UCT Choir brings goosebumps at GIPCA

Last weekend GIPCA organised an entire weekend packed with every element of the artistic and performing world to tantalise and entertain, called "The names we give". Unfortunately, I was only able to go on Friday, but how I wish I could've been to every show and discussion on every day. It all started at the Hiddingh UCT campus where there was the most beautiful jazz band playing, everyone was bobbing their heads or tapping their feet and, if they weren't, they certainly were after the wine. All of a sudden, what we thought were audience members, started singing. For a few seconds I thought that I was in an old-school 1950s' musical and then I slowly began to realise that it was the UCT choir. As goosebumps ran up and down my arms I realised that it was one of the most beautiful sounds that I have ever heard.

We then all gathered outside and got on a bus that took us to the Baxter Theatre. (This was also part of what GIPCA had organised for the weekend.) At first, I must admit, I was a little wary as it was my first opera and I wasn't quite sure what would happen. (I've seen the movies and I know I don't understand Italian.) I thought I was hard core and could hold back tears like a beast. If you think the same, go and watch an opera to test yourself; I cried like a baby. It was all based on apartheid and was in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. The entire performance merely showed, once again, the struggle that South Africa has endured, what the people have been through, where we are now and the strength that lays in all of us and beneath our feet in the very soil and soul of South Africa. As those gorgeous voices flowed over the audience, the tingle of connected understanding was almost visible. They were real events, they were real people and to many it is still very real in their hearts.

The problem with trying to explain all of this to you, is that it was all about the feeling, the feeling of what GIPCA has brought together, the jazz band making you feel as though you'd gone back in time, the UCT choir making you feel awed by the beauty of those voices and Rewind Cantata (the opera) making you feel, well making you feel completely moved in a way I cannot describe. There is only one way to understand this fully and that is, of course, to go to feel it for yourself.