A different kind of festival

This week we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Cape Town Festival and I can’t believe that ten years have gone by so quickly.

The festival was born out of the “One City, Many Cultures” project that I initiated while I was editor of the Cape Times. The project was a direct response to the intolerance and hatred that was prevalent in the city at the time.

Our aim was, and remains, to promote a more tolerant, more diverse and integrated city of Cape Town. We do this by showing people how similar we all are despite our different racial, religious and cultural backgrounds.

We believe that this project is particularly poignant in an election year when tolerance is going to be tested to its limits. The board of the festival decided that this year’s festival should be dedicated to the memory of Colin van Schalkwyk, a former board member who was killed while cycling on Valentine’s Day this year. This is a small way in which we hope to keep Colin’s memory alive.

Over the years we have experimented with different formats, as festivals do, but we should stick to our present format for the next few years. We have a range of community festivals leading up to the main festival — a schools workshop programme and a series of lectures/talks. The main festival will take place over three or four days, depending on whether it is a long weekend or not. We might include some performing arts and films.

We also took the decision to make all our events free.

On Monday this week, we started our schools workshop programme in the Company’s Garden and Iziko Museum and this continues until Friday. We take about 450 learners from different schools every day and teach them about leadership and tolerance. We also expose them to different places of worship in the city centre.

Our lecture series tonight (Wednesday, March 18) will feature Courtney Sampson, provincial head of the Independent Electoral Commission in the Western Cape, speaking on the IEC’s readiness to host the 2009 elections. Tomorrow night, (Thursday 19 March), Mariette du Toit-Heimbold, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, will speak about what it takes to be a good Capetonian.

Both lectures are in the TH Barry Lecture Theatre at Iziko Museum, Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town (next to the Planetarium) and are from 6pm until 8pm. You don’t even have to RSVP, just pitch, and, like I mentioned earlier, it is free.

On Friday March 20 our main festival starts in the Company’s Garden with a performance by Coda at 5pm, followed by Nomfusi Gotyana, Jonathan Rubain and Robbie Jansen, Celeste Williams, with our headline act being the Alvin Dyers Band featuring Errol Dyers and Leslie Kleinsmith. Our MC’s for the night include Natalie Bekker and Nigel Pierce of Radio Good Hope and comedian Stuart Taylor.

On Saturday March 21 — Human Rights Day — we start at 1pm with a spiritual performance by Desert Rose, which is headed up by a former CEO of the festival, Yusuf Ganief. This is then followed by a concert featuring Mono Dullisear backed by Celeste Williams’ band, Claire Philips, The Moreira Project, The Rudimentals and Prime Circle.

We intend to finish just after 9pm on both days.

On Sunday March 22, we have our Community Vibrations Day, which showcases the best performers from our community festivals.

We start the day with a performance at 1pm by the popular gospel group, Kunjalo, followed by our community performers, and our other headline acts include Raylene, Allistair Izobel and The Rockets. We intend to end up by about 8pm.

In between there will be short speeches and a pledge that people can sign as a personal commitment towards creating a more tolerant city.

All our concerts are in the Company’s Garden and we encourage families to come with picnic baskets and enjoy the fantastic music and views on offer in a space that should be used more for outdoor activities. We will have lots of food, drinks and crafts for sale.

We will also have a screening of the documentary Please Vote For Me, hosted by the director, Don Edkins, who is South Africa’s first Oscar winner for a documentary feature. This film will be screened at the TH Barry Lecture Theatre at Iziko Museum at 7pm on Friday March 20.

Our aim this weekend is to have fun, but to still continue to promote the message that makes us different from other festivals: of promoting a more tolerant, integrated and diverse city of Cape Town.

I hope to see many Capetonians, representing the diversity of the city, at this Festival.