Author Archives: Schools Festival

About Schools Festival

The Grahamstown Foundation’s Arts Education Department runs several provincial festivals throughout South Africa. Festivals include the Sasol Schools Festival Series (Mpumalanga, Free State/Northern Cape, and Gauteng) for Grade Elevens and the Standard Bank National Schools Festival for Matrics. Our project serves to ignite a passion for South African arts and develop artists and arts consumers with a culture of ‘paying for the arts’. Self-expression and bridge-building between individuals and communities are focal points while platforms for performance encourage audiences to engage with the best South Africa has to offer encouraging emerging artists to discover and develop their own artistic skills. Some 6,000 participants benefit from these programmes nationally over the period of a year. The need is evident from the enormous demand by schools. Participants from across a wide economic divide get to literally ‘rub shoulders’ because the projects attract large numbers of participants from the most rural schools to the most wealthy. Opportunities to engage with diverse arts experiences is rare, as are opportunities for artistic performance and assessment. The festivals expose the youth to professional work and hands-on workshop experiences with artists. They also engage with intellectuals in lectures and demonstrations. Professionals are drawn from national experts committed to establishing a creative nurturing ground and a sustainable arts industry. Our Educational objectives are to supplement the often under-funded and under-resourced arts and culture components of school curricula recognised as essential to holistic education, by submerging learners in an intensive arts experience that is absent in schools. Further objectives are to expose learners to a range of genres, arts opportunities and career options while encouraging them to further explore opportunities in the arts.