'The 10th ArtsAbility Festival from November 26 to December 7 is another important event where we need everyone to come on board and mainstream the needs of differently abled persons.’ Picture: Ian Landsberg.
by Marlene le Roux
As a government agency, Artscape take its mandate from the Constitution to work actively and diligently toward implementing social cohesion, human rights, equity, equality, and mainstreaming accessibility for all persons impaired by disabilities, among other duties.
Our diverse artistic and education programmes reach and inform South Africans from all backgrounds with world-class productions across all the artistic genres such as ballet, opera, symphonic music, jazz, gospel, musicals, drama, all dance forms, visual art, as well as specialised festivals including the Schools Arts Festival, Schools Drama Festival, Youth Jazz Festival, Women’s Humanity Festival, Rural Outreach and ArtsAbility Festival, to name a few.
Last week we launched our year programme for 2025, once again showing our resolve to ensure we stay on course implementing our mandate and vision.
Equally important for us as a heritage institution on Cape Town’s beautiful foreshore is not to see ourselves as a separate entity from arts development programmes happening in our semi-urban areas but we are constantly building bridges and holding hands with programmes in these areas.
These programmes include the Resource Centre in Hanover Park and the Charles Louw Mamela Project in Manenberg (founded by renowned jazz pianist and composer Charles Louw from Manenberg), who against so many odds stacked against them, soldier on, trying to create welcome spaces for the youth by offering tuition in piano, guitar, bass guitar, drums and theory of music, thus contributing to the long-term development and well-being of the broader Manenberg community.
This brings me to my question:
How do we feed into the economic system to help our young people for whom there seems to be little or no hope, who face crime daily? The performing arts are not just about what you see on stage. It’s about job creation for those on and off stage.
Here I also refer to the technicians responsible for the lights, the sound, the special effects, the props, the sets, the costumes, the production teams, and the cleaners who make sure you have a clean theatre, ablution facilities and common spaces each time, front of house staff, ushers.
Our youth in the semi-urban areas are trapped and prevented from capitalising on all these opportunities a theatre of our stature has to offer. Our young people can’t walk freely with their musical instruments from the community projects to their homes without being accosted and robbed of their belongings. For differently abled persons, the situation is far worse.
I am still waiting on the president to answer me about his government’s lack of concern for persons with disabilities in his speech during the opening of the Government of National Unity. If we at Artscape can mean and do what we say – a simple definition of the word “integrity” – why is our country’s leadership not serious about combating crime and implementing their grand policies ensuring safety and opportunity for our youth? Why is the number of GBV cases rising? Why are our children dying by day at the hands of criminals, their lives cut short before reaching their full potential? Why has Joshlin Smith and so many other abducted children not yet been found? As a theatre, we call on our government to do their job, to ensure many more young people are afforded job and expression opportunities in the arts and at Artscape.
It saddens me when we launch a programme for 2025 with the above in mind that some of our stakeholders do not send representatives to such an important event to ensure we as a collective continue to build a happy nation through the arts.
At Artscape we walk the talk, similarly, we need our associate companies, our media partners, our government partners to take our hand and do the same. In doing so, we collectively implement our Constitution and work actively toward giving hope to our youth in Cape Town’s semi-urban areas and rural communities as well as contributing toward job creation for our youth and persons with disabilities.
The 10th ArtsAbility Festival from November 26 to December 7 is another important event where we need everyone to come on board and mainstream the needs of differently abled persons. Significantly, it coincides with the 16 Days of Activism Campaign for No Violence Against Women and Children. During our Women’s Humanity
Festival in August, we invited participants to sign the pledge against GBV, showing our earnest concern about this scourge. This theatre is of global importance, taking the lead through the arts to highlight key issues that prevent our youth, women and children, persons who are differently abled and the LGBTQIA+ to freely enjoy full citizenship due to the source of GBV, discrimination and violence.
As a global theatre, we have proved that all art genres and all communities matter through our artistic productions and festivals.
Recently we relaunched the Rural Outreach Programme for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic mainstreaming persons with disability by taking hands with the Lief en Leed Organisation for persons with disabilities by persons with disabilities in Mamre, near Atlantis.
We presented a true Artscape experience for the people of Mamre and Atlantis, in partnership with our trusted associated companies, and what a magical experience it was for all concerned, from the world-class technical team from Artscape to the professional and local artists, proving that real change and empowerment are possible where stakeholders share a vision of implementing our country’s Constitution!
We, therefore, invite all stakeholders to once again join us in implementing our exciting programme for 2025, to help publicise, invite, to celebrate with us, to ensure that artists from all communities, all genres, all backgrounds, all abilities, all gender expressions are uplifted, empowered, recognised and celebrated.
Please visit our website www.artscape.co.za for all our programmes for 2025. Be a change agent for the arts, for our children, for our youth, for our women, for yourself!
* Marlene le Roux, Artscape CEO.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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