Performing Arts, Film Empowerment, Dance, Music and Events: KZN African Film Festival (KAFF), Ishashalazi Women Theatre Festival, Isigcawu Drama Festival, Africa Motherland Festival, FUNDA Schools Drama Competition, EThekwini Mzansi Festival.
Call for 2021 KZN Film Festival Film submissions.
The KAFF is a community based film festival, which specifically focuses on screening South African Films, Africa Films and documentaries and unique world films. KAFF is entirely run at community venues with the main activities at K-CAP’s awesome Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre in Kwa-Mashu. KAFF is complemented by its effective 5-days developmental workshops programme facilitated by professional filmmakers and producers. Having established itself as a people’s festival the festival has ventured as far as Ndwedwe, Port Shepstone, Pietermaritzburg to share with communities the joys of cinema and the skills that directors bring to KwaZulu-Natal during KAFF. The festival’s focus is African stories from all over the world. While the definition of African is broad the festival recognizes that our stories are interwoven and can come from all parts of the globe.
KAFF is now calling for the submission of films (short, feature, students, etc.) and documentaries for its 14th year anniversary.
The films must be submitted to in DVD format to:
The KAFF Programmer
Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre
B25 Giya Road, Kwa Mashu
4360
0027315046970
Closing Date: 19 November 2021
Filmmakers also need to send an email with a short synopsis of the film and at least 2 stills from the film in jpeg format, Director’s short bio/filmography and a mugshot jpeg image of the director to admin@kcap.co.za or kafffest@gmail.com
KAFF 2021is supported by the KZN Film Commission and KZN department of Arts and Culture
PERFORMING ARTS MENTORSHIP PROGRAMME (PAMP)
This is K-CAP unique annual programme that train aspirant performing artists on acting techniques, acting principles and the craft of the creative arts industry.
It is a 10 months programme that recruit trainees who have just completed senior certificate and with an ambition to make it in the performing arts sector, wanting to widen their career opportunities and seeking to know and understand opportunities existing within the industry.
Most of trainees in this programme are either recruited by tertiary institutions for further learning (one of the past-trainee is a Masters Graduate in Dance), recruited by such international productions like, The Lion King (over 18 in various countries) or some self-employed with their own companies and projects.
The programme teaches the core of the performing arts and recruits 25 learners each year for this intensive programme.
INKUNDLA POETRY FESTIVAL
Inkundla Poetry Festival is a showcase platform for aspirant poets of eThekwini Municipality wards whereby by a buildup to the main Inkundla poetry festival in July starts with the selection of 10 quality poets from communities to be featured in the main programme. The 10 poets selected compete for a Winner Takes All prize during the night of Inkundla Poetry Festival. All the 10 poets perform during the first part of the programme which is then followed by the performance of invited professional poets. Inkundla is an opportunity for aspirant poets to mingle and share the stage with professional poets and network thereafter. The winner of Inkundla is then recommended to Poetry Africa Festival.
During the months from April to June selection process kicks off in eThekwini Wards to produce the 10 poets for Inkundla. The 10 finalist are given the opportunity to record 10 poems at Ekhaya Centre studios in an album format.
INDIGENOUS MUSIC ADVANCEMENT PROGRAMME
African culture is rich in variety and musical inspirations. Music creates a sense of togetherness, in many cultures. Music is meant as a way of communication. Traditional African music is described as “functional in nature”, pertaining to the ideas of marriage, childbirth and hunting. Language barriers can be brought together connecting communication to culture; example, the talking drum. Music defines the diversity of African Culture, influenced by language, environment and political changes that have occurred throughout African History.
Many to most of the traditional African instruments are hand-made.
Traditional African Instruments Include: Musical bows, a wide range of drums, many wind instruments, xylophone, talking drums, Zulu drums, shakers and rattles, rain sticks, double bells, bows, flutes and various types of harps.
Key Objectives Are:
- Revival and promoting indigenous music
- Training on playing of variety indigenous music instruments of SA
- Creation of Indigenous Music Ensemble for performances
- Indigenous instruments training and playing
- Ongoing mentorship programmes to ensure sustainability
- Utilization of living legends to mentors aspirant musicians of indigenous instruments
This is a unique annual programme implemented at Ekhava Multi Arts Centre which in furture will also spread to other Southern Africa countries in partnership formats.
