12 BusinessDay www.businessday.co.za Friday 18 June 2 0 21

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ACTIVE HEALTH ●WORKING LIFE ●BIG IDEAS ●TRAVEL & FOOD ●BOOKS & TECH ●ART & ENTERTAINMENT Constitution Hill beacon is

STREAM I NG ablaze with fresh creativity Five things for you to •A world-class recording studio is turning a dark past into a vibrant, music-filled future watch this weekend

Lesley Stones original stonework. “The brief LUPIN PART 2 —N ETFLIX she finds herself the hostage of was to build a world-class Omar Sy and his charming gang a group of lustful and paranoid eneath the ramparts facility that’s really amazing and of rogues return for the breezy, chicle tappers in Mexico. As the of the Old Fort at will attract the right profile of stylish, glamorous adventures jungle works its hypnotic spell, Constitution Hill p e o p le ,”McCormack says. “Bu t of master trickster Lupin as he things become uncanny and the are gunpowder at the same time we’ve kept the sets out to take revenge on his boundaries between man and chambers and patina and the feel of the old nemesis and get the justice he nature collapse with unnerving Bbarrack rooms, arched roofs walls, we haven’t tried to make has spent a lifetime seeking. It’s p o r t e nt . and mysterious tunnels. Outside it glossy and shiny. all silly but enjoyable fun, and is a courtyard surrounded by jail “Constitution Hill is almost a there are pleasurable twists and AWAKE —N ETFLIX cells, with barbed wire sacred site, and you feel that turns in a show easy to accept The pandemic has sent many stretched across the sky. when you work here. You’ve on its own unadulterated, viewers trawling through the You expect to encounter got the Constitutional Court just rollicking, high-jinks terms. already extensive archive of ghosts in this old, atmospheric over the ramparts, and 20m postapocalyptic films. In this site, but you’re more likely to away is where Mandela and CLARKSON ’S FARM — one, an inexplicable global crisis encounter rock musicians and Gandhi were imprisoned. Yo u AMAZON PRIME VIDEO leads to a worldwide electronic rappers drawn by the a dd it io n feel the weight of the responsi- The good people at Amazon failure that plunges humanity of a world-class recording Heritage site: The Old Fort at Constitution Hill now houses Flame bility to do the right thing and thought it would be a great idea into a fatal battle with insomnia. studio. Flame Studios is about to Studios. /Lesley Stones not mess it up because it’s such to let Jeremy Clarkson loose on Th at ’s until a woman discovers open in ’s most Creative hub: Flame Studios’main recording studio, the Red Room. a precious thing.” the British countryside as part of her child may have the ability to historic building, financed by Wits and Johannesburg univer- will attract international artists. / Lesley Stones The finished studios include his multimillion-dollar deal with help the world finally get to the entrepreneurs behind sities, Damelin College and It could become an iconic spot, a large room for rehearsals or the studio. It turns out this was a sleep again if she can bring Na ndo ’s, Robbie Brozin and the Hillbrow Theatre for Children. such as Abbey Road Studios in to push that, it’s making an effort Phalane to open a restaurant for recording, with space for a very bad idea indeed. Not only herself to make the sacrifice fate Enthoven family. Musical instruments are or Electric Lady in New to work with corporates to and catering company called choir or an orchestra. It is also for farmers, who quickly grow demands. A potentially The name is nothing to do waiting for talented people who York, McCormack believes. encourage investment. Inviting Food I Love You. being used for recording tired with the British grump’s interesting premise is wasted in with roasted chickens, cannot afford their own, and “The r e’s nothing such as this Brozin to join the board of the Brozin is working with podcasts, TV shows or hosting incredulous questioning of basic a film that will have you however. It’s named for the aspiring sound engineers will internationally in terms of the Constitution Hill Trust was an Business Leadership SA and the events, to expand Flame into a aspects of agricultural yawning long before its Flame of Democracy that burns learn and be mentored here. historical setting of Constitution inspired move, bringing his Gibs Business School to multipurpose centre. production and general interminable 100 minutes reach at Constitution Hill, where Hill and its context,”he says. vision and business acumen, e nco u r age their members to The Green Room is a lounge contempt for their livelihood, its dull and predictable things are beginning to heat up HIGHER PURPOSE One American hip-hop artist plus his willingness to invest to hire these facilities or to invest for hanging out, with coffee and but also for audiences. Even co nc lu s io n . as the business people drive a “You can’t come here and open stuck in SA during lockdown support his ideas. here themselves. Not to make a bar fridge, and facilities to play diehard fans will tire of his new vision for its future. a commercial recording studio recorded vocals here, so word When he was first shown money, but to help the precinct back the recordings. There’sa bumbling around on a tractor BACK IN THE USSR: SERGEI “The crucial part is it’s not a hoping to make a lot of bucks. will soon begin to spread. around by the former Constitu - thrive, being mindful of its status small vocal booth, a control with all the charm of an LOZN ITSA’S ARCHIVAL commercial venture,”s t u d io Th at ’s not what the site is about. The Old Fort was built as a tional Court judge Albie Sachs, as the home of democracy. room with mixing desks and the outbreak of mad cow disease. DOCUMENTARIES — manager Lance McCormack It ’s not designed to be a place jail in 1893 by then-president he saw not only its history but Red Room, the main recording MUBI . COM says. “It ’s a not-for-profit where people can come and get Paul Kruger, and extended into a also its potential to create hope SACRED SITE studio with a drum kit, TRAGIC JUNGLE — Mubi presents an extensive company and the mandate is to rich. It’s got a higher purpose,” fort ahead of the Anglo-Boer for the future. “I’ve never been Turning the Old Fort into a keyboards and guitars . N ETFLIX selection of the masterful build a sustainable facility that McCormack says. War. It’s part of a human rights more moved,”he said during a recording studio was guided by It ’s a big step in the overall Mexican director Yulene archive documentaries of will provide a platform for Professional artists will be precinct that also houses the talk he gave to the entrepreneu - strict conditions imposed by the mission of bringing Constitution Ol a i z o l a’s fourth feature is a Ukrainian director Sergei people to re-record the history encouraged to book the studios Constitutional Court and is run rial organisation Heavy Chef. National Heritage Council, Hill to life as a creative hub. slowly unfolding and terrifying Loznitsa. Using the former evil of this space. What was once a at a rate to cover the running as a museum by its owner, the As well as funding Flame coupled with the team’s desire “This is a unique opportunity fable that packs plenty into its e mp i r e’s own propaganda place of pain and suffering and costs and fund its altruistic Gauteng provincial government. Studios he is paying for rooms to honour its heritage and to reshape the narrative of this simple story set deep in the machine, Loznitsa reconstructs imprisonment is being developmental programmes. But there’s a lot of dead to be converted into a small history as another draw to space, and also of the industry jungle along the banks of the and recontextualises events repositioned as a place of The combination of world- space and a shabby sense of conference centre called Truth augment its hi-tech facilities. and maybe even the psyche of Hondo River on the border from the USSR’s past that creativity and hope.” class facilities, SA’s affordability disrepair, or, to give it a positive to Power, which companies Its décor was designed by the country,”McCormack says. between Mexico and Belize. succeed in setting the historical To achieve that the studios and the unrivalled kudos of spin, room for fresh thinking could hire as a neutral site to Tracy Lynch, the creative “It ’s a cliché, but music is the After a young woman escapes record straight while also will be free to use by the recording in a place where and new possibilities. Since the hold workshops on issues such director of Nando’s design universal language. It could be a her arranged marriage to a providing reconsideration of it institutes around it, including and Mahatma government doesn’t have the as diversity. Next door, rooms programme, with bold colours much more powerful tool for colonial plantation owner in in the light of present-day the National School of the Arts, Gandhi were once imprisoned money or entrepreneurial flair are being converted for Mpho offset by areas that expose the social cohesion.” British Honduras in the 1920s, realities. /Tymon Smith

