Artist William Kentridge, who received one of six ACT Lifetime Achievement Awards on Friday night, has lived in Johannesburg for 63 years, some of them spent working from a studio in the garden of his home in Houghton and from what he calls "a noisier, rougher, bigger studio" in the centre of town.
"Downtown Johannesburg is still rough, it's not tamed, it's a city where you look over your shoulder the whole time and it would be lovely not to have that daily tension, but it is one of the costs of being in Johannesburg in this particular time of SA's history," says Kentridge.
Another of the costs, he says, is "the calamitous state of creativity in SA in terms of public funding for the arts".
"Our museums are in a shocking state and the arts have had to rely on individual and private funding. And yet, in spite of the terrible general condition in the arts, and maybe because of the condition we are in, a lot of interesting work is happening," he says.
"When curators and directors come here from elsewhere in the world they are at the same time shocked by the state of our arts and heritage institutions and astonished by the individual and group works in the arts being made here, including some of the world's great dance works."
Kentridge is working on a one-act piece for Rome Opera called Waiting for the Sybil, with director Nhlanhla Mahlangu, six South African singers and jazz pianist Kyle Shepherd. Using text, music and projections, it is a half-hour piece about oracles.
He finds it encouraging that the arts in SA feed creativity in other parts of the world, referring to South African artists and performers who are succeeding in places such as London and New York. The artistic "centre" is nourished by the perceived "periphery", he says. "The countries that are full of resources for the arts do not necessarily produce the most interesting work."
Nomhle Nkonyeni, another lifetime award recipient, also knows about oracles. The actress from New Brighton in Port Elizabeth played a seer in her 2017 production Ikanana: My Boarding School. She also directed the play, written by Monde Konza and staged at the PE Opera House.
"We tackled the dying of the country using the school as a metaphor," says Nkonyeni. "The school is led by one man, the principal, and there is no consensus. He does things on his own and he misleads the people. In my role as the seer I could see what is happening in our country: we were promised milk and honey, but do we get it? No, we don't."
Nkonyeni says theatre played a key role in the apartheid government's collapse, and "we once again had to use our voice to oust that man".
Now she is ploughing back into the community of the township where she was brought up by her grandparents, both teachers. She runs the Nomhle Nkonyeni Legacy Foundation from her garage.
"I work with young people," she says, "just as my mentor, the late musician, actor and activist Norman Ntshinga, once did for me in this selfsame place when I started my acting career, here in Port Elizabeth at the age of 19, playing Antigone. Now, at age 77, I want to leave behind the person who I am in my legacy."
The other lifetime achievement recipients were Antjie Krog for literature, Sibongile Khumalo for music, Andries Oliphant for arts advocacy and Veronica Paeper for dance, but the evening honoured rising stars as well as legends.
The winner of the 2019 ImpACT Award for Young Professionals was Franco Prinsloo, a 34-year-old composer and conductor. He is part of a wave of talented young composers able to make their mark because of access to a digital platform.
"You can make quality recordings and market yourself online on Apple Music and iTunes," says Prinsloo, sitting at the piano in his Pretoria studio. "I do this with my music and albums. I see it as my online library and space where you can collaborate with people from all over the world."
"I did a collaborative production called In/Between:Til China and Africa Meet with a soprano in Hong Kong, Jessica Ng. Our starting point was a poem by Auden, I'll love you Till China and Africa meet, and we collaborated on WhatsApp and Skype, exploring the 'In/Between of culture, nationality, artistry, space." He then physically went to Hong Kong and they produced the work at the Hong Kong Fringe Club.
Prinsloo says we are so fortunate in SA to have a singing culture: "Everyone sings in a choir. There is something in the water that makes us want to sing. We sing when we are happy, when we are unhappy, when we want change, when we are drunk, we always just sing."
He studied music under choral master and conductor-composer professor Awie van Wyk at North West University and became a conductor for the North West Youth Choir before touring SA with musician Netanja Brink, putting on concerts in towns big and small at venues from coffee shops to weddings to make ends meet.
Today, Prinsloo composes internationally. A turning point was when he was asked to compose a piece of music for The King's Singers - the legendary UK-based a cappella male vocal ensemble.
Prinsloo's latest triumph is his choral work Naledi - an African Journey. In writing the music and lyrics he drew from diverse South African mythologies (including Khoisan, Ndebele, Tswana, Venda, Swati, Xhosa, Tsonga, Sotho and Zulu stories) and collaborated with writers Bonisile Nxumalo, Ingrid Hlatshwayo and Hulisani Ndou.
"In this tale of courage, adventure and magic we follow Naledi, the morning star, in her quest to find the great baobab tree that is guarding an ancient secret of light and truth," says Prinsloo.
Another composition of his was selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and will be performed in May by Collegium Musicale at the ISCM festival in Tallinn, Estonia. "I will be using the money I received for the ImpACT Award to buy a ticket to attend!" he says...