National ArtFest Days 8,9,10, 11 - More Than One Could Ever Imagine

So its over. The ArtsFest for 2012 is done. As am I. I'd hoped to write daily updates - to put you right inside the glorious kaleidoscope that the Grahamstown National Arts Festival always is. I couldn't. This year was just too big, too much, too busy, too full, too intense, too constant. My god! Every day was so full, that by evening what had happened just that morning felt like it was days, even weeks, old.

Having worked as a wordsmith for a dozen years, I pride myself at being able to describe anything. This year's festival brought out my loss for words. It is truly impossible to even begin describing the 11 days that have just passed in Gtown - the talent, the artistry, the courage, the creativity, the conceptual magnificence of the work that was presented ... the sheer immense volume of it all!

Go to http://cuetv.ru.ac.za/ for a taster. 

This festival was phenomenal! It was a dreamland of some of the most spectacular live performance experiences one can ever hope to have! It was breathtaking! Mind-boggling! Insane!

In truth, more than anything else, the National Arts Festival is an entire parallel dimension that for as long as you are in it, occupies your every second, fills your every minute, keeps pouring more and more into you! It is the glory of the human condition - of the ability to express - being both celebrated and acknowledged in the most powerful possible way! - Jazz, music, drama, comedy, dance, performance art, classical music, ballet, sculpture, painting, photography, musical theater, stand-up comedy, world music, multimedia, cinema, and Think!Fest - focusing on panel discussions and presentations on the most pertinent national and global issues of the day.  Art meanders, street theater, foodstalls, flea markets, multi-disciplinary collaborations, ad hoc jams - And more, more, more, more, more! And I have nothing more to say.

It would take weeks to describe what I've just been through. Over the next few weeks, as I reflect, I'll discuss some of what I saw. For now, my DNA is adjusting to what has just been poured into, and out of, it - having both seen and performed so much this year!

It was billed as "11 Days of Amazing". And by god it was!

 

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