The ninth annual Makana Drama Development Festival crowned its overall winners with the ultimate prize of an opportunity to perform in the National Arts Festival next year.
The ninth annual Makana Drama Development Festival crowned its overall winners with the ultimate prize of an opportunity to perform in the National Arts Festival next year.
Last Friday the festival saw an unprecedented level of participation, after members of the Ubom! theatre company worked with and trained different groups on a weekly basis throughout the year. In the junior section, eight drama groups competed from local schools and centres.
All of the groups presented a high standard of work, and many members of the audience commented that this was the best year of junior groups they’d seen yet.
The junior winners were Andrew Moyake’s drama group that presented Injongo, directed by Masixole Heshu. Second and third places went to the Sakh’uluntu Group.
In the senior section, nine groups competed for the coveted grand prize of an opportunity to participate in the National Arts Festival Remix Laboratory next year.
The performances covered many contemporary issues from black consciousness, friendship, poverty and street-dwelling, to love and forgiveness.
The Best Runner up Production went to A Visions with The Journey, and the Best Production prize was won by the Kwela group with Light.
A special performance was presented by the Sakh’ulutsha Drama Group from the Grahamstown Correctional Facility. Their moving production Heaven to Hell, directed by applied theatre expert Alex Sutherland and Luvuyo Yanta, won Best Ensemble in the senior competition.
Prizes were sponsored by Revolution, Steers, King Pie, Kodak, Fruit & Veg, Video Spot, Van Schaik Bookstore and Grahamstown Pharmacy.
The festival's organisers thanked the sponsors for their continued support of arts development in Grahamstown, and said the prizes added a special touch and importance to the competition.
Ubom! is funded by the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund, National Arts Council, Rhodes University and the Arts & Culture Trust.