HALF ART An artistic unfolding of the complexity that is SA’s terrible past

mean, as a parent, when do creeping into even the tidiest These hopes manifest in a about a land that has very little Here are Deborah Bell, Se a ri n g you tell your children how suburbs, the narrative of decline desire for our children to feel unambiguous black and white, Robert Hodgins and William satire : Iterrible this country is? How has become pervasive among pride in their country even and is mostly shades of grey? Kentridge, responding to the Ro b e rt long can you keep them the city’s well-to-do denizens. when their parents feel anger or The pictorial metaphor is interregnum of the early 1990s Hodgins , shielded from it?” This chimes with a national d i s i l lu s io n me nt . appropriate; one way of with searing satires of the self- ‘Whistler ’s This overheard coffee shop narrative of decay and general So we lean into Youth Day, enabling children to grapple important men of capital whose Grandmother ’, conversation promised to be a despair that, I daresay, informed with its curricular reassurance with complexity is to share wealth depended on the 2009 oil doozy. I had already paid my bill the direction of my coffee shop CHRIS THURMAN that June 16 1976 is part of a works of art with them. brutality and exploitation of monotype on and I had promises to keep; co mp a n io n s ’dialog ue. then which was worse. For all Last weekend I took my but who would archiv al reluctantly, I left the well- Yet for many parents and the wickedness of now, when daughter and son to the subsequently reinvent paper . meaning parents to their soul children in SA, such questions Nevertheless, I sympathise our children learn about SA’s Goodman Gallery, where we themselves as liberal heroes of /Go o d m a n searching. But the questions are irrelevant. with the coffee shop anguish. history at school they cannot fail enjoyed a lesson in art history the postapartheid economy. Ga l l e ry (and the assumptions under- If you live in poverty, no-one Because even though we know to discern that this country was courtesy of the group exhibition Here are Sam Nhlengethwa lying them) stayed with me as I has to tell you how terrible about the dangers of national- once even more terrible. Lasting Influences. The work and David Goldblatt, drove through the streets of things are. There is no shield to ism and blind patriotism, as And, of course, it is not and displayed is a retrospective of documenting in their different nightmare of apartheid). that, in fact, via Picasso and Johannesburg, watching the be upheld. It seems necessary to parents our hopes that our never has been uniformly sorts, a reminder of how the media the reality of the mines. Here are Edoardo Villa and Matisse and Braque helped to city thaw as the sun climbed point out, too —because the children will have a decent shot terrible. For all our faults, the gallery and the artists it Here is David Koloane, painting Walter Battiss and Cecil Skotnes, shape European modernism. higher, admiring how the winter corruption and ineptitude of the at happiness are at least partly story of SA and its people is also represents have influenced SA’s still lifes in the 1970s —b e c au s e whose works emerge from the You see? It’s complicated. light caught the litter bestrewing ANC in government tend to hinged on the prospect of a one of aching beauty. Hence the art scene since the 1960s. black artists were not bound to tradition of European modern- But, as I was reminded at the the pavements. skew one’s historical perspec- meaningful relationship with great parenting challenge: Though all the pieces are for representation of the spectacle ism; here are Dumile Feni and Goodman, children are able to Joburg has always had ugli- tive, or to result in selective place, a sense of belonging and helping your child to navigate sale, the art and artists are so of black oppression (even if Ezrom Legae and Sydney handle complexity. ness, brokenness and neglect in amnesia —that ours has always heritage, of collective identity the contradictions of SA past iconic that it feels like a Ko lo a ne’sFighting Dogs from Kumalo, who may be situated Sometimes they manage it abundance, but now that it is been a terrible country. and future commitment. and present. How to teach them museum exhibition. 1983 is infused with the within an older African aesthetic better than adults.

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