I drove down the R44 towards Stellenbosch, admiring the idyllic vistas afforded by the winelands in spring, listening to the unmistakable voice of Alecia Beth Moore — aka P!nk. “The kids are not alright,” she sang, combining a rock star’s up-yours to the conservative Christian establishment in the US with a parent’s concern for young people.
It felt like she was singing on behalf of her fellow Gen-Xers, fretting not just about our own children but about the wellbeing of two or three postmillennial generations: kids growing up anxious and tech-saturated, kids who will reap the whirlwind of climate catastrophe. And those are the lucky ones; millions more are growing up in conditions ranging from resource precariousness to extreme poverty.
I was travelling to Stellenbosch for another day at Woordfees 2022, which concluded last weekend. This year was my first experience of the town in its arts festival finery — which is impressive indeed. It is also strangely discomfiting. Creatively curated, expertly run, Woordfees is a flagship South African arts brand; yet, despite the organisers’ efforts to make the festival more inclusive, audiences remain (to put it crudely) wealthy and white.
The choir seemed to be ministering musically to us, bringing us into their elevated collective orbit
This is a function of the socioeconomic structure of the region, as well as the history that weighs heavily upon it. History haunts every tree-lined street and every stylish cafe in these parts, just as it does every well-kept acre in the surrounding farmland, along with every picturesque homestead.
A persistent South African question presents itself: what place is there for aesthetics in our blood-soaked, segregated, poverty-torn country? To which the typical defensive responses are often phrased as questions: “why does everything have to be political? Why can’t something just be beautiful?”
It’s a false binary, of course, but the fusion of politics and aesthetics can be difficult to manage. This was brought home to me at a performance of the Stellenbosch University Choir (USK), an extra recital added to the Woordfees programme because the choir is in such high demand. If you can get your hands on a ticket for a USK concert, you are in for one of the standout arts experiences of your life.
Conductor André van der Merwe, who has led the choir as musical director since 2003, found just the right balance of seriousness and levity in his brief comments between pieces as he took the ensemble of 90-odd students through their remarkable repertoire. The choir’s musical diversity is as notable as its racial diversity (precisely the diversity lacking in its audience on this occasion).
Introducing a new arrangement of the song Indodana, Van der Merwe spoke about giving our country hope — about the choir’s desire to help fulfil a longed-for, long-deferred South African dream of integration, mutual tolerance, shared dignity. The message landed in an audience representing a demographic (let’s call it the Dis-Chem demographic) that tends to seek a different kind of reassurance: the kind that says, albeit implicitly, “don’t worry, your lifestyle will continue despite political turmoil and the worst excesses of state negligence”.
But the choir had something else in mind. Spreading themselves across the stage and up the steeply raked rows of Endler Hall for the final number, as they sang they seemed to be holding us, ministering musically to us, bringing us into their elevated collective orbit. Their youth, their graceful exuberance, their sophisticated navigation of racial and cultural dynamics, was able to accommodate and alleviate our angst. These kids are alright.
Later in the day, I watched The Unlikely Secret Agent, Paul du Toit’s adaptation of Ronnie Kasrils’ book about his wife Eleanor. Starring Erika Marais, Carlo Daniels, Ntlanhla Morgan Kutu, Gideon Lombard and Wessel Pretorius, this production takes us deep into the brutal machinery of the apartheid government and inspires us with the bravery of those who fought it.
Via Kasrils and Du Toit, we see that they did so with a mixture of good humour and grim determination, even when idealism foundered and resistance failed. That love should triumph here seems equally unlikely — and yet it did.
I was reminded by this invigorating piece of theatre that we are sustained by the heroism of those who have come before us as much as by those who carry the future.
•The Unlikely Secret Agent is at the Baxter Theatre until October 29.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.