Heritage Month celebrations for residents

The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) will host a number of events during Heritage Month, starting with the African Lifestyle and Heritage Festival at Dries Niemandt Park, from September 18 to 20.

During the festival, patrons will be taken on a tour of the African continent by experiencing authentic African cuisine, music, fashion, arts and crafts as well as receiving lessons on the evolving culture and identity of the continent.

Furthermore, to bring about a link between traditional dance styles and urban sub-cultural dance genres, Ekurhuleni, in partnership with Via Katlehong and Business Education and Arts Mentorship (BEAM), will host an electrifying youth dance competition dubbed “Just Stand up and Dance”.

It will see participants dancing to pantsula and contemporary dance styles on Saturday, September 19, at the DH Williams Hall in Katlehong.

The up-tempo Afro urban dance battle will be used as a platform to celebrate the fourth installment of the Annual Dance Day South Africa, an event aimed at encouraging artists to express themselves through a variety of dance styles.

In its endeavours to uphold and give a commendable meaning to the Heritage Month celebrations, the EMM will officially declare the Duduza Reconciliation Park a heritage site on Saturday, September 26. This follows its pertinent history of the zero-zero hour saga – an event which took place in 1985 where young political activists from Kwa-Thema, Tsakane and Duduza were killed with hand grenades by the apartheid government.

In continuation with the official opening ceremony of heritage sites, the Indaba Tree in Kwa-Thema, situated between the corner of Nkosi and Shabangu streets, will also be declared a heritage site. The tree was chosen by Stegman Koko on February 6, 1953, to be used as a gathering point for community meetings. The tree also served as a traditional court to settle community disputes.

On Wednesday, September 30, Ekurhuleni and the Selope Thema Foundation will convene a gala dinner to give recognition to the late struggle stalwart Selope Thema, the man after which the Kwa-Thema township was named, following his staunch political contribution to the emancipation of the people.

The gala dinner will be held at the Germiston City Hall from 6pm.

To conclude the action-packed Heritage Month, the municipality will continue to celebrate its political heritage by honouring the late, politically-acclaimed resistance artist, Thami Mnyele, through the national fine arts competition, the Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards.

The highly-anticipated awards event will be held on Saturday, September 26, at the Coen Scholtz Recreation Centre in Birchleigh North, where artists will be rewarded for their cutting edge visual arts products.

Subsequent to the awards ceremony, an exhibition of the best work will be on display at the Coen Scholtz Recreation Centre from September 27 to October 18, daily from 8am to 5pm.

Entrance is free of charge.