The National Eisteddfod Academy is calling on practitioners in the arts industry with an interest in education and the development of our future artists and performers to become involved in the adjudication of the upcoming National Eisteddfod Academy Young Performer Awards Competition.
The National Eisteddfod Academy Young Performer Awards Competition is presented over four elimination rounds and provides a prestigious platform where the best young performers in all the various regions of the National Eisteddfod from the preceding year can come together and participate, compete and showcase their talents, across the full spectrum of artistic and cultural diversity. This competition was launched in 2004 and has since then involved more than 23,000 entries and R500 000+ in prize money.
Many past winners and participants in this competition have gone on to excel on the professional stage – Andile Ndlovu and Camille Bracher, top achievers in Ballet, forged international careers; Ndlovu, with the Washington Ballet and Bracher, the Royal Ballet Company; the young pianist, Iman Bulbulia, performed internationally and at the prestigious Carnegie Hall and Carmen Pretorius, is now an established artist with leading roles in Mamma Mia, Cinderella, Jersey Boys, Chicago and many more. The actor Cantona James, the winner of the drama section in 2015 Young Performer Awards, received the Best Upcoming Artists Award at the 2019 Woordfees and was nominated as Best Newcomer in the Royalty Soapie Awards 2020.
Since the founding of this competition in 2014, many well-known personalities in the performing arts industry were invited to be part of the adjudication panels annually. Amongst them were Mimi Coertse, Ismail Mahomed, Sibongile Mngoma, Petro Malan, the late Gloria Bosman, Heinz Winkler, Herold van Buuren, Bianca le Grange, Vinette Ebrahim, Iain MacDonald, Roderick Jaftha, Diane Coutts, Renata Stuurman, Fiona Budd, RJ Benjamin, André Stolz, Heidi Edeling, Malie Kelly, Izak Davel, Henry Mylne, Salome Sechele, Ignatius van Heerden and David Johnson.
Ismail Mahomed, now retired and former National Arts Festival director, CEO of the Market Theatre Foundation and Director at the Centre for Creative Arts: University of KZN, remarked when adjudicating the final round in 2013: “If the NEA Award-winners represent the next generation of artists, I am filled with great hope for the creative industries.” This statement highlights the significance of this project in developing our future stars.
The NEA expects its adjudicators to be ‘educators-at-heart ‘ that embrace the NEA’s values of passion and compassion, integrity and credibility, inclusiveness, respect for the uniqueness of each participant and awareness of and pride in our multi-cultural diversity. This was unreservedly acknowledged by Ismail Mahomed: “Too often in the arts sector, we discuss transformation only in narrow race and cultural terms. The NEA has demonstrated how it goes beyond that discussion. The NEA promotes diversity of expressions across genres, styles and newer evolving forms of urban cultural expressions without getting bogged down by the restrictive politics of race, language and culture.”
Interested practitioners in the arts industry are invited to send their CV’s to edu@eisteddfod.co.za as soon as possible to be considered as adjudicators at the NEA Young Performer Award competition 2024 that will be running form 1 March – 11 May 2024.
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