The Southern African Theatre Initiative (SATI) has declared the inaugural Gauteng Theatre and Dance Indaba a resounding success, producing stimulating debate and concrete recommendations to take the country’s cultural industries into the future.

The two-day conference, held on 7 and 8 June 2008 at Museum Africa in Newtown, marked the start of a national consultation and research process undertaken by SATI, supported by the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC). Following the Gauteng event, eight more provincial indabas will be held around the country over the next six months.

Over the weekend, theatre and dance practitioners elected a task team to pursue recommendations that emerged from the indaba’s plenary sessions. They will represent Gauteng at the National Theatre and Dance Indaba in November, where task teams from all nine provinces will present their submissions to DAC and a national task team will be chosen.

Gauteng’s two five-member task teams, for dance and theatre respectively, are comprised as follows:

Dance – Georgina Thomson, Jane O’Neill, Lucky Ratlhagane, Fundeka Ramorula and Thembinkosi Nkabinde.

Theatre – Thapelo Motloung, Martin Koboekae, Bongani Linda, Phyllis Klotz and Warren Nebe.

These indabas form part of DAC’s national research and consultation process among key stakeholders in the various provinces, and the issues raised will inform policy and future interventions in the arts sector to ensure its development and sustainability.

The key research areas are transformation, networking, compliance, human resource development, local market development, and funding versus sustainability.

Says Mpho Molepo, director of SATI and the National Community Theatre and Education Network: “It was heartening to witness arts practitioners from different disciplines coming together and unifying for a common cause – the development of our sector.

“Through these indabas we are hoping to foster more constructive engagement between the performing arts and Government, to enable our cultural industries to flourish and prosper.”