Toy soldiers, plastic leaves, Christmas tree decorations and polystyrene balls are hardly things you’d expect to see in a hairdo, even if it is styled by two flamboyant Spