you’ll leave the cinema satisfied after a good chuckle. If you have – the second time round the mulberry bush will echo with a sense of deja vu with hollow laughter from the uninitiated.
The bottom line: Secondhand.
Screenplay with Spling
Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
Kehinde Wiley exhibition in Cape Town
Internationally acclaimed artist, Kehinde Wiley, has partnered with PUMA to create four original works of art inspired by three of football’s most decorated players, Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast. Wiley painted three individual portraits of each player wearing the Africa Unity Kit, and then a fourth ‘Unity’ Portrait was painted with all three players together, symbolizing the united countries of Africa.
These individual portraits, measuring 5 feet by 6 feet and the ‘Unity’ portrait measuring 9 feet by 12 feet, were unveiled in Berlin in January 2010 and have been travelling as an exhibition beginning in Paris, and will finally end up in South Africa in June.
The Kehinde Wiley exhibition will be held at Studio One, 186 Bree Street, Cape Town, from 24 June – 3 July 2010. Viewing will be open to the public from 10am – 6pm daily. Join in celebrating Africa’s heritage and unity by coming to view this exclusive exhibition.
Laugh along at the Funny Festival
Fiona Gordon: The Vodacom Funny Festival, now in its sixth year, brings out the best of local and international humour.
Master of Ceremonies Alan Committie brings his own humour to the party and does a great job of shushing the audience when necessary, and easing the transitions between five other fabulous acts. Al Prodgers from Joburg is first up, and much of what is has to say and how he says it, is really funny – and they get keep getting better from there!
Riaad Moosa is always a favourite, with his intelligent and insightful takes on inter-cultural interactions. Ventriloquist Paul Zerdin, and Sam, are a marvellous pair – followed (after interval) by The Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue – an extremely clever musical clowning act that has feet tapping and the audience clapping with appreciation at the wit! Ndumiso Lindi, who hails originally from eQonce in the Eastern Cape, made those of us who share his roots proud, with his rendition of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, in the middle of an otherwise equally excellent act.
Overall, a real sense of positivity pervades – whether that’s directed at Cape Town, or South Africa, or just in general – somehow the tone of the whole evening is uplifting. Which, in my opinion, is exactly right!
The Vodacom Funny Festival runs at the Baxter Theatre Concert Hall nightly at 8pm, with a 5pm Saturday matinee, until 11 July, and some of the acts change during the run. Tickets are R130 throughout and can be booked through Computicket.
Fiona Gordon
fiona@artslink.co.za
Gallery: Seagram Pearce Photography
Seagram Pearce is one of many excellent photographers listed on Cape Town Creatives and he continues to produce top-quality work.
Seagram focuses on commercial and advertising photography and has given us a look at some of the images from his latest shoots:
To view Seagram Pearce Photography’s complete portfolio on Cape Town Creatives, click here.
Papergirl SA #1
If you’re out and about in Cape Town CBD on Saturday 26 June between 12 and 3pm, you may just be lucky enough to encounter someone riding a bicyle who hands you a rolled up wad of stunning original artworks and your day will be made!
Papergirl SA #1 culminates this Saturday with Ride Day. The past few months have seen the organisers rally support for this wonderful initiative and gather artworks from both South Africa and abroad.
Papergirl is an art project which, in the style of American paperboys, distributes rolled art pieces by bicycle to random passers-by in the streets.
The project was founded in Berlin by Aisha Ronniger and has been carried out once a year in summer since 2006. Now Papergirl has spread and will also take place in Cape Town.
The basic idea with the project is to bring art to the public in a different way than normal; to surprise people and bring them into contact with art in their everyday life. The idea of distributing art by bike came from the search for new ways to bring art straight to society, and have fun doing so! Papergirl is, in short: participatory, analogue, non-commercial and impulsive.
An exhibition of all works will be held the evening before Ride Day (Friday 25 June) at Word of Art Studios (66 Albert Road, Woodstock Industrial Centre, Woodstock) from 6 – 9:30pm
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu to visit Darling’s new Health, Sport and Education Centre
Wednesday 23rd of June 2010 is going to be a very important day in the quaint West Coast village of Darling when Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu visits to bless the new Darling Health, Sport and Education Centre. The Centre hosts an Early Childhood Development Centre, Art and Music Classes for children and literacy programmes. There are over 1500 young people in the town under the age of 18 years who have access to the Centre and to the swimming pool that opened on Reconciliation Day, 16 December 2009.
Amongst the VIP’s attending the event will be South Africa’s Most Famous White Woman and Darling’s very own Mrs Evita Bezuidenhout. Tannie Evita, as she is affectionately known to all, will pay tribute to the people of the town who worked so hard to raise funds, and especially to Sabina Plattner who as benefactor of the project, made it financially possible.
Archbishop Tutu is the Patron of the Darling Pool Project and The Darling Trust that was established in August 2003 by founding member, former trustee and present Patron, Pieter-Dirk Uys. The Trust assists the previously disadvantaged communities of Darling, aiming to empower individuals to help themselves, mainly through participation in the sectors of education, skills development and health.
Disney’s ‘The Jungle Book Kids’ thrills audiences at Canal Walk
Visit Canal Walk Shopping Centre for fantastic children’s holiday fun this June! From 10 June to 10 July 2010 Disney’s Jungle Book Kids will thrill, excite and entertain young audiences during the school holidays.
Disney’s Jungle Book Kids is a spectacular new stage musical based on Disney’s animated feature ‘The Jungle Book’, which was inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s renowned ‘Mowgli’ stories.
Join the ‘man-cub’ Mowgli, the evil tiger Shere Khan, Baloo the bear, jazzy King Louie and many more great characters as they embark on an adventure through the lush jungles of India.
The musical will be staged at Canal Walk from Thursday, 10 June until Saturday, 10 July, with three shows daily (except on Sundays) at 11am, 12:30 and again at 2pm. Tickets are R50 per person and are available at Computicket.
This event is presented in association with Liqui-Fruit and there is a R10 000 Canal Walk Gift Card up for grabs. Purchase any Liqui-Fruit product at participating retailers and you could stand a chance to win R10 000. Simply attach your till slip to the competition entry form, available at all participating retailers.
For more information please contact Canal Walk PR Manager Vanessa Herbst on 021 529 9638 or e-mail vanessah@canalwalk.co.za.
