The National Arts Festival opens its doors in Makhanda this week and with over 200 shows spanning theatre, dance, music, film and visual art, knowing where to start is half the battle. Here’s what’s worth making the trip for.
The National Arts Festival returns to Makhanda from 25 June to 5 July 2026. The 52nd instalment brings a lineup that moves between indigenous wisdom and artificial intelligence, choral tradition and TikTok Live.
This year’s programme is anchored by the five Standard Bank Young Artists. Jason Jacobs (Theatre) presents Kraal, a work unpacking the colonial legacy of the dop system, staged partly in a traditional matjieshut.
Bronwyn Katz (Visual Art) works with metal scaffolds, healing herbs and beeswax to retrieve lost languages through material process.
Ndumiso Manana (Music) performs with a full band and three-piece horn section for the first time, while Gabi Motuba (Jazz) centres vocal improvisation through spiritual jazz. The Soweto String Quartet also marks 30 years since their first Festival recording on the same stages.
On the technology front, Darkroom Contemporary’s autoplay makes history as Africa’s first AI-generated opera, producing unique performances through real-time generative music.
UK artist Louise Orwin’s FAMEHUNGRY collides live theatre with TikTok Live, and Canadian company Guilty by Association’s 2021 blurs AI and video games in a digital resurrection story.
The film programme is stacked. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, which won the 2026 Oscar for Best International Feature, screens alongside Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, the film that earned a nine-minute standing ovation at Venice. Also on the bill is Lost Land, the first film ever produced in the Rohingya language.
The Eastern Cape Literature Festival runs alongside the main programme, featuring Professor Zakes Mda, Dr Athambile Masola (who translated Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like into isiXhosa), and a three-day film, writing and producing masterclass from the John Kani Academy.
* National Arts Festival runs 25 June to 5 July 2026 in Makhanda. Full programme and tickets available at nationalartsfestival.co.za.
