Major Venture Programmes:

MBTC has identified 2 major venture programmes for the period 2024 – 2030. These ventures should provide an additional income to the institution while they become legacies to the sector. here are the two major venture programmes:

South African National Jazz Orchestra

The Eastern Cape is the cradle of Jazz in South Africa. Over the decades it has produced virtuosos like Tete Mbambisa, Johnny Dyani, Matshikiza Brothers, Pinise Saul, Four Yanks, King Jury Mpehlo, Dudu Pukwana, Soul Jazzman, Errol Cudumbey, Zim Ngqawana, Feya Faku Andile Yenana, Retsi Pule and many more. It is only logical that the province that has given birth to these luminaries establishes a product that will preserve, develop and promote jazz in perpetuity on behalf of the entire country.

MBTC has resolved to establish the South African National Jazz Orchestra (SANJO) which will provide a unique platform for South African Jazz. SANJO will employ artists and sources of entertainment for private initiatives to generate its income. It will conduct an annual music development programme for schools across the rural Eastern Cape.

Mandela Bay Performing Arts Precinct Project

The Mandela Bay Theatre Complex’s iconic theatres, The Opera House and The Barn Theatre situated at the CKN Centre, are surrounded by the names of the stage icons who became the first people in Afrika to win the prestigious Tony Award in 1975 for their masterpieces Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island. In 2015, commemorating 40 years since the winning of the Tony, MBTC advocated for the three name changes in their honour. Chapel Street was renamed Winston Ntshona Street, Whites Road was renamed John Kani Road and Belmont Terrace was renamed Athol Fugard Terrace.

The CKN Centre boasts the stained glass of the three luminaries, making it the only such landmark in the world to bestow such wholesome appreciation for excellence and bear the names of such greats.

The entire area can only become a value to the society if it lives up to the calibre of those named after. Further, it can only be worth its purpose as a legacy if it provides livelihood to all those who look up to it. As a result, MBTC shall develop the area into a Performing Arts Precinct. This shall be aligned to the City’s Urban Renewal Principles. Earnestly MBTC shall trigger a study which will provide an in-depth scope and framework for the intended precinct.

Artists Flagship Partnerships:

MBTC boasts capabilities in Arts Project Management. This has been proven through the partnerships with the Eastern Cape Department of Sport Recreation Arts and Culture (shortly EC-DSRAC) and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM).

Partnership with Eastern Cape Department of Sport Recreation Arts and Culture

The Eastern Cape province comprises a population of 6,7 million people and a land mass of 168,699 square kilometres, making it the second largest province in South Africa. The province is demarcated into 6 districts and 2 metropolitan cities.

EC-DSRAC has 8 regional offices and 17 Community Arts Centres which were developed since 1994. The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has since developed its own Community Arts Centre, making such entities 18 in the Eastern Cape.

MBTC is a pivot through which EC-DSRAC implements some of its programmes to reach the length and breadth of the Eastern Cape.

Some of the key programmes that EC-DSRAC implement with MBTC are the Music Excellence Acceleration Programme in the Eastern Cape (MEAPEC), the Iphulo Drama Festival and Udaba Dance Festival development programmes, EC Community Arts Centers Development Programme, EC Nationally funded Flagship Programmes.

Sampling MEAPEC as an example of the partnership between MBTC and EC-DSRAC. Through this programme about 8 Eastern Cape-based music record labels are supported to promote their artists. In the first year of this programme, in 2022, one of the recipients a gospel musician Betusile Mcinga, went on to make history as the first Eastern Cape-based musician to win the national Mero FM Song of the Year. MEAPEC achieved its goal at the very onset by providing the artist with the power to conquer, in the process leveraging him to garner numerous gigs which enable him to earn income for himself, his accompanying backing vocalists and management personnel.

The partnership with EC-DSRAC gives MBTC wings to reach and be felt across the entire province.

Partnership with Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality

Nelson Mandela Bay is home to 1,3 million population with a vast awareness of arts. Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, NMBM, has a partnership with MBTC that provides an intervention to perpetuate both the nurturing of excellence as well as fostering diversity, equity and inclusion in the arts. Further, the partnership seeks to establish future mega projects in Craft, Public Art and Jazz.

As a metropolitan city, NMBM through its partnership with MBTC shall ensure that the City is a Creative City.

Ihlumelo Children Dance and Music Programme:

Children are the future through which a nation sees itself in real time. An African linguist Langalibalele Mathenjwa says our Arts is hidden in our culture, we reveal our culture through our arts. Based on these two assertions it is only wise to invest heavily in children. Arts becomes the best and ideal vehicle for that.

MBTC has Ihlumelo Children’s Dance and Music Programme. Ihlumelo is an isiXhosa word that means a Seed. Ihlumelo is aimed at planting artistic seeds in children between the ages of 6 to 14 years old. These are programmes that are not meant to groom children into being artists, but to mould them to appreciate the arts in whatever they later become in life. However more so, to use the inherent brain development powers that arts have in moulding children into forthright citizens.

Ihlumelo shall be held over weekends, school holidays and constant interactions with schools supporting them in implementing creative arts as a curriculum.