The 2017 National Arts Festival is just around the corner and we hope that you’re as excited as we are – it’s going to be another amazing year.

Booking is now open, and so you can guarantee your place at the AMAZ!NG Festival from 29 June in Grahamstown.

This year’s highlights include:

• The globe-trotting laughter master Stephen K Amos heads our comedy lineup, as he performs his new show World Famous on 2 and 3 July only.
• Back in Grahamstown after their stellar debut about six years ago, The Soil have become one of South Africa’s hottest musical acts, returning as double-platinum selling a capella sensations.
• A Festival Gala Concert and Symphony Concert from the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.
• Our 2017 Featured Artist is the versatile and amazing musician, Neo Muyanga. His solo work, Solid(T)Ary Work, promises a survey of the tradition of protest song in the global south: moving swiftly between the chanted chorales of Soweto and Salvador to the laments around the squares of Tahrir and Meskel, the presentation is a musical contemplation of modes of resistance in a world hit by flux.
• The Standard Bank Young Artist for Music in 2017, Abel Selaocoe, celebrates a much-anticipated return visit to South Africa after an extended time spent playing on top international stages. Selaocoe’s Festival offering will explore the virtuosity of the cello and his diverse musicianship ranging from Debussy’s poetic and vivid Cello Sonata to James Macmillan’s spiritual reflective music – ending with foot stomping klezmer and African style inspired pieces. Book now for Abel Selaocoe’s Recital
• The Theatre programme is stronger than ever, featuring work from Sylvaine Strike (Tartuffe); Nadia Davids (What Remains); Magnet Theatre’s Jennie Reznek with I Turned Away and She Was Gone, as well as Lara Bye‘s adaptation of Mark Behr’s novel, Die Reuk van Appels, starring the incredible Gideon Lombard.
• Off the back of the release of their debut Number 1 charting collaboration, KAHN and Karen Zoid will present one concert only (3 July) of We Could Be Divine their new collaboration and a song writing process Kahn describes as “organic and effortless”.
• Home-grown talents John van de Ruit (Spud) and Ben Voss (Beauty Ramapelepele) are reunited for a savagely funny look at all that is wrong with the ‘Rainbow Nation’ in Mamba Republic.
• Trailing endless accolades and endorsements from international festivals– including the Brighton and Cape Town Fringe 2016, the UK’s Pretend Men will present Police Cops; an action-packed hour of adrenaline-fueled physical comedy, cinematic style and uncompromising facial hair.
• The Standard Bank Jazz Festival continues its proud tradition of flying the jazz flag high, with an extraordinary lineup that includes Tumi Mogorosi and Gabi Motuse, Andy Narell, Judith Sephuma, Bombshelter Beast as well as Zenzi Makeba Lee and Afrika Mkhize.

As South Africa’s largest platform of artistic debate and expression, the Festival Fringe is bursting with a bumper line-up. There’s also a fascinating visual art programme; performance art; the Standard Bank Youth Jazz Festival; Family Fare; the Film Festival ; and Think!Fest, which will bring together South Africa’s thought leaders to grapple with today’s biggest issues.

With more than 2 500 performances crammed into 11 days, chances are good you will find plenty to keep you entertained and inspired.

So how do you book?

It’s pretty easy, really. There are multiple ways of booking your tickets…

First, decide what you want to see by browsing the programme online or downloading a PDF from our site.

If you prefer a hard copy of the programme, it will be available at selected Standard Bank and Exclusive Books branches in due course. As always it will take a week or two for the delivery trucks to complete the distribution, and some branches will get them sooner than others, but it will be worth the wait.

You can purchase tickets in a number of ways:

• Via our secure website www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
• By phone: 0860 002 004
• By fax: 086 233 2122
• By email: boxoffice@nationalartsfestival.co.za
• Read our Festival FAQs

  [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]