Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

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

Afrikaans speakers should think differently, says Coenie de Villiers

2016-06-08

Description: Coenie de Villiers Tags: Coenie de Villiers

Coenie de Villiers was the speaker at the DF Malherbe
Memorial Lecture, held in the Equitas Building on the
University of the Free State Bloemfontein Campus on
24 May 2016.
Photo: Stephen Collett

Do not ask what can be done for your language, but what your language can do for others. With this adaptation of the late John F. Kennedy’s famous words, Coenie de Villiers stressed that the onus for the survival of their language rests with Afrikaans speakers.

According to the television presenter and singer, the real empowerment of Afrikaans does not necessarily take place in parliament. He was the speaker at the DF Malherbe Memorial Lecture, presented in the Equitas Building on the University of the Free State Bloemfontein Campus on 24 May 2016. The lecture by De Villiers, a UFS alumnus, was titled Is Afrikaans plesierig? ’n Aweregse blik.

Government not the only scapegoat
He used Kennedy’s famous phrase, Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, as framework. “I believe that, if we reverse our sights and do not ask what the world can do for Afrikaans, but ask for a change what Afrikaans – and in particular each and every user thereof – can do for others, then we have, in good English terms, ‘a fighting chance’ that Afrikaans will not only survive, but that it will thrive.” He said it would be too easy to just blame the government’s language policy and/or its lack of application for the language’s uncertainties.

Speakers should act correctly
He said the actions of speakers, sometimes motivated by a love for the language, often causes more damage. “It is not the language that should squirm under the microscope. It isn’t Afrikaans that is being tested: it is us, the speakers, writers, thinkers, doers, and tweeters of the language that are being measured.”
De Villiers believes one should stand up for your language without hesitation or fear, but not necessarily in the middle of the road, and never in such a way that you abandon the moral compass of humanity.

Language will live on
He told the audience that Afrikaans speakers should maintain their language every day with the merit, humanity, and respect that they believe the language – and they themselves – deserve. The language will “live on as long as we use it to laugh, and talk, and sing, and do not kill it off with rules and directives.”

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept