Celebrating the end to Apartheid in South Africa 20 years on
13 Oct to 8 Nov
The City of Birmingham, United Kingdom, welcomed the festival this week from October 21 to this Saturday, October 28.
This year’s festival bringing the very best of contemporary South African theatre, music, dance, film and culture to the UK
marks 20 years since the ending of apartheid and the building of the new South Africa.
Afrovibes brings to UK, ten productions at 17 venues in 13 cities of England, Scotland & Wales. Afrovibes is a European focused presentation of contemporary performing arts from South Africa. The festival scouts for and programmes topical African performing arts productions. These productions promote the exchange of knowledge and practice between European and African artists and theatre makers.
History of Afrovibes
Since the festival began in 1999, Afrovibes has developed into a multidisciplinary arts festival which takes place in both the UK and the Netherlands. It connects arts and culture from South Africa with European audiences, bringing talented emerging and established African artists and their work to European venues.
Founded in the Netherlands, the festival is now a valued addition to arts provision in the UK, having been always supported by Arts Council England.
The first UK edition of Afrovibes (London, Birmingham, Manchester) took place in 2010. The second, much larger festival was in 2012, and was presented in Cardiff, Nottingham, Liverpool, Lancaster and Hereford as well as the three original cities. In 2014. Newcastle, Swansea, Bracknell, Edinburgh and Glasgow will now be added to the list.
Artistic Direction
The Artistic Director of the Afrovibes festival is the South African director / actor James Ngcobo, who has recently taken on the role of Artistic Director at the Market Theatre. Ngcobo is also an award-winning stage, television and film actor both in South Africa and internationally. He was previously Associate Director of The Market Theatre and Creative Director of Sibojama.
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