Londoners celebrate Bethesda’s work
An exhibition of work of participants at the Bethesda Arts Centre was launched with a great celebration on 2 November 2003 at the Tricycle Theatre Gallery, London. The Preview was filled to capacity and visitors were able to see the quality of the dramatic lino cuts, lively wall hangings and other art work on display. Many pieces were sold immediately and a number of new “Friends of Bethesda” joined the Foundation.
The highlight of the celebration was the speech given by Her Excellency Dr Lindiwe Mabusa, the High Commissioner for South Africa. She praised the achievements of the Bethesda Arts Centre and personally endorsed the project as a creative power for peace, reconciliation and self-esteem through self-expression.
Dr Mabusa spent a good deal of time enjoying the work and watching a video of the Arts Centre. After her presentation the visitors were entertained with live music and dance.
The exhibition remained open to the public until 6 December 2003.
The Courtyard Theatre is officially open!
Athol Fugard Live at the Courtyard Theatre
On 3 January 2003, the Courtyard Theatre was officially opened by Athol Fugard reading an unpublished short story to a capacity audience of locals and visitors, under the dazzling stars of a clear Karoo night. The hot night air was filled with the scent of Queen-of-the-Night, the cactus that flowers for one day only each Christmas, as Fugard’s unforgetable voice filled the space. The story, poignant and deeply moving, held the audience gripped in total silence for almost two hours.
One visitor, a journalist from Country Life who happened to be passing through Nieu Bethesda, described the evening at the Courtyard in his subsequent article as ‘magical, the highlight of my trip’. Seven of the Foundation’s UK supporters travelled from London for the opening.
The Rainbull
The Centre’s first home-grown theatre piece took place on 4 January 2003, on an evening bursting with excitement, to which the whole village came. The musical, The Rainbull, written and directed by Jeni Couzyn, was a contemporary rendering of a San myth. The music was written by composer Peter Hope as a gift to the Centre.
For most of those involved, this was their first experience of live theatre. The cast included Beatrice Horn, Ronel Vywers, and Lizzie Witbooi as the San family, Wilmarcio Maswaan as the Rainbull, Philip Olifant as the Shaman, Bongiwe Haas as the Moon, and a chorus of twenty children who played singing plants and animals.
Superb masks and scenery were made under the guidance of Barbara de Moubray and Tarot Couzyn. A huge gift of professional lighting was made by the State Theatre in Pretoria, and the State Theatre’s Gert and Marty Viljoen who travelled five hundred miles to do the lighting for the show. Costumes were made by Liena Johnson and Elspeth Compton and Liena Johnson, who also trained the children.
The Word Fest – Sneeuburg Sounds
In March 2003, with the committed help of Patrick Hercules, Director of Arts and Culture for the Camdeboo area of the Eastern Cape, the Centre hosted a Word-Fest. This event was part of a national Word-Fest, with the best performers from each local event chosen to take part in the Grahamstown Festival later in the year.
Forty high school students from schools in the surrounding district spent four exciting days at the Centre, doing workshops and performing in the theatre. The workshops were facilitated by the Centre’s artists-in-residence and the event was welcomed and supported by an enthusiastic village. Sneeuburg Sounds will now be an annual event at the Centre.
The Visual Arts are thriving at the Centre
Now Bethesda!
A new exhibition, Now Bethesda! was opened in the gallery by the Mayor of Camdeboo, Mr Daantjie Jaftha. The exhibition featured seven local artists, presenting their personal world with stunning lino-prints and drawings.
The Silk Mosaics
During the buzzing first week of the year, a community project making mosaics was introduced at the Centre by Rob Silk, benefactor and volunteer designer to the Foundation. A competition to make designs based on figures in San mythology had been organised, and from the 95 entries, winners and runners up were chosen.
From these Rob made composite designs. He and his wife Rosie and daughter Amber travelled out to South Africa to run the project, and the end result was two spectacular mosaics on the exterior walls of the building.
The first is a Shaman in the form of a Hoopoe, the second a Rainbull. The Rainbull, symbolising fertility, represents the Centre’s belief in the arts as a means of nourishing individual identity through an exploration and expression of self. The Shaman represents the Centre’s belief in the transformational power of the arts to enhance people’s lives.
The Women’s Group
Encouraging women to attend the Centre has proved much more difficult than inspiring young men to explore their talent as artists. However Liena Johnson, the gallery warden, has at last overcome some of this difficulty, and a group of eight women are now working at the Centre two days a week, under her guidance. They are making wall hangings from fabric, representing aspects of their lives they want to express, making fine-art puppets, as well as beginning to draw. An exhibition of their work will be held at the Centre later in the year.
Art Works for Africa – a wider market for Centre Artists
On 17 May, 2003, the Bethesda Arts Centre was proud and delighted to be given a wall in a gallery in Oxford in the UK as an outlet for its work. Five of the centre’s artists – James Hartlief, Peter Booysen, Liena Johnson, Charles Ceasar and Barney Webster are showing in all twelve lino prints which we hope will be sold from the gallery. If you are in Oxford, do go and have a look! Art Works for Africa, 13A South Parade, Summertown, Oxford.
Support from the Thembisa Trust
The Bethesda Foundation is grateful to the Thembisa Trust, who have once again renewed their invaluable grant which makes it possible for the Foundation to employ staff to keep the Centre’s gallery open six days a week. Liena is continuing as warden in the gallery for the third year running, as well as developing her own artistic work.
Residencies
Tarot Couzyn and Barbara de Moubray took up residencies at the Centre in October 2002. Barbara, a young anthropology graduate from Edinburgh University, spent six fruitful months at the Centre, sharing her considerable skill and talent. Tarot, who took up a volunteer job as manager of the Centre in addition to teaching art, made huge progress in forming links with the Department of Arts and Culture for the Eastern Cape.
Rowena Whyte, Artist-in-residence last year, returned to the Centre for a two-month visit.
Links with the village Crèche and School
This has been the year for the Centre to expand its teaching programme. Tarot and Barbara ran very successful workshops with adolescents and young children at the Arts Centre, as well as outreach workshops in a centre for homeless children in neighbouring Graaff-Reinet.
The headmaster of the only school in Nieu Bethesda started bringing his eldest class of children (eleven/twelve year olds) to the Centre for art workshops once a week.
Also, with the help of Thembisa, the Centre supported the appointment of a fourth teacher for the local crèche, and a group of crèche children (six/seven year olds) are brought weekly for workshops to the Centre. The crèche, which earns extra income by running a tourist restaurant, reciprocated by supplying food at the Centre for the children during its public events. These are links which the Centre intends to develop in future years.
Have you seen what we achieved in? 2009 2008 | 2007 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 |
© Copyright Bethesda Foundation, Bethesda Arts Centre, 2005I want to achieve a good life. I want to overcome my difficulties, financial problems, work problems, education problems, and sometimes drink problems. When I think about where I will be in a few years, and all these things, I just want to drink. I’m not an alcoholic, but I think I could become one. I would really like to stop drinking, as my father has.
I enjoy most doing charcoal drawing, especially landscape. In the first exhibition at the Centre I was very proud to sell a few of my charcoal drawings for the first time. I also enjoy lino-printing and that’s what I want to keep on doing.
Peter Booysen