Meet the six Standard Bank Young Artists for 2021

The Standard Bank Young Artist (SBYA) award recognises SA artists who have made their mark on the art scene. It’s a badge of honour and a golden opportunity; a recognition of creativity, originality, talent, hard work, ambition and imagination — and a platform on which to build in pursuit of new artistic achievements. 

For almost four decades, the partnership between Standard Bank and the National Arts Festival that makes the SBYA awards possible has exemplified the kind of public-private arts partnership that supports and sustains boldness, innovation and excellence from SA’s artists. 

Standard Bank and the National Arts Festival are proud to present the six Standard Bank Young Artists for 2021:

• Kristi-Leigh Gresse (Dance)
• Vuma Levin (Jazz)
• Buhlebezwe Siwani (Visual Art)
• Cara Stacey (Music)
• Gavin Krastin (Performance Art)
• Thando Doni (Theatre)

Each artist will receive a cash incentive, as well as a commission to premiere a new work or exhibit on the main programme of the 2022 National Arts Festival.

More than 160 artists have been recognised since the first SBYA award in 1981, and the alumni of the programme have shaped SA’s arts landscape (at the same time boosting the creative economy) over the past forty years. They have been subversive and provocative, and they have tackled the issues of the day head-on; but they have also produced work that remains significant, urgent and inspiring today. It is no exaggeration to describe their interventions as seminal — key co-ordinates on the national arts and culture map. 

Last year, Business and Arts SA recognised the value of the SBYA programme by giving its Long-Term Partnership award to Standard Bank and the National Arts Festival. 

Festival CEO Monica Newton said: “After all these years, the SBYA award is still one that artists aspire to and the public recognises as a huge endorsement. The recipients often go on to become household names overnight. We would like to extend gratitude to our partner Standard Bank, not just for this project but for their continued commitment to supporting SA talent.

“Young artists in SA need the inspiration these individuals embody. Standard Bank Young Artists represent the reward for years of hard work and determination, and remind us that we have great talent in our midst. I would like to recognise the exceptional achievements of the 2021 Standard Bank Young Artists, and we look forward to seeing them perform and exhibit at the National Arts Festival in 2022 and to seeing how they use this accolade to further their artistic dreams and ambitions.”  

The young artists of 2021 are ...

KRISTI-LEIGH GRESSE has collaborated with a remarkable variety of SA’s dancers and choreographers, developing her own voice as an artist as her work has cohered thematically around the politics of the body as well as expressions of collective and individual identity. She won a Standard Bank Ovation Gold Award for Sullied at the National Arts Festival in 2018 and went on to win the South East Dance Award at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2019, before being commissioned to produce a dance screen offering for the digital JOMBA! Festival in 2020. 

VUMA LEVIN is a guitarist whose compositions combine South African musical traditions with jazz, pop and electronics. He has lived and worked in Madrid, Amsterdam, Basel and Joburg. After teaching at various conservatoriums in the Netherlands, he returned to SA to take up a lecturing post at the Wits University. He has produced four studio albums, and his latest — the concept album Antique Spoons, which is also accompanied by the release of three short films — has been critically acclaimed for its virtuosity.

BUHLEBEZWE SIWANI works in a variety of media, focusing on embodied performance, installations and sculpture, but also exploring the creative possibilities of the canvas, paper, photography and video. She completed postgraduate degrees at the Wits School of Arts and the Michaelis School of Fine Arts. After residencies in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands, her work has been exhibited from Europe to Asia and Australasia to the US. She has also published two books, Imfihlo (2015) and Qab’Imbola (2018). She lives in Amsterdam and Cape Town. 

CARA STACEY is committed to contextualising and preserving indigenous Southern African music, and connecting it to different musical histories and sound forms. She trained in piano and the umrhubhe, uhadi and makhweyane (traditional musical bows), and has also studied the mbira and budongo. In addition to being a composer and performer, she is a musicologist and scholar who holds a Ph.D. and is a senior lecturer in African Music at North-West University. Her work is described as “rich and complex, and at the same time beautifully accessible”. 

GAVIN KRASTIN is a performance artist, scenographer and arts educator. The National Arts Festival Artistic committee says he revitalised the field of performance art by being risky and brave and at the same time mindful and meticulous — thus opening the door for a new generation of artists. Based in Cape Town, he challenges audiences with discomfiting meditations on the politics of representing the body within his immediate SA context and situating these local concerns alongside global considerations. 

THANDO DONI has worked with independent physical theatre company Magnet Theatre and many other theatre organisations. He won Best Director at the Baxter Theatre’s Zabalaza Theatre Festival in 2011 and was awarded a GIPCA director’s bursary in 2012. The National Arts Festival Artistic Committee affirms that Doni is “one of the rare theatre-makers who works across the board — from young people to ex-offenders and professional performers” and that he crafts “profound and profoundly moving”, life-changing experiences for both performers and audiences.  

“For almost 40 years Standard Bank has shown its commitment to the arts by investing in the dreams of artists, changing lives of hundreds of artists and continues to find innovative ways to celebrate and showcase the talents within our borders,” says Desire Pooe, head of sponsorship at Standard Bank.

“To the 2021 Standard Bank Young Artists award winners, congratulations! You have all worked so hard for this and now your efforts and dedication to the arts has paid off. We celebrate each one of you and we wish you all the best in your careers. This is the beginning of great things to come.”

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Visit standardbank.com/sponsorship and arts.standardbank.co.za for more information.

This article was paid for by the Standard Bank.