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KNYSNA NEWS - All who attended the Women’s Day celebrations, organised by Knysna municipality and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, at the Knysna Primary School were treated to an extravaganza of local, national and international talent that had the crowd on their feet.
The event on August 9 was hosted by the inimitable Jill Levenberg, better known as Mymoena Samsodien (Aunty Moena) in the popular kykNET soap opera Suidoosters, and Knysna mayor Eleanore Bouw Spies welcomed all the women of worth – both those in the audience and those performing – and thanked the department for the star-studded line-up that had been provided on such short notice.
Local talent
The guest artists included local 2017 Thisha Talent winners Megan Charles, winner of the "most promising voice", and the Moonstone drama group from Redefined 101, who were the runners-up in the drama category, and presented a haunting piece on the devastation of rape and the resulting pregnancies.
Other local talent present was Silakhe Oyo, a local lass employed at the Sedgefield offices of the Knysna municipality, who had the audience on their feet with her singing. This act was followed by Sinethemba Mdayi “all the way from White Location” who has launched her third album, and to complete the local line-up, renowned award-winning “Isikhosa only” poet Siphosethu Phikelela performed a number of her beautiful poems.
Other treats
Other first-time treats for the Knysna women included a performance by nationally renowned artist Blaq Pearl who hails from Mitchells Plain. Janine van Rooy is a social activist and youth development worker who holds a degree in psychology and is known for her unique poetry, which she combines with hip hop. She draws much of her inspiration from the work of her late brother, a hip-hop artist known as “Mr Devious”, who was murdered in Cape Town.
Jazzart, the Cape Town-based highly acclaimed dance school, wowed the audience with their three interpretive dance numbers choreographed and performed by members of the troupe with the themes “mending”, “thankfulness” and the moving final act depicting the development of relationships between men and women.
Powerful play
At the pre-launch held at the Hornlee civic hall, the invited guests had been privileged to view the entire Zabalaza Festival-award winning play TIP-ex, by 27-year-old Lauren Hannie, who was the first woman to win this acclaimed award since the inception of the festival organised by the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town.
On Women’s Day, an excerpt of the play, which is centred around the very controversial issues of corrective rape and its consequences, was performed by Hannie and her co-stars Melissa Johannisen and Maxine Caesar.
This is a powerful and poignant piece that manages to capture the essence of south African culture today highlighting the pain, psychological damage and division in families caused by this practice, performed with both humour and a sensitivity that left the audience deeply touched.
World-class act
A special treat was the performance by two of the stars of the Cape Town Opera Company, Frances Du Plessis and Siphamandla Yakupa, who have achieved both national and international acclaim.
These two stars not only opened the day with our national anthem but also performed a duet and a solo apiece. The audience listened enthralled to this world-class performance.
The last artist to rock the room was the finalist of television talent-scouting series The Voice, Lana Crowster, who with her band “got the party started”. It was a rhythmic and musical class act, which had everybody in the hall (including the dancers from Jazzart) up on their feet and dancing in the aisles.
It was a wonderful day’s entertainment to celebrate the women of Knysna which, over and above the music, dance and poetry, featured inspirational speeches by Bouw-Spies encouraging women to follow the principles in Sophia Nelson’s book The Woman Code; the director of arts and culture Jane Molelaki thanking her department members whose work had resulted in the remarkable success of the event; and finally the keynote speaker, former Reserve Bank governor and Knysna resident Gill Marcus, who pointed out that women should not celebrate just one day a year, but every day should be women’s day.
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