Thursday 19 February 2004

This site will be updated on 26 February  2004 at 17:00

Arts - Kunste

• Evita at Barnyard
• Rock art exhibition
• Opera with attitude at Spier
• Ballet and song at Oude Libertas

EVITA & CO is on at the Barnyard Theatre in Groot Drakenstein on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 February.

Evita & Co will again be a dangerous combination of Pieter-Dirk Uys and Evita Bezuidenhout, but hopefully not at the same time! 

While Tannie is still finding her way to The Barnyard Theatre at Bridgehouse, Pieter-Dirk Uys will trot out his chorusline of politicians, comrades, warmongers and fools. 

After interval, Mrs Bezuidenhout will try and repair the damage.

Ticets are R90 per person.

* Two of False Bay's most famous mavericks team up in a stylish show on Saturday 13 March. Independent singer/songwriter Robin Auld and Cape Comedy Collective founder Mark Sampson present a hilarious and heartwarming guide to growing up (a bit).

The show features stand-up comedy and songs on topics from raising hell to raising children, and all the fun along the way. It includes tongue-in-cheek tributes to the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Eurythmics and The Who, plus brand new versions of classics such as Norah Jones's "Don't Know Why."

Bookings for all shows can be made on tel/fax 874-1505 or email: theatre@bridgehouse.org.za.

Doors open at 18:30.

A ROCK art exhibition has opened at the Paarl Museum, 303 Main StreetRoad (behind the 'Toringkerk').

Rock art is found throughout southern Africa and represents an important cultural legacy of the San ('Bushmen').

Rock art played an important part in the lives of the San and also records their culture and beliefs, using animals as metaphors and symbols for religious power. The Supreme Being, created people, water, the earth and the air.

He taught people the skill they would need to live their lives and he gave the medicine-dance so that they could cure themselves.

Why conserve rock art? It can never be replaced.

How to conserve rock art? Never write anything on or near the paintings or engravings.

Contact Jaline de Villiers or Elizabeth Bowes at 872-2651.m

THE 18th century political satire The Beggar's Opera/Ibali looTsotsi can be seen at Spier until Wednesday.

The opera has been a popular favourite for over 300 years. In what was described as "opera with attitude" by London's Independent, Dimpho Di Kopane presents a South African reworking of John Gay's political satire on self interest, public corruption and vice. 

It is a world of pimps and prostitutes, thieves and cutthroats. A world turned upside down where only the criminals are capable of goodness.

Mr Peachum, an informer and fence, and Lockit, a corrupt jailer, prey on the thieves and prostitutes in their employ, while Highwayman Macheath appears as a man of honour in this double-dealing underworld.

The music interweaves African mass choiring with some of the most evocative British folktunes. 

The opera starts at 20:30. Book at Spier Box Office, 809-1177 or Computicket, 083-915-8000.

IN a celebration of ballet that spans centuries and cultures, the SA Ballet Theatre makes its Oude Libertas debut until Saturday with three ballets that showcase the spectacular talents of SA's largest and youngest ballet company.

SABT presents Kaloyan Boyadjiev's joyous cross-cultural ballet Kopano which mixes Mozart and Makeba, Dutch choreographer Ed Wubbe's incisively sexy Schlager, and Act III from the great Danish ballet classic, Napoli.

The leading roles in the ballets will be danced by some of SABT's top dancers, amongst others Kimbrian Bergh, Angela Malan, Karen Beukes, Andries Weidemann and Christian Tatchev (Principals), Zenia Tatcheva (Senior Soloist and wife of Christian) and Admill Kuyler and Charene Griggs (Soloists).

Schlager means "to hit out" and Wubbe's work deals with a group of people who are anti-establishment, but become "elitist" in their own way because of their fanatacism and exclusion of others from their closed-in group.

In Kopano Kaloyan Boyadjiev attempts to explore ways in which his native European background and adopted African experience can be melded in music and dance that unites the splendours of both worlds.

The last act of the full-length ballet, Napoli, offers a splendid feast of dancing that captures the warmth and spirit of Italy and the ebullience and technical precision of Bournonville's Danish choreographic style.

* Steve Louw and his band Big Sky perform on Sunday at 18:00. It promises to be a sizzling evening of classic South African rock by this talented rock guitarist and singer-songwriter.

* Dizu Plaatjies, former member of Amampondo marimba group, will perform music from his debut album titled Ibuyambo on Thursday 26 February and Saturday 28 February at 20:15.

Ibuyambo, which means rebirth, will be performed in a show featuring traditional dance and costumes of the peoples of Southern Africa.

Book at 809-7380 or Oude Libertas Box Office.