Post Harvey Weinstein there, and Jennifer Ferguson here, the world is waking up to gender disparities and mistreatment in the creative industries.
International jazz artists including drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and reed players Tia Fuller and Nicole Mitchell have added a jazz voice to the #metoo movement through the We Have Voice collective.
READ: #CTIJF2018 - Free concert to showcase top talent
"So, in 2018, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival (CTIJF) Arts Journalism Public Debate also turns its lens on gender – not just on harassment and inequalities in representation and pay, but also on questions of the media portrayal of women in music,” explains respected author and commentator, Percy Mabandu, the Arts Journalism Course Director.
“We’ll be looking at jazz history and literature too, and the stereotypes that often govern popular perceptions of ‘men’s music’ and ‘women’s music’,” adds music writer Gwen Ansell, who will chair the debate this year.
(Ansell founded the CTIJF Arts Journalism course, which has run in tandem with the festival for the past 16 -years and continues to develop a robust media contingent within the arts sector. She handed over leadership of the programme to Mabandu in 2017).
An annual fixture of the CTIJF’s sustainable training and development programme, the free-of-charge public debate attracts a growing audience, drawn from all aspects of South African society. They have become an essential forum for discourse on a variety of pressing issues related to music and art, its capturing and portrayal in South Africa.
Often stimulating heated discussion, they always provide food for thought with highly stimulating insights.
This year will be no different, with a renewed energy percolating through the country and a new openness to speaking out against inequalities and a fresh willingness to learn and move forward.
Panellists for the 2018 CTIJF Public Debate will be drawn from jazz, journalism and gender studies, and will include:
Gwen Ansell (Chair) – author, arts and culture journalist
Percy Mabandu – author, radio presenter and journalist
Nomfundo Xaluva – music artist
Nicky Schrire - music artist
Professor Nirvana Bechan - the first woman to head up a Department within her faculty (Media, CPUT), and is spearheading curriculum decolonisation and transformation there.
Published author, consultant, Erasmus Mundus Fellow, and head of IABC Western Cape.
The event will take place at the Artscape Opera Bar, Cape Town on Tuesday 20th March from 13H30 - 15H30. While the event is free, booking is advisable and those wishing to attend are requested to please apply online.