Creative Cape Town

@ Company’s Garden
24 SEPTEMBER  2010

The Company’s Garden is a Mecca for the masses. It’s an Eden of sorts, filled with beautifully kept gardens, indigenous and foreign, and people local and visiting.  Walking through it is delightful;  you see lovers on the bench, people playing ping pong, picnic parties, a wedding procession posing for photos, squirrels, goslings, children, roses, smiles, every day. What I want to know is, what’s on offer for Heritage Day, 2010?

The first word is FREE. Entrance to The Garden is always free;  today, some of the food is free, entrance to all the museums is free. There are free films, dance pieces, even a glimpse at the stars.  A clever way to remind us that we’re free, and help us value our hefty, hearty heritage.

The second word is INDIGENOUS. We’re looking inwards this year, into the heart of the city, the heart of its people. What do we see? A sense of celebration, integration, inspiration. The ladies are dressed in their best – bright colours, big smiles. This place once belonged to the Dutch East India Company. Now it belongs to you. This place was once just a vegetable garden. Now it cultivates joy in strategic ways.

Here are a few …

Museum madness was the order of day as the Slave Lodge, the SA National Gallery and SA Museum, the SA Jewish Museum and Holocaust Centre and the Crypt Project at St. Georges Cathedral flung their doors open to the public.

The iSAM TH.Barry Lecture Theatre hosted free film screenings about local art, history and story, including  ’Madiba : The Life And Times Of Nelson Mandela’  and ‘Gcina Mhlope-Becker : Bring Me A Story’.  It was an eyeful that left hearts full.

The heavens remained bright and blue until The Planetarium gave star gazers a different view. A free show left astrologers and astronomers alike with stars in their eyes.

The iSAM Amphitheatre pulsed on and off with music all day– a drumming circle with every age group and ethnic group participating, and later on a special tribute to musical icons including Brenda Fassie, Taliep Peterson, Miriam Makheba and Robbie Jansen. Artists from CPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology) rattled off a ratatat rap round robin, and the crowd responded. The Xhosa rhymes were rhythmic, the crowd, enthusiastic.

And to top it all off, a sizeable crowd of peak-capped Indian sailors in uniform (or is that pilots? They answered ‘yes, yes’ to both inquiries!) gave us their last word of the day . “Aah, My Cape Town. We are enjoying every moment and everything,” they grinned.  I am agreeing, only you can’t see my special head nod, Kerala-cum Kaapse Klopse style.