Thanks to Picca de Bruin, director of the Knysna Literary Festival 2011, Garden Route Concerts was able to introduce Knysna to the KHOI KHONNEXION who are spoken word poets, Khoi musicians and Khoi culturalists. This also fitted wonderfully in with the GRUM concept as we visited over 2000 children through workshops at Percy Mdala, Hornlee Secondary, Knysna High and LoveLife Centre.

Here’s a message from the KHOI KHONNEXION:

“Thank you for a most memorable and warm experience in Knysna, especially for the opportunity to express our passion, which is to work with our youth and to make solid contributions to the way they choose to see and interact with the world and, more specifically, our beautiful country, of which Knysna undoubtedly stands out as most pristine.

We realize and appreciate the aims of the Knysna Literary Festival, to address key issues in the broader community that speaks to drawing people creatively into economic activities, and to give Knysna a feel of its rich human resources and heritage.

It was wonderful to work with the learners and to see their overwhelmingly positive responses to our key messages of reconciliation and cooperation on the basis of our common humanity. To link this with the Outeniqua heritage of the area has allowed us to introduce and make connections with important aspects of the life orientation curriculum, and to speak to the value and power of arts and culture as a medium for positive change at both the personal and collective level.

Follow-up intervention is desirable, to take them through the practical activities of making and learning to play the bow. Having visited the various communities, our wish is for each one to own and play the Khoi mouthbow, and to hear its sound across the hills and valleys of Knysna.

All the best,

Glen Arendse
Jethro Louw
🙂