Festival for the Afrikaans language
Afrikaans, or South African Dutch, contains many linguistic gems: you write using a skootrekenaar and you commute on a moltrein, for example. But it's not only about visually expressive words like these.
For the three days from 17 to 19 June 2011, the spotlight turned to Afrikaans as expressed through music, drama, literature, poetry and lectures. Chris Chameleon, David Kramer and Denise Jannah performed impressive concerts of Afrikaans-language music, renowned writers such as Breyten Breytenbach and Etienne van Heerden represented the literary aspects of the culture, and stage duo Gideon van Eeden and Louise van Wingerden combined Afrikaans and Dutch in original works about contemporary South Africa.
About the festival
The festival seeks to show that Afrikaans isn’t ‘just another language’. It’s a vital and lively language in South Africa with a rich cultural life, connected primarily with in the white community and those who were assigned the status of ‘coloured’ during the apartheid era. We want the festival to do nothing less than lure the Dutch into the Afrikaans world with music, drama, literature and information, and present to them the cultural wealth and versatility of the Afrikaans-speaking community. And we want to highlight the mutual connections between Dutch and Afrikaans.
Organisation
This biennial festival is an initiative of the Stichting Solidariteitsfonds voor Afrikaans (Solidarity fund for Afrikaans) in collaboration with the Tropentheater.
Contact
info@festivalvoorafrikaans.nl
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© Logo Festival - Carina Claassens
