Before this past weekend, the last music festival I attended was the legendary HFStival – sometime around the turn of the millennium in a grimy, beer-sodden stadium in southeast Washington D.C. It was oppressively humid and there were more than 70,000 attendees, mostly suburban kids aged 14 to 25. There was moshing. With the exception of my favorite ska/punk band, Goldfinger, I don’t remember who played.
I’ve just returned from a weekend in Swaziland, my second-favorite African country. The main reason for my trip was Bushfire 2012, a huge music and arts festival at Swaziland’s House on Fire. I saw and did a lot of other stuff though – too much for one post.
Actress Kharyshi Wiginton, performing in Colours of the Diaspora*. She might be too much for most people, but I couldn’t get enough of her.*
Last night I was invited to see a show called Colours of the Diaspora at the Market Theatre Laboratory. The Laboratory, affiliated with the iconic Market Theatre, is an experimental theatre venue and drama school for underprivileged artists, located inside a cavernous converted bus factory in Newtown.
If you are in South Africa and don’t reside under a rock, then you’ve likely heard about the controversy raging over an artist’s portrait of South African President Jacob Zuma, called “The Spear”. If you don’t live in South Africa, or do reside under a rock, you can read about the controversy here.
Last night I found myself in the back of a taxi – a legit South African minibus, minus the filth and missing floor panels. The taxi driver’s name was Shadrack. I nodded to the rap tunes blasting from the sound system beneath my feet as we hurtled out of Joburg and toward the Cradle of Humankind.
