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Vrystaat Arts Festival

08 July 2022

The Vrystaat Arts Festival celebrates its twenty-second birthday this year, a remarkable achievement! After two challenging years of lockdown restrictions, the festival team is excited to work towards various in-person events again, including the first ever mini-MARK in July, the traditional arts festival with all the familiar faces in October, and the second instalment of the festival's classical music festival, Vrystaat Klank & Klassik, in November.

From 12-16 July, the festival will launch the inaugural Mini-MARK on the Bloemfontein campus of the University of the Free State (UFS). This smaller arts and crafts market will mostly be concentrated around the Callie Human Hall and the Exam Rooms on the UFS-campus and will involve only curated, unique, handmade, high quality, authentic South African products and food stalls, and an open stage for entertainment.

The mini-MARK will also include a selection of theatre, music, and dance productions. A definite highlight on the theatre program is the debut comedy, Laerskool Noord, with Margit Meyer-Rödenbeck, Marion Holm, and Ilne Fourie. Something special on the menu for the little ones is Liewe Heksie en die Rolskaate. Several local musicians will perform at the Vulture Club during the festival week and the contemporary dance production, POP, with Bloemfontein-based dancer, Thami Majela, and French choreographer, Matthieu Nieto will also be on the stage.

Two productions hosted in collaboration with the UFS’s Drama and Theatre Arts Department are The dressing room and Hoe Later, Hoe Kwater. The dressing room is based on the real antics of backstage life during the production of a community theatre musical. The show is not a musical, but a very relatable comedy to anyone who has been through the hustle of being backstage during a production.

Hoe Later, Hoe Kwater is an Afrikaans translation by Pierre van Pletzen of Michael Pertwee and John Chapman's Holiday Snap, and stars Barend Kriel, Mark Dobson, Jané Schnetler, DJ Kruger, Danielle Doubell, Amira-Xandria van Biljon, Paquot.

From 2-8 October 2022, the customary Vrystaat Arts Festival, with a full program including theatre productions, literature festival, film festival, visual and experimental art, as well as a much larger arts market, will also be presented on the UFS campus. Keep an eye out in the press and the arts festival's social media platforms for more information on the October program.

Entrance tickets to the festival grounds and to the theatre productions are already for sale at https://www.webtickets.co.za/.

For more information about this year's Vrystaat Arts Festival, please email mark@vrystaatkunstefees.co.za or alternatively send a WhatsApp to 063 584 4379.

News Archive

Art on Disasters to heal communities

2014-05-27

Fadzai Nyamusamba showing interest in the work: "Working on fire". This artwork was painted and donated by Mariette Pretorius, a professional artist from Bloemfontein. This art piece will be displayed at the South African National Disaster Management Centre in Pretoria.
Photo: Supplied

The Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC) at our university, recently launched its Art on Disasters initiative at the Gallery on Leviseur in Bloemfontein.

Disasters have a devastating effect on societies and are accompanied by fear, uncertainties and often post-traumatic stress disorders. The creative arts have the ability to comfort survivors and those affected by tragedy. Amid disaster, art serves as a memorial, aids in the healing process and helps these communities to interpret their emotions.

This is precisely the main focus of the Art on Disasters project. It aims to develop paintings, sculptures, dramas, theatre productions, poetry and music in collaboration with artists. These productions will then be presented to communities at risk of, or affected by, disasters, to create awareness and foster healing.

Furthermore, the initiative will conduct research on art as a form of therapy and co-ordinate rehabilitation experts to assist the relevant communities. The artworks collected by the project, will be sold or auctioned to help raise funds. The proceeds will then be donated to a worthy cause as part of DiMTEC’s commitment to community service.

The project will help console and heal communities and aspire to generate greater resilience to trauma. It will also give humanitarian workers the opportunity to advocate for disaster risk reduction and offer them an opportunity for psychological debriefing after attending to affected communities.

“We will collect different categories of art related to all forms of disasters. These include paintings, photography, sculptures, poetry, music, theatre productions and short stories,” said Dr Andries Jordaan, Director of DiMTEC. “Stephanie Peters, Thomas Hart Benton, Tania Kovats and Medhi Naimi are just a few of the many artists that paint on man-made and natural disasters. They are artists that believe in art therapy as a form of self-expression, well-being and recovery,” he added.

For more information about this initiative, or to possibly contribute as an artist, please contact Olivia Kunguma from DiMTEC on +27(0)51 401 9699 or kungumao@ufs.ac.za .

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