The Artists in Schools Performing and Visual Arts Festival 2025 will take place at the East London Guild Theatre on Wednesday, and entrance is free.
The festival is the final project in the Artists in Schools initiative (AiS), which also encompasses the Guild Theatre Artists in Residence programme.
AiS is funded by the national sport, arts and culture department and runs for about six months of the year, hiring 41 artists as teachers at 82 schools in the Eastern Cape.
Each teacher takes practical classes for hundreds of children, many of these will form the festival’s programme.
Groups from as far as Flagstaff, Mount Ayliff, Adelaide, Komani, Sterkspruit, and many rural areas across the province, will share the stage with East London pupils.
The project co-ordinator for the programme and the festival, Sinethemba Nkoloti, said: “We will be having artists from across the province, and we are giving the kids a platform to showcase what they have been doing in class, and also exposing them to a professional arts institution, the Guild.
“Last year, 90% of the kids highlighted that this was the first time they had ever been in a theatre. So it’s a really great opportunity.”
An expected 400 children and 80 parents and guardians will be attending, with about 15 performances in music, dance and drama.
Visual arts exhibitions will also be on display in the East London Museum.
“We have a marimba band, a couple of dance performances, I know one is Echos of the Past, which is traditional dancing,” Nkoloti said.
“The kids are also into amapiano, so they dance to that and love to practise.
“As part of our project, we donate materials to the schools, to be used and later exhibited at the festival.”
Nkoloti highlighted the importance of the project as a learning tool and employment opportunity for artists.
“In the past, we have had an artist who was also a qualified teacher and after the programme ended, the school actually absorbed her as a full-time teacher, so it’s a great opportunity for the artists.
“I’m really excited, we have a couple of new artists in the programme, the learners will be coming for the first time, even enthusiasm from the parents as well, generally there is excitement, and many are looking forward to it.”
The programme includes works in Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa.
“Most of the kids in arts classes feel validated and seen, especially in rural communities, the arts are not taken seriously, it’s taken as a joke.
“To have them coming to such a professional space, they can feel proud of all the hard work they have done, and it allows them to dream and think bigger,” Nkoloti said.
Teacher Nangamso Bosman-Dinginto, 35, from Mdantsane, has been a part of the programme since 2022, and worked with grade 4 to grade 7 pupils from Siyanda and Zimasa Primary schools in Mdantsane.
Bosman-Dinginto has a Bachelor of Music with honours from the University of Fort Hare, and takes about 135 children every week for classes — teaching marimba, jembe drum, recorder, piano and voice.
She also conducts the school choir, which will be performing at the festival.
“I’m excited, I’m giving back to the community. I used to be a student at this school, and back then we didn’t have the opportunity to learn from people like me, teaching music.
“Many of our students are not academic, maybe they have the potential to be artists, so I am excited to see them learning a lot, and that they actually want to learn more about music.”
Skhuselo Msutu, 27, from Flagstaff, said: “I had an amazing opportunity to assist in teaching creative arts at two schools in Flagstaff. All the learners from both schools are so excited.”
Daily Dispatch