The Grahamstown National Arts Festival is now a week old. But unlike the almighty, on this seventh day, no one's really resting. Swerving from exhaustion, but not stopping. Like that cheese grater infomercial on late-night TV, at fest there's always more.

And I finally got to see some art! ............... Well, mostly because it came to me.

Probably as penance for having forsaken its eye-catching splendours in favour of my currently more personal musical interests, one of fest's finest artistic pieces decided to remind me of my neglect of visual art by entangling itself in my polar neck, making me carry it through impossible angles and jauntily riding in my car like the lord of mayor of Gtown - to where it was back-breakingly carried again to become the focal point of a performance piece. Even inanimate objects can be prima donnas over fest, but only if they are that good! This piece is! And it all started with a frantic phone call from artist, Rachel Baasch, who knows that I as a drummer have space in my vehicle for a full kit - ergo I'll also have enough room for one of the big beauties she concocts. 

I'd met Rachel a year and half ago, when Anton and I had gone on a reccie of Fort Selwyn - an early 19th century british fort overlooking the town - in preparation for our sound and art exhibition at fest last year. Anton's both SunshiP's basist and a phenomenal visual artist and we love collaborating!

Well, on that reccie day at Fort Selwyn, our collaboration ran us smack bang into a final year art student preparing her make or break degree-granting exhibition - vibrating as quickly as a hummingbird on amphetamines and speaking faster than a speeding bullet on crack. Full-blown day- before-the-show panic! She needn't have been. She's brilliant. Rachel created what looked like huge xmas tree ornaments from razor wire, hanging and rotating from the ceiling - balls and cones of concentric layers that had transformed this cruel substance originally meant to keep people out, into exquisite art which drew human beings in and engaged them. 

I've never seen anything like it before. Breathtaking!

Fast-forwarding to a year later, and another Rhodes University fourth year art student exhibition, (all the fourth years annually exhibit their final big pieces to internal and external examiners and to the general public in various venues around town) - but this time the artist was supremely calm, with a 'no retreat, no surrender' blue fire in an unwavering gaze. Xante Jackson - who with hammered tin and other metals, created gorgeous banana-leaf-like structures that slotted together to form ball-type creations on the floor. 'Leaf' on and in 'leaf', to create massive, majestic steel balls. Gorgeous! Seeing Xante a few days later, in passing I suggested that perhaps her and Rachel should think about exhibiting together. Rachel's now a Rhodes Master's student, so she's still around.

I just knew their work would work well  in the same space!

Xante being Xante, and Rachel being Rachel, a little suggestion I'd loosely tossed out, tightened into a joint project of theirs, which saw them have the owner of the now defunct old Post Office building - a stunning stone structure in the middle of town - fix it up; and Rachel and Xante hosting a combined festival exhibition of their respective work, cleverly called 'BENT'. Get it? Just beautiful! - A 'heaven and earth', 'hanging and standing', 'up there and here below' opulent opera of hammered metal and razor wire. And it's one of that opera's not so little and razor-sharp arias that I had to schlep in my car yesterday to the Arts Lounge for a performance. Part and parcel of fest adventure! 

The Arts Lounge, which I've spoken about before in previous fest blogs, is the lovechild of Prof. Ruth Simbao - a dynamic space of collaboration between art, drama, discourse, dialogue and music - which very much like its creator is about breaking down perceived barriers within the humanities and giving all the 'arts' enough space to breathe together, with a quiet smile. 

Have a look at www.research-africa-arts-com The confluence of artistic thought and practice in Africa right now is astounding! And we'll chat about it a lot more post-festival. There are stunning pics also accumulating that I'll then upload when the fest madness ends and we all have time to sit back and really take them in! This year though at fest, The Arts Lounge, what it represents and how it manifested in my fest experience as a place of personal play and performance, have made it very special in my heart!

Meanwhile, I took in some dance too. 'Public Oscilation' combines a band playing traditional African instruments - marimba, djembe, longbow, bass drums plus plus - with modern dance - fusing the respective languages of indigenous African music, (but in original musical compositions),  with very un-African choreographed, stylised, contemporary dance movement. It worked superbly! And the only reason that it could happen at all, is funding - from the festival itself and from the National Arts Council. You see, 'Public Oscillation', forms part of the festival's Arena Programme. I've spoken about the Arena before. It means you're invited to particpate, because you've shone at fest before. And invites mean funding - something there aint a lot of in the arts.

Indeed, the Arts Lounge too was made possible by an infusion of funding from the Mellon Foundation and the National Arts Festival. And in one of my post-fest blogs I am going to rant a little about a President who in his state of the nation address referred to minerals as 'national treasures', has allowed his Minister of Mining and Energy to dish out concessions and prospecting rights willy nilly - putting vast tracts of eco-sensitive environments under threat, including the dunes of the Transkei - and mentioned the arts only once, only in relation to tourism, while our nation's real treasure, the creativity of its people, scrambles for scraps. Now if South Africans were underground dwellers who hated the sun, I could understand why our government thinks their employment salvation will come from shoving them below the surface like the Lands Act almost a hundred years ago. But even the freedom struggle was in four-part harmony for crying out loud! We literally sang ourselves to freedom! - We are a nation of art, performance, creativity - designed to create, not just produce; and to delight those who prefer experience to consumption!

So yes - a little bit of cash can go a loooooooooooong way!

Artists like Rachel, Xante and Prof. Simbao; dance companies like Sibikwa and millions of artists, musicians, performers and arts practicioners around the country and the continent, are sculpting a society of open creation, and doing amazingly well - often on shoestring budgets. Imagine what could be done with real support - both in word and deed. Imagine! And whle you do, I'm off to see my very very absolutely last, final final, music show at fest. What can I say - they have a brilliant drummer that I must see. They're BOO!

Tomorrow night SunshiP performs again, and I'm about to soak in some percussive inspiration. Lord knows that with all the rain and brilliance at fest, soaking's what we're all doing here really.