Historic city landmarks become an actor’s stage

HISTORIC Grahamstown buildings that normally gather dust all year round find a new lease of life for 10 days when the whirlwind National Arts Festival hits the City of Saints.

With performance space at a premium, architectural gems like 1820 churches, Settler homes, posh old schools, the local Freemason Lodge and even prime pavement space below building overhangs – to boost busker beats – are being snapped up by performers eager to make their mark.

“I still can’t believe I got gifted such a great building to perform in,” singer Shomon Daniel said.

Playing piano and singing organic homegrown songs, the 32-year-old underground sensation says the beautifully painted domed roof at the Rhodes University Chapel – featuring a baby Christ in his mother’s arms surrounded by angels – was the perfect place to perform in.

“The man-made domed roof amplifies the sound perfectly. It is a beautiful building and also a great place to perform because of the wonderful acoustics.”

With its high wooden ceilings, red brick walls, orderly rows of cushioned chapel pews and full of religious iconography, it is refreshing to watch top acts having fun in a space normally reserved for a different kind of worship.

Although she has played in churches, festivals and rowdy pubs around the world over the years, Daniel says the Rhodes Chapel is extra special.

“Playing in the chapel is such a beautiful experience, I usually stick to performing in barns to people sitting on hay bales.

“I must admit I had a shot before I took to the stage for the first time to calm my nerves.”

Shooting it down in a church was a “surreal experience”.

Besides the historic buildings generating much-needed income over the festival – which helps pay for their upkeep and preservation – they also get used for events that may be diametrically opposed to what they were constructed for in the first place.

Besides playing heathen music in churches, the Freemason Lodge is another venue used for a diverse range of artistic activities – including a haunting performance called Dig that highlights the centuries-long hardships first indigenous people had to endure in South Africa, often at the hands of Freemasons in the 1800s.

Dig creator Roxanne Blaise earlier told the Daily Dispatch it was great that new ideas were being performed in places that were associated with old-world tradition.

Closed for years, even once popular student haunts like the downstairs jol at the Vic Hotel has been revived for the festival as a prime music venue.

Many of the people squeaking takkie to exciting South African sounds there this time around used to do the same years ago when they were students in Grahamstown. Competition to find a good venue to connect the crowd to the art is key.

While most performers try to outsmart each other finding perfect venues in the City of Saints to use, hitch-hiking busker John Townsend cruises the streets with a trolley, amp and battered saxophone looking for interesting overhangs to boost his blues.

“The overhang outside the Village Green is perfect, it amplifies the sound,” he said.

A dying breed of artist, the bearded musician has a sign next to his open sax box to catch coins which says: “Don’t give anything, if you please, unless you really have to. If you feel I owe you something for the disturbance my music may cause you, simply take it out the sax case.” —