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International Cultural Diversity Festival builds bridges
Global cuisines galore at the International Cultural Diversity Festival

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Celebrating our heritage allows us to learn about each other's cultures and traditions, and it is an activity that brings people together. "Heritage is an important element of our everyday lives that constantly reminds us of who we are and how far we have come," says Bonolo Makhalemele, International Cultural Diversity Festival organising team leader.

Cultivating intercultural connectivity

The Bloemfontein Campus was a hive of festivities as the community received cultural education from all over the world while being serenaded with diverse music, indulging in delicious cuisines, and dressed in ethic regalia at the festival hosted by the University of the Free State's (UFS) Office for International Affairs. Reinforcing unity and diversity formed the foundation of the theme: Building bridges in heritage - Connecting local and international cultures. Although it was a first for the UFS, the festival is an annual highlight on many countries' calendars, with the university intending to follow suit.

Makhalemele firmly believes that even in our uniqueness, there are immense similarities which we share and can celebrate. "Not only do we build bridges in celebrating our heritage, but we foster reconciliation, promote unity in diversity, and breathe life as well as meaning into our identities through the whole process." 

African artistic fashion

Busisiwe Ntsele, representing the House of Diva (HOD) which manufactures tailor-made Africa-inspired clothes for ladies of all sizes, manned one of the stalls at the festival. "We call it the House of Diva because it gives you the magical feeling of being an African woman," she said. Ntsele also shared the story of her cultural background, being born to South African parents as a child of the diaspora in the Kingdom of the Swati and growing up to marry a partner from Lesotho.

The Cultural Festival proved to be a successful infusion of food, fashion, dance, music, as well as arts and crafts from countries such as Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Swaziland, Cameroon, Kenya, Namibia, Malawi, Tanzania, Spain, Uganda, Argentina, Ghana, Ethiopia, China, Nigeria, Cuba, Bangladesh, India, Taiwan, Netherlands, Germany, the United States of America, Libya, Congo, Botswana, Mozambique, Ireland, Israel, Ivory Coast, Korea, France, Sudan, Angola, New Zealand, and Afghanistan.

Students, staff members, and the community had the opportunity to become interculturally competent, which is an essential skill within a transforming environment such as the university. 



News Archive

UFS Odeion School of Music (OSM) launched
2011-09-15

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Odeion School of Music will be launched at the first Dean’s Concert in the Odeion on the Bloemfontein Campus on Friday, 16 September 2011.

The former Department of Music, in the Faculty of Humanities, has been transformed and will henceforth be known as the Odeion School of Music (OSM). This follows in the path of the corporate transition currently taking place at the university, which aims to reflect the progressive and dynamic striving towards excellence, as endorsed by the UFS Vice-Chancellor and Rector, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, and his management group.
 
Two years ago the faculty formulated a new mission with the aim to become an international faculty of excellence. An important component of it has been to create a pro-active marketing strategy and policy towards internationalisation and curriculum development.
 
The name Odeion School of Music portrays not only an excellent asset in the Free State, but also nationally and internationally. The school’s new name bears the respected Odeion brand and a number of successful and respected ensembles operate under this brand. These include the acclaimed residential Odeion String Quartet, as well as the Music Department’s student ensembles, the Junior Odeion String Quartet, the Odeion Sinfonia, and the Odeion Choir.
 
According to Prof. Nicol Viljoen, the Chairperson of the OSM, the name change was motivated by the following objectives:
  • The idea of a school within the Faculty of Humanities not only reflects an academic profile that does justice to the intention of the Department to reposition itself, but also simulates the current identity of the unit. This encompasses diverse thematic entities not only from an academic perspective, but also from a community and cultural perspective. The unit does this through providing services, which include arts entertainment, the provision of facilities, as well as a strong emphasis on community development.
  • With regard to an international perspective, it provides attractive possibilities not only from the perspective of a marketing and publicity profile, but also with regard to the identity of the unit.  
  • Hypothetically the new name allows more flexibility to complement the profile with reference to newly anticipated developments. These include the application of prestigious international experts as artistic fellows, membership to progressive European, jointly developed degree programmes and curriculum development initiatives, the founding of a chair in Orchestra Conducting, a master’s degree in Arts Management, as well as the incorporation of bio-kinetics in the teaching methodologies of performance practice, to name but a few.
  • From a management perspective it could also consolidate the perspective of scarce skill specialisation.
  • To give momentum to the establishment of the OSM, Mr Marius Coetzee was appointed as Innovation Manager. He is a former Project Manager of the European Degree in International Music Management – a joint degree initiative between three Universities from Norway, the Netherlands and Finland, funded by the EU in Brussels. His aim will be to develop and investigate aspects such as internationalisation, marketing, pro-active recruitment strategies, curriculum development and innovative teaching methodologies.
Mr Coetzee said music conservatories, from both European and American perspectives are managed and maintained as highly successful and substantial brands. From the European perspective some examples include the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (Finland), the Liszt Academy in Budapest (Hungary), the Grieg Academy in Bergen (Norway) and the former Sweelinck Academy in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Similar to the South African milieu, the majority of music conservatories in the USA and Canada are resident within an academic university.
However, unlike the South African reality, the majority of these institutions have a value-added identity portrayed by a specific name. Such an example is the renowned Peabody Conservatory of the University of Baltimore or the Jacobs School of Music at the Indiana University Bloomington, to name but a few.
 
The Dean’s Concert will highlight performances of students in the school. The concert will probably become a regular event in future Spring Music Festivals.


Media Release
15 September 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za
 

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