The City of Cape Town has selected over 1 100 highly talented artistes from all over the Cape Metropole to perform at the City’s official World Cup events from 11 June to 11 July with well established and professional artists.

Over the past six weeks, over 3 000 artistes participated in a series of tough auditions at six venues across the city. A total of 246 acts, involving 1 280 performers then took part in ‘boot camp’ training for the final auditions at the Grand West Arena.

“The public auditions, training and opportunities to perform at events during the soccer tournament confirms the City’s commitment to use the World Cup to create opportunities for Capetonians,” says Lesley de Reuck, the City’s 2010 Operations Director.

“Every one of the 166 acts will perform at least once either at the Fifa Fan Fest on the Grand Parade, the Fan Walk between Cape Town station and the Cape Town Stadium, or at one of the four fan jols (public viewing areas) at the Vygieskraal Stadium, the Bellville Velodrome, the OR Tambo sports complex and the Swartklip sports centre.

Besides the opportunity to show off their talent in front of soccer fans and global TV audiences, performers will each receive a stipend for the services rendered,” he says.

“The public auditions provided a wonderful forum to identify the cream of Cape Town’s emerging talent. This was an open transparent process managed by the Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA) on behalf of the City,” says Pam Naidoo, 2010 Project Coordinator at the City of Cape Town.

Headed by performing arts developer Kurt Egelhof, the panel of judges included theatre experts such as Theo Ndindwa, Thoko Ntshinga, Marianne Thamm, Lara Bye and Philip de Villiers. The Western Cape Musicians’ Association (WCMA) was also represented.

"Hats off to the City of Cape Town for pioneering this initiative. I have never before experienced such a community initiative of this magnitude anywhere else in the world. This is a career-changing opportunity that affords every performer in the city a chance to perform on a global stage,” says Kurt Egelhof.

The acts that were chosen include include imbongis, jugglers, magicians, comedians, poets, rappers, bands, opera singers, drummers and dancers.

“Cape Town is ready to showcase the rich diversity of its multi-cultural talent to the world,” says Naidoo.

The final programmes will be announced closer to the time of the World Cup events.