World City Guide

Culture

Until 1994, the policy of apartheid or ‘separate development’ divided the city into so-called ‘White’, ‘Black’, ‘Coloured’ and ‘Indian’ residential areas and the city’s cultural landscape reflected this. In addition, the white community was further segregated along the language line, with the English speakers living in distinct communities, as did the Afrikaans speakers. Cultural mixing did occur in specific ‘grey’ suburbs, such as the famous Sophiatown, which was bulldozed by the authorities in 1960, for precisely this reason. The present situation is one whereby cultures are once again discovering each other and this is evident in the eclectic music and theatre scene, especially in the suburbs of Brixton, Troyeville and Melville. Sophiatown has regained her name.

Any thoughts that Johannesburg may suffer from chronic cultural as well as climatic drought can be put to rest by paging through the Tonight supplement to the city’s main daily newspaper, The Star (website: www.iol.co.za). As well as the lively theatre scene, Johannesburg’s annual festivals, which cover nearly every artistic field, are an engrossing way to sample different aspects of the city’s cultural life. See also www.702.co.za for searchable daily listings of Johannesburg happenings and events.

Tickets to cultural events are available from Computicket (tel: (011) 340 8000; fax: (011) 340 8900; website: www.computicket.com) or Ticketweb (tel: (086) 140 0500; website: www.ticketweb.co.za). There is also a good online cultural guide (website: www.artthrob.co.za).

Music: The lusty lyrics and irresistible dance beats of kwaito can be heard blasting out of taxis, clubs, shebeens and street parties throughout Johannesburg. The genre uses local languages and street slang in lyrics that reflect life in South Africa and employs a distinct South African style of dancing and dressing. Places to hear kwaito include Enigma, 187 Oxford Road, Rosebank (tel: (011) 442 9190), Sankayi, Mutual Square, Rosebank (tel: (011) 447 8653), Planet Katzys, Lakeside Mall, Benoni (tel: (011) 427 1964), Monsoon Lagoon, and Caesar’s Palace, Kempton Park (tel: (011) 928 1280). Also worth checking out are La Frontière, Hillbrow, Insomnia, Randburg, Tandoor, Yeoville, 707i, Orlando West, Soweto. Maskande is a Zulu/country fusion that is well represented by Philemon Zulu and the Jeremy Franklin Band. Busi Mhlongo and Madala Kunene are also worth seeing. Gigs are not as common as they are for kwaito performances and visitors should check local press. Good websites to get all the latest details are www.rage.co.za and www.replay.co.za/music/

Theatre: Since 1976 and the days of protest theatre, the Market Theatre Company, 121 Bree Street, Newtown Cultural Precinct (tel: (011) 832 1641; website: www.markettheatre.co.za), has gained a reputation for putting on productions that are socially relevant. The Civic Theatre Complex, Loveday Street, Braamfontein (tel: (011) 403 3408; website: www.artslink.co.za/civic), comprises the Nelson Mandela Theatre (formerly Civic Main), Tesson, Thabong and Pieter Roos theatres and an art gallery. Shows are mainly local productions, musicals, spectaculars, comedy and pantomime (when in season). Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre, Shop 65, Montecasino Boulevard, on the corner of William Nicol Drive and Witkoppen Road, Fourways (tel: (011) 511 1988; website: www.montecasinotheatre.co.za), owned by the great impresario who gave it his name, gives both new and established artistes opportunities for new directions and growth. Another well known theatre and cabaret figure, Richard Loring, runs The Sound Stage, Old Pretoria Road, Midrand (tel: (011) 315 5084; website: www.soundstage.co.za).

Dance: Dance Factory (tel: (011) 833 1347; fax: (011) 833 1263; e-mail: dancefactory@icon.co.za), President Street, Newtown Cultural Precinct, hosts a huge range of international and local performers, often mixing classical and ethnic styles.

Poetry: Poetry Slams (literary boxing matches) are held at the Mixer Café Theatre, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Seventh Street, Melville.

Film: Ster-Kinekor (tel (in South Africa only): 086 030 0222; website: www.sterkinekor.com) cinemas are located at dozens of venues throughout Johannesburg and screen mainstream movies. Cinema Nouveau, located at The Mall shopping centre, 50 Bath Avenue, Rosebank (tel: (011) 880 2866), has a reputation for showing art house films. The year 2000 saw the first ever Soweto Film Festival, which could well become an annual event (website: www.news24.com).

Some notable films set in Johannesburg include Mapantsula (1988), which tells of a petty hoodlum caught up in the events of the student riots in Soweto, The Foreigner (1994), which deals with the growing xenophobia aimed mostly at immigrant Africans in Johannesburg, and The Line (1996), which portrays ordinary South Africans caught up in the violent times of a fast changing society.

Cultural events: The Arts Alive festival (tel: (011) 838 6407; website: www.artsalive.co.za) occurs annually during September, mainly at venues in Newtown but also in Soweto and Tembisa. Apart from general music concerts and stage productions, such as the popular Jazz on the Lake (at the Zoo lake), community festivals from Soweto and Alexandra are also included. There are various sub-festivals that occur at the same time – including Joy of Jazz and Dance @ Arts Alive. This is regarded as one of South Africa’s top dance festivals and boasts a huge programme. Zwakala Festival at the Market Theatre Laboratory is an annual festival, into its ninth year, which gives novice theatre groups the opportunity to perform in a professional environment (tel: (011) 832 1642/3).

FNB Vita run many festivals, including Dance Umbrella – the major national platform for South African choreography, every February and March, at the Wits Theatre, Jorrisson Street, Braamfontein; the Windybrow Theatre Festival – every March at the Windybrow Centre for the Arts, 161 Nugget Street, Hillbrow; and the Market Theatre Laboratory Community Theatre Festival – where plays, music and dance are showcased by community theatre troupes in May. The annual World of Music and Dance festival, WOMAD (website: www.womad.org/southafrica), takes place over a weekend, at Bluegum Creek in Benoni, and includes workshops, weekend camping and a late-night dance event (dates differ every year).

Literary notes: Johannesburg’s tumultuous past (and present) has provided fertile grounds for the growth of a rich literary tradition. An excellent source of books is the African Books Collective (website: www.africanbookscollective.com). Nadine Gordimer, who won the 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born close to the city in 1923 and has lived in Parktown, Johannesburg since 1948. In The House Gun (1998), set in Johannesburg, she explores, through a murder trial, the problems of a violence-ridden post-apartheid society. In his writings about Johannesburg, Herman Charles Bosman (1910-1951) presents the soul of the city as reflecting the soul of Africa. To understand the background as to why Johannesburg has fascinated so many writers, Gandhi’s Johannesburg: Birthplace of Satyagraha (2000), by Eric Itzkin, and A City Divided: Johannesburg and Soweto (1984), by Nigel Mandy, are both a good initial read.

Although Nelson Mandela was not born in Johannesburg, he did have a law practice here in the 1950s and was arrested in the suburb of Rivonia, before being tried and convicted for treason in 1963. Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (1995) provides a remarkable insight into what Johannesburg in the 1940s and 50s was like for this extraordinary man.

Zakes Mda’s new novel about Sophiatown, Heart of Redness (2001), explores the area during ‘The golden 50s, the flowering of South African culture and the Sophiatown renaissance.’ One of Johannesburg’s most famous theatrical sons is Pieter-Dirk Uys, possibly better known as Evita Bezuidenhout. Pieter-Dirk Uys started irritating South African politicians and censors with his plays from 1973 onwards. His better known or more notorious works include Adapt or Dye (1981), which parodied the white regime’s preoccupation with skin colour and, more recently, Truth Omissions (1996/1997), a somewhat ascorbic comment on South Africa’s Truth Commission, a post-apartheid platform to facilitate reconciliation and reparation.

One of South Africa’s greatest living poets, Don Mattera, was born in Johannesburg’s Sophiatown in 1935. His grandparents sent him to a private Catholic boarding school, which he hated. Here he acquired little other than skills in English, boxing and codes of masculinity, which he turned to great advantage on his return to Sophiatown, where he became leader of one of the most notorious gangs, the Vultures. Then, slowly, along with the campaign against the apartheid removals (from Sophiatown), began the process of politicisation (membership of the ANC Youth League) and his transformation from gangland boss to political activist.