Storyteller extraordinaire Dr Gcina Mhlophe will treat over 350 learners to her charismatic performance and storytelling when she gives the keynote address at this year’s opening ceremony for the South African Schools Festival staring this Sunday, 9 July and ends Wednesday 12, July 2017.
Mhlophe, who was awarded a Rhodes University Honorary Doctorate in 2014, is an actor, poet and author whose career spans 20 years. She is well known as one of few storytellers who seeks to preserve the craft as a means of keeping history alive and encouraging children to read.
The Schools Festival is hosted by the Grahamstown Foundation’s Arts Education’s project, supported by Rhodes University for 41 years. Through this Festival, grade 11 and 12 learners and their teachers are introduced to a space of arts, creativity and social enrichment.
As part of the Festival programme, Rhodes University will award the Top 15 English Olympiad winners free first-year tuition scholarships. These are subject to the learners meeting the University’s entrance requirements. The Olympiad is an English competition that draws over 8 000 entries each year from around South Africa and its neighbouring countries.
Rhodes will also host all participating learners and their teachers in its residences during the week.
The festival aims to develop within the youth a passionate interest in, and a love for, the arts and culture of South Africa. Furthermore, this will encourage creative interaction amongst different cultures. The Festival seeks to develop within the youth a passionate interest in, and a love for the arts and culture of South Africa. It also aims to encourage creative interaction amongst different cultures.
Each Festival gives delegates an intense arts experience in an instructive mix of lectures, workshops and performances delivered by professional artists.
The programme for 2017 includes an astonishing 22 events, selected from some of the most talented artists throughout South Africa. The delegates will be treated to a professional classic ballet show, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the acclaimed theatreproduction Woza Albert, a political satire play that imagines the second coming of Christ in apartheid-ridden South Africa among other great productions.