Mike van Graan
Mike van Graan currently serves as the Coordinator of the Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation, an initiative to support the South African dance and theatre sector through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
He has extensive experience in policy formulation and advocacy and in building artists’ networks, both in South Africa and across the African continent. Mike was the founding Secretary General of Arterial Network, a pan-African organisation advocating for the cultural dimension of development, human rights and democracy. He served on the expert facility of UNESCO’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions from 2011–2018. He is the head writer of the team that produced Breathing New Vision into Theatre and Dance: National Theatre and Dance Policy, commissioned by South Africa’s Department of Sport, Arts and Culture in 2021.
As a playwright with 36 plays under his belt, he is regarded as one of South Africa’s foremost contemporary playwrights having garnered numerous awards and nominations for his work.
He is the 2018 recipient of the Swedish Hiroshima Prize for Peace and Culture, the same year that he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pretoria in recognition of his work as a playwright, and as a cultural activist.
Photo: Lebogang Nawa
Impressions of contemporary South Africa through the theatre of the National Arts Festival 2014
2014-07-16 Mike van Graan shares his thoughts on the National Arts Festival in a year that marks 40 years of the festival, but more importantly, 20 years of democracy.
All the world's a stage
2014-05-28 Mike van Graan's opinion on the appointment of Nathi Mthethwa as Minster of Arts and Culture.
Clover Aardklop 2013: Mike van Graan gesels oor Gevalle engel
2013-09-17 Gevalle engel is ’n spanningsvolle menslike drama. Reney Warrington gesels met skrywer Mike van Graan.
Afrikaans, Afrikaans and not a drop of Zulu, Xhosa or Tswana to drink
2012-06-08 "Whereas Afrikaans theatre-makers are blessed with a number of festivals that are the key producers of theatre in South Africa today, there is not a single theatre festival in Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, etc that promotes, celebrates and projects professional, mainstream theatre in those – or other indigenous African – languages today." Mike van Graan responds to Albert Maritz.
Raising the Spear or dropping the ball?
2012-06-06 "The general feeling among most panellists was that, indeed, freedom of expression and other democratic freedoms and rights are under threat from the ANC and its alliance partners." The Cape Town chapter of Arterial Network South Africa hosted a forum to discuss the significance of the Spear controversy for the local arts sector.
Victims and victors: winners and losers in a post-apartheid arts dispensation
2011-11-29Is Limpopo sucking the hind teat of arts funding in South Africa today? According to the NAC’s 2010 annual report, out of a total of 615 funded applications, Limpopo had only 33. Or maybe it was Mpumalanga with 16 projects. Or the Northern Cape, with ...
Mike van Graan on the “arts campus”, Africa 101
2011-10-27 Africa 101 explored contemporary trends, icons and innovations in African music, literature, cinema, dance, theatre, visual art and cultural tourism. It took place in the Artscape from 24 to 29 October 2011.
Mike van Graan in conversation with Janet van Eeden on becoming Artscape's Associate Playwright
2011-06-30 Press release: “Artscape, one of the most productive theatre centres in the country, has announced an innovative partnership with award-winning playwright Mike van Graan that will see the Artscape Theatre Centre staging at least one of the ...