Cue Online (Grahamstown)
Shea Karssing
14 July 2009
Staging more than 600 productions and events in a limited number of venues in just 10 days is a logistical feat - proving to be a smoother ride for some than others.
Locating venues around the cryptic Victoria Girls’ High School grounds is hard enough with accurate sign-posting. But for director of the Bonfire Memorial Project, Paula Kingwell, “the most glaring problem is that we were mislabelled; the Classrooms were labelled Study Room”.
When you have eventually navigated the maze to the VG classrooms, “it feels like you’re walking down a rabbit warren,” Kingwell says. “It is not an inviting space; we had to work hard to make it so.”
“We requested a venue with three compartments,” Kingwell says. “It was very good of them to have accommodated us, but it may have been a better idea to have classrooms with proper walls and wooden floors.
“The venue was not properly thought through. The acoustics were resonating and, in a space with three plays running simultaneously, this does not work. Kingwell also had to “beg, bribe and steal to get more lights”.
Apart from the problems with finding the venue, the production was also listed incorrectly in the programme.
Confusing Venues
Only a few made it to the Bonfire Memorial Project, which relies on audience stories to generate the cast’s improvisations.
Kingwell says this put “more stress on the audience to contribute”.
The Studio performances at the Recreation Centre were also subject to unsatisfactory signposting. After stopping at the sign at Kingswood claiming “Recreation Centre”, you are on your own. The venue is nowhere in sight (and is, in fact, only vaguely within walking distance), but there are no further directions provided past Kingswood.
Artists agree: “Finding the place is a big problem,” says Studio performer Kirsten Harris.
Harris says that the Recreation Centre is an important site where the community can get involved in the Festival. “But we just need more shows here − and better signposting.”
Harris also says that the relocation of the Village Green to the Rhodes Campus “fragments the Festival and dislodges the Recreation Centre from everywhere else. Before, the Village Green was a kind of bridge.”
The Dakawa Arts and Craft Project is near the Recreation Centre and could also do with a few more markers. “It’s okay here, we just need marketing,” says Loyiso Mgoduka, manager of the art exhibition at Dakawa.
More drama
There are those who relish the challenge of an unconventional venue, such as Zoe Reeve, choreographer of Outside + Beside Herself, whose production is in the Provost. “I love site-specific work. If people are used to having a stage it would be a problem but I love working with the space.
“That’s not to say it was easy. The floors were slippery and we had to buy bags of resin to put on the floor, and the lighting was terrible; finding small stage lights is a mission!”
The cast also faced a unique challenge when they were mistakenly locked in the venue. “The windows are not designed to be opened or closed,” Reeve says, “but we eventually forced one open and got a skinny cast member through.”
The venue’s official sign was also not helpful. “Once we had put up our own banner, people tended to find it, but I did have a friend who walked halfway up the Monument!” Reeve says.
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