Indaba

lawayarts@hotmail.com — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:06:00 GMT

A project like Indaba can be viewed as a thought provoking project because it exposes one’s way of living to the other. Art has always been honest when it comes to portraying life the way it is. Art confronts issues that most people want to ignore with the purposes of sparking debate and discussion.

Like many other people one question I had in mind when I started thinking about the project was, why would I show the people of Groningen how the people in South African villages live their lives? They have probably seen enough on television about Africa. But when I thought of what people don’t see on television and when they visit South Africa, the similarities, the differences and the communal structures, I was more than inspired to do it.

When people think of the two countries it is almost impossible not think about the socio-economic values, the rich and the poor. This has become a normal way of looking at one other nowadays and we forget the most basic things in life, daily life, which has a significant contribution to the people or persons that we are. This project was not about economical comparisons but how people conduct their lives on a daily basis. This has an enormous contribution to our culture which is fundamental to our faith.

Art does bring people together because when you look at the Indaba play with local actors playing in front of South African backgrounds you almost think that the two worlds have come together. The distance seizes to exist and the cultures are fused together and you realise that a village in Africa is not different from the village in Europe and the people are the same only a different lifestyle that influences a different culture. The way of doing things is different but similar and this has been well portrayed in Indaba through the combination of video projections from South Africa and the dramatic scenes by local actors from Kantens,Groningen .

The sameness or similarities become very clear when the two cultures are put together on the same stage. This also brings about the realisation that there is no culture that is better than the other. The similarities are fascinating and the differences are interesting. In South Africa we call it “the same difference”. It means the samething done differently.

The more we are exposed to each other’s way of living the more we understand one another. The song goes like: “Understanding is the best thing in the world”

Macebo Mavuso

Theater, de kracht van cultuur

Indaba