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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

UFS study finds initiation does not build character

2015-06-24

Photo: Canva.com

Initiation at schools and school hostels does not build character or loyalty. On the contrary, it is a violation of human dignity and the rights of children.

This is the opinion of researchers from the University of the Free State’s Faculty of Education after an exploratory study of initiation practices in schools.

Although the use of initiation in schools and school hostels is forbidden by the Regulations to Prohibit Initiation Practices in Schools, the study found that this practice is still widely evident in schools. The study also found that, in some cases, teachers and/or principals take part.

In the study, led by Dr Kevin Teise from the Faculty of Education, it was found that physical deeds and even violence and emotional degradation were inflicted under the guise of ‘initiation’.

The study was discussed recently during a panel discussion between the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Law, and the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice.

The ‘initiation activities’ that take place during school hours ranged from carrying senior learners’ bags or doing other favours for them, handing over their food or food money, doing senior learners’ homework, and looking down when they speak to senior learners.

In school hostels, it was found that learners were expected to do humiliating things, and were also subjected to physical demands and even violence. Learners pointed out that they were smeared and beaten, their heads pushed into toilets, they had to bath or shower in cold water, they had to eat strange things, and they were prevented from sleeping.

Dr Teise says initiation practices are a general phenomenon in the schools and school hostels that took part in the investigation. Newcomers were subjected to silly and innocent practices, but also to physically and emotionally degrading, and even dangerous ones, before and after school, and during breaks and sports- and cultural gatherings.

“The study’s findings give every indication that the constitutional principles on which the policy document, Regulations to Prohibit Initiation Practices in Schools, is modelled, are not being put into practice and respected at these schools. Policy documents and school rules are pointless if learners, old pupils, parents, teachers, and the broad community consider initiation an acceptable behaviour that is, ostensibly, an inseparable part of school or hostel tradition and of the maturation and/or team-building processes.”

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