Art can conquer hate! Book for the following 10 events at this year’s National Arts Festival:

1. AFRIQUEER is a multimedia, interdisciplinary project that aims to enhance a deeper understanding about sex, sexualities and sexual health with a human rights perspective.

2. In THE ECHO OF A NOISE, Pieter-Dirk Uys opens his heart and talks about his private and public life leading the audience into his inner sanctuary with stories that can evoke surprise, laughter and tears.

3. On the Think!Fest programme, Tracey Saunders, Getrude Fester and Warren Nebe participate in a panel discussion on how and why gender and sexual advocacy programmes remain vital in the work and social spaces to ensure the safety and protection of vulnerable populations.

4. In the Film Festival programme, PRIDE traces the journey of a 20-year-old closet gay who arrives hesitantly in London for his first pride march and is taken under the collective wing of a group of activists who believe in taking protests beyond issues of gender into full scale activism against Margaret Thatcher’s state.

5. Along with Zanele Muholi’s exhibition SOMNYAMA NGONYAMA, the Stevenson Gallery will present her BLACK BEAUTIES, which features her renowned practice of photographing the LBGTI community in a celebratory look at the body and politics of expression.

6. On the National Lottery Fringe programme, Sibikwa Arts Centre’s CHAPTER 2 SECTION 8 written and directed by Phyllis Klotz, five actors and a musician share stories unraveling the hidden realities of lesbian women in South Africa.

7. Paul Griffiths directs Francis Chouler, Matt Newman, Melissa Haiden and James Skilton in Matt Newman’s play, COCK.

8. In the FEDA-winning play, BORN NAKED, the audience is taken into the hearts and minds of two young drag queens.

9. In BRENT – A mobile thriller, Quinton Wils creates an immersive theatre production with characters who believe in conversion therapy for gay people. (He will also be in discussion about it as part of the Think!Fest programme. You do not need to book for this free event.)

10. Rhodes University Drama Department’s GA(Y)ME(N)Play is a physical theatre performance that seeks to explore the nuanced images of a man through vulnerability and intimacy that challenge the stereotypes of masculinities.

• Compiled by NAF Artistic Director Ismail Mahomed

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