Shakespeare at Spier Wine Farm after all these years …

The Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa in partnership with The Tsikinya-Chaka Centre, presented their tri-annual conference at Spier in Stellenbosch from 24-27 May 2023. CN&CO has been a supporter and sponsor of both organisations for a few years and our partner Carel attended. He shares why Shakespeare matters to him.

I have loved Shakespeare for as long as I can remember. My grandmother, born in Germiston and living most of her life as a chicken farmer on a small farm called Bloemendal near Meyerton, quoted passages from Shakespeare plays to me when, as a little kid, I visited my grandparents on their farm.

My mum bought me a copy of Shakespeare’s collected works in Stratford-Upon-Avon when I was there with her (age about 10) and got me to ask the salesperson to sign it (I remember how non-plussed she was – but it has ensured that all books I buy or are gifted get some sort of signature and acknowledgement of provenance!) That chunky red book remains one of my most precious possessions.

I acted, as Oberon, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when I was a high school kid (and the director of that play, and my friend, Ingrid Wylde, was in my my mind a lot at the Spier conference – not least because her daughter Lucy Wylde was one of the brilliant presenters there!)

Another presenter was well-known actress Fiona Ramsay (see you at FEDA again next week Fiona!) who has played many of Shakespeare’s characters and with whom I have been infatuated with for years. Many, many years! Fiona is soon receiving her PhD – adding yet another feather in her cap of brilliance.

The list of my Shakespeare memories go on and on. And of course I am not unique, many people have these. I’d argue, most, with the Shakespeare words, phrases and ideas humankind has been consciously and uncosnciously absorping for centuries. More than four to be precise.

With 2023 marking 400 years post the publication of Shakespeares First Folio (by his friends after his death at the relatively young age of 52), the Spier conference had a nice symmetry to it. As the only non academic (that is changing soon as I formally embark on my PhD via Wits) I was slightly apprehensive in attending. Especially as there were people I would meet I have been reading for years and whom I am in awe of (a good brain and argument trumps looks – or makes looks! – for me). People like David Scalkwyk, a fellow Matie, currently Professor of Shakespeare Studies in the English Department and Director of the Centre for Global Shakespeare at Queen Mary University in London (formerly Director of Research at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C – one of the most magnificent places I have ever visited). People like Peter Holland from University of Notre Dame near Chicago.

The conference was arranged by Chris Thurman and Sandra Young from Wits and UCT – two of the most accomplished academics and nicest people you are likely to meet. As for the other delegates – both foreign and local – ridiculously smart, super welcoming, very interesting and they all provided content that stimulated me immensely.

Anelisa Phewa (well-known actor but also MA student and brilliant performer and writer of sonnets!) had me tongue-tied with schoolboy admiration.

Giuliana Iannaccaro from Milan presented a paper on Shakespeare and Herbert Dhlomo – a South African born in 1903 whom I had not even heard of. An Italian teaching me about a literary giant from my own country, pronouncing Zulu and Xhosa words far better than I do?! Mind blown.

Marta Fossati, also from Italy, shairng her (Shakespeare) work in an Italian detention Centre had me thinking back fondly to my time working at the Faure Detention Centre and embarrassed by how little I now do to help rehabilitate incarcerated young offenders. Going to be changing that in the near future I promised myself.

Key-note addresses by Ruben Espinosa and Jyotsna Singh will have me thinking for years to come. As will the papers by Jose Manuel Gonzalez, Colette Gordon, Stephen Collins, Frances Ringwood, Lisa Barkdale-Shaw and others. In fact, I enjoyed enjoyed every single paper and learnt from them. BurningMan was major inspiration for HR and Marketing at Etana Insurance. I think (know!) that EasyEquities is about to get a Shakespeare injection ….

But why does it matter? I am making sense of the multitude of ideas in my head to give an academic answer and do some work on the question, but for the purposes of this blog and simply put – art, in its broadest sense, is the only thing that moves society forward – a view I have long held.

The conference theme was “Shakespeare towards an end” and the papers did just that – explored the multitude, infinite, ends that Shakespeare enables, the travels he starts and takes us on. The travels his ideas enable us to take (by the way, check out Haider – a film I was exposed to at the conference – PHENOMENAL).

Politicians, I believe, act in self-interest and with short-term thinking – even the good ones. Businesses come and go. But the ideas that art puts forward, explores, investigates and allows us to develop what infuences society to be better. To grow. Which is why people so often want to ban art – out of fear of the power it has to ignite minds and lead to positive action.

CN&CO sponsored the Shakspeare Society of Southern Africa (SSOSA) for a few years. As a small company we consciously chose to give some money each month. Part of those funds were used during lokcdown to enable #LockdownShakespeare – a project that was discussed at the conference by Henry Bell, a former theatre practitioner, now academic and all-round legend, from Scotland. My mind was again blown – how a small company called CN&CO in tiny SA played a hand in this. We really all can, and must, make a difference – small things add up to have major influence.

Thanks to EasyEquities who, alongside CN&CO, enabled the inaugural ShakespeareSip – a fun wine tasting where I used a few Spier wines and linked them to Shakespeare texts. Yep, Shakespeare has even infleunced the wines of Stellenbosch!

Check out Tsikinya-Chake Centre and ShakespeareZA if you too have a (not so secret) crush on Will and his ideas.