FUNDA SCHOOLS DRAMA FESTIVAL
2016 is the third year of FUNDA, the provincial annual Funda School Festival which takes the competition format will take place on Friday, 5th August 2016 at Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre. The 2016 theme links with the Celebration of 60 Years of Women’s March, HIV/AIDS and the Zulu200 Celebrating the 200 years of the founding of the Zulu Kingdom.
Goals
- To encourage and promote community involvement through the arts
- To hold the first annual “Schools Drama” Festival
- To teach students impact of drama in society
- To encourage the study of drama and as a career amongst students
- Provide local artists the opportunity to display their work & talents
The aim of the Funda School Drama Festival is to encourage primary and secondary schools to develop drama as a regular co-curricular activity. The Festival this year can accommodate a maximum of 30 drama groups.
Entries in the drama performances are categorized as follows:
|
LEVEL |
CATEGORIES |
||
|
Primary |
Zulu |
English |
Zulu & English |
|
Secondary/High School |
Zulu |
English |
English & Zulu |
Each school to enter with a play of maximum 20 minutes. There will be three winning prizes for the schools categorized as Number 1, Number 2 and Number 3 and each accompanied by the trophy and certificates. There will be individual prizes for best outstanding performers.
Schools to enter as either: Primary or Secondary/High School. There will be separate adjudication and winners. The FUNDA is preceded with workshops that prepare participants for the finals.
All schools wanting to enter must contact 031 5046970 for forms and other details.
KCAP CREDANCE
This is a K-CAP annual developmental creative dance programme nurturing young people’s talents and widening career opportunities within the creative arts industry. The project works with young people still in-school being mentored by professional dance practitioners. The project is also involved in cultural exchange programmes having travelled to France and US in the past.
ONLY STUDENTS SERIOUS ABOUT DANCE SKILLS are recruited to this community based programme which runs for 10 months at Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre. The programme is free to all talented young people. The outcomes of the dance programme are always quality works. This year’s theme is on child soldiers in Africa. Dancers are groups into Level 1, then Level 2 and Level 3. Variety of dance styles is taught with more emphasis on African dances. Ages ranges from 6-17 years.
Many of the former dance students are today graduates or undergraduates in tertiary institutions pursuing arts related studies. An example is Thabile Buthelezi who through her scholarship now pursues a Master’s Degree in Belgium focusing on dance research. Lindani Phumlomo is now a Honors student in African Music and Dance at UKZN.
AFRICA MOTHERLAND FESTIVAL
Africa Motherland Festival is an annual event now it its 4th year (2016) which celebrates Africa Month in the community level at Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre in Inanda Ntuzuma Kwa-Mashu (INK) area which now includes Phoenix. The successful event is an initiative of Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre, a unique facility in Kwa Mashu opened by President Jacob Zuma in September 2003. Through Africa Motherland Festival activities that run for 4 days, communities are reminded who they are, where they come from and about the rich African civilizations that gave upswing to the world’s civilizations. Africa Motherland Festival reminds our people about the Great Civilizations of Ethiopia (Axum), Ashanti, Egypt, Timbukti (Mali) and Monomotapa (Great Zimbabwe) Southern Africa. Africa Motherland Festival is celebrated through unique festivities of theatre, diverse music, dance, poetry, food, craft and film. All these activities build up to the Africa Day on the 25th May 2016 where the main festival takes place. (Build ups from 1st May culminating to Africa Day)
May is Africa month cherished in the whole continent of Africa and Africa Diaspora. Africa Day is celebrated by many African communities around the world. It is a permanent mass institution worldwide and the day is observed through events that include cultural entertainment, poetry, and film seminars. Africa Day falls each year on the 25th May and is traditionally used to celebrate the struggle for independence and freedom in Africa. Celebration of Africa Day Africa Day has been observed annually since 1963 on 25 May. It commemorates the establishment of the African Union (AU), and the former Organisation of African Unity. It was set up to acknowledge and celebrate Africa’s history, heritage and culture.
In 2013, K-CAP’s Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre launched with success the inaugural AFRICA MOTHERLAND FESTIVAL which saw the weekend celebrations that coincided with Africa Day. First day was the celebration of Africa cuisine which included food tastes from KZN, Nigeria, Congo and Rwanda. The second was a film screening and a seminar on Africa and the third day was a Sing Africa Dance Africa concert featuring various African dances from Rwanda, Congo, Ethiopia and KZN.
Going forward, K-CAP wants to celebrate Africa month from the 1st May until 25th May – with variety of activities which will involve INK schools, crafters, exhibitions on Africa, Africa food cuisine day, film screenings, seminars and a concert day. All these activities taking place right in the community at Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre, Kwa Mashu.
Africa Day is the annual commemoration on May 25 of the 1963 founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). On this day, leaders of 30 of the 32 independent African states signed a founding charter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Africa Motherland Festival keeps Durban alive during the Africa Month.
DEEP ZULU COMEDY FESTIVAL
Deep zulu is a unique quarterly programme that promotes the use of deep IsiZulu language in comedy as part of enriching the language and sustaining its use. Deep Zulu Comedy involves both upcoming and professional comedians and its 2 hour programme is structured in a theatrical presentation style. In-between the programme is exhibition of the comical works by Zulu cartoonists writing for various isiZulu newspapers.
ETHEKWINI MZANSI THEATRE FESTIVAL
This is a community-based festival aimed at audience development and quality theatre appreciation at the community level. The Festival is done in partnership with EThekwini Municipality every September, during the Heritage Month. It stages semi-professional production and professional quality theatre productions through invitation.
Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre, Kwa Mashu in association with eThekwini municipality have been working together in developing and reviving theatre audience in the township. It will be remembered that Township once had a huge support towards theatrical production during the apartheid era. People fell in love with the theatre even though there were no theatres and decent halls in the township. Most people supported the theatre because it became the voice of the voiceless and was addressing social issues through protest theatre in the country. When political transformation took place and real theatres mushrooming in different cities people started moving from the townships to watch theatre productions in the cities. This theatre migration left a huge gap since the townships were only left with taverns and sheebens as the only place of entertainment. It’s not only townships residents who suffered from easy access to theatres but theatre producers dealt with a heavy blow of poor attendance in theatre. It was for this reason that in 2011 K-CAP’s Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre initiated the EThekwini Mzansi Theatre Festival in partnership with EThekwini Municipality. It’s a vibrant professional festival that features only quality productions some fresh from the National Arts Festival.
ISHASHALAZI WOMANS THEATRE FESTIVAL
Appreciating the best of women’s theatre through offering a forum to learn, create and platform to exhibit quality works
Launched in 2008, Ishashalazi Women Theatre Festival is a platform for female performing artists to showcase their short drama pieces of up to 20 minutes each in a competitive format. Due to the lack of quality and well trained young women creative artists in the communities the K-CAP’s Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre realized a need to initiate this programme which complement the K-CAP’s mission to discover, develop and expose creative talents in our communities in an empowering manner. The K-CAP programmes are shaped by the need to capacitate, value, promote and conserve the rich cultural diversity and integrity of the province. The programme aims to bring arts closer to the community in a meaningful manner. The Ishashalazi Festival attracts hundreds of emerging KZN female artists as well as theatre loving audiences. Complementing the Festival’s build-up is intensive empowering masterclass workshops facilitated by women theatre practitioners.
Ishashalazi Women Theatre Festival itself is an annual event that takes place during the last 5 days of August and attracts over 20 women theatre groups from all over KZN and South Africa.
Summative Objectives are:
- Ensure job creation through theatre/drama
- Identify, display, promote talents
- Support aspects of theatre development in KZN regions
- Develop theatre audiences
- Connect talented women performing artists with theatres and
- Bring quality theatre to the communities.
The projects give unique opportunity to budding female artists and provide access to Ekhaya Arts Centre facilities for all artists in KZN. During the past 8 editions of Ishashalazi many have been discovered and exposed in TV medium, film and professional theatre.
ISIGCAWU DRAMA FESTIVAL
Isigcawu Theatre Festival is an annual festival of diverse theatre productions presented in a competition format which gives accessible platform to over 40 KZN drama groups from communities to showcase their theatrical talents, receive feedback from industry experts and be spotted by theatre directors, arts development projects and festival organizers for further opportunities.
Isigcawu is an open festival allowing theatre groups of all walks of life to participate through applying and undergoing a selection process. The festival targets mainly youth in theatre – and each drama group can have between 1 to 5 people on stage to qualify for Isigcawu – both male and female. The Isigcawu also target theatre groups from all KZN communities as part of promoting cultural diversity and social cohesion.
Isigcawu Theatre Festival runs for 3 days towards the end of November.