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| Ismail Mahomed is the new director for Grahamstown's National Arts Festival |
The National Arts Festival Grahamstown has named Ismail Mahomed to replace current Festival Director Lynette Marais, who retires in December after two decades at the artistic helm of the country's oldest arts festival. Mahomed will join the Grahamstown-based team on 1 May 2008.
"We are delighted to be able to appoint someone of Ismail's calibre," Festival CEO Tony Lankester said. "It was never going to be easy to find someone to fill Lynette's shoes and to drive us forward. We are fortunate that, in Ismail, we have the right combination of experience, expertise and passion to fill the role."
Mahomed will work alongside Marais until the end of the year, ensuring a smooth transition and transfer of expertise. He will then continue to be the Festival's main representative on the Festival Committee, working closely with them to define the long-term artistic vision for the Festival, and then to begin implementing it.
"Ismail is a solid arts administrator and we're confident that he will quickly pick up some of the nuances and challenges facing the Festival while working with Lynette. The Festival has developed an international reputation for excellence, and a local reputation for presenting bold, innovative and thought-provoking work. Apart from the artistic agenda, he will be faced with a multitude of operational and logistical challenges in his role. The best way for him to get to grips with those will be to work alongside someone for whom dealing with those challenges has become second nature," Lankester said.
Festival Committee chairperson, Sibongile Khumalo, said that she was looking forward to working with Mahomed in his new role. "Ismail is not afraid to challenge convention and will add a great dynamic to the work of the Committee. We're looking forward to engaging with him and taking the artistic side of the Festival into a dynamic future," she said.
Mahomed has worked in the arts industry for most of his professional life, most recently as a Senior Cultural Specialist for the US Consulate. He has also worked as the Director of the Witbank Civic Theatre and the Creative Arts Workshop. As a practitioner he is an award-winning arts administrator, having won the Arts & Culture Trust Award for Arts Administrator of the Year, the Mpumalanga Premier's Award, the Witbank Mayor's award, and the US State Dept Africa Bureau Award.
He is also a prolific writer, critic and commentator on the arts and a playwright.
"Working for the National Arts Festival has got to be one of the dream jobs for anyone in the arts industry," Mahomed said. "It's an event which takes the pulse of the state of the country's arts every year and plays an important role in pushing boundaries and giving our artists a great platform on which to express themselves."
Marais' expertise won't be lost to the Festival with the new appointment, however. She has agreed to make herself available to work on specific projects next year and, Lankester says, will continue to be an important part of the Festival family.
About the National Arts Festival
Now in its 34th year, the Festival began in 1974 and has grown to be one of the leading arts festivals in southern Africa. Its objectives are to deliver excellence; encourage innovation and development in the arts by providing a platform for both established and emerging South African artists; create opportunities for collaboration with international artists; and build new audiences.
About Ismail Mahomed
With more than twenty years of experience in the performing arts sector, Ismail Mahomed is an accomplished playwright, theatre director and arts administrator. His work has been staged in South Africa, Chile, Denmark, Germany and in the US. He is currently employed as the Senior Cultural Specialist at the US Consulate in Johannesburg where he serves as both an advisor and facilitator for the US Consulate on its varied cultural and academic exchange programming. His main tasks include devising and coordinating cultural programs which foster an understanding and relationships between South African and US institutions, organizations and individuals. Since joining the Consulate in 2003, he has instituted several partnerships between South African and US museums, theatres, galleries and NGO's. At the end of his first year of service he was presented with a Merit Honour Award by the US State Dept - Africa Bureau for consistently high cultural programming.
Prior to joining the US Consulate, he was Director of the Witbank Civic Theatre in Mpumalanga. Appointed to this position soon after the first democratic elections in South Africa which dawned in the end of Apartheid, he was tasked with drafting and directing a transformation model for the Witbank Civic Theatre in terms of a national program for the transformation of cultural centres in South Africa. During his tenure at the theatre he turned the financial situation of the theatre from a position of financial deficit to sustainable income generation; broadened the audience and production base of the theatre significantly and ensured that the Witbank Civic Theatre participated in national and international arts festivals. Mahomed was honoured by the Mayor of the city for his visionary transformation of the theatre; and by the Premier of the Province for developing and promoting the arts & culture sector as an economic enterprise in the province.
During an earlier posting as Director of the Creative Arts Workshop, he played a major role in developing the company to become the largest independent producing theatre company at South Africa's premiere National Arts Festival with 6 productions at the Festival during 1995 and 13 productions at the Festival during 1996. This achievement was acclaimed by several of the arts media for the "sold out" performances and high standard of production.
During 1984 to June 1985, he was the Coordinator of the Education Support Project. His duties included contracting professional trainers and managing a supplementary program for secondary school educators and learners at a time when the educational system for African schools in South Africa was collapsing as a result of the rising tide against Apartheid.
During 1995, the University of Witwatersrand contracted Mahomed to coordinate the International Social History Festival for the University's History Workshop Conference. During this term of office, he grew the Festival in terms of broadening its content, audience base and its media exposure which resulted in the University management proposing a fulltime offer of employment to him.
He turned this down in favour of wanting to continue to working in the arts sector as a freelancing festival producer. Amongst the arts festivals which he has coordinated are the Just Solo Festival (Festival of One Person Plays: Johannesburg Civic Theatre), the 10th anniversary of the Windybrow Arts Festival for Community Theatre, the 5th year Democracy Celebrations Festival for the Mpumalanga Provincial Department of Arts & Culture and the Millennium Celebrations Festival for the Emahlahleni Municipal District.
As an accomplished playwright Mahomed is included in two publications. He was also a finalist in both the Amstel Playwright of the Year Competition and the PANSA Playwrights Competition. Mahomed also holds an award for theatrical excellence which was presented to him by the South African Institute for Theatre Technology. During 2006, the Arts & Culture Trust honoured him with the Arts Administrator of the Year Award. His theatre-in-education project Newsblitz! is the winner of the Caxton Media in Education award. Mahomed was also honoured by the US State Department Africa Bureau with a Merit Honor Award for his consistently high cultural programming at the US Consulate.
Mahomed is strongly rooted in South Africa's arts & culture sector where he holds several positions on the boards of arts projects. He assumes the position of Festival Director at the National Arts Festival on May 1, 2008 approximately twenty years after he staged his first production at the Festival.
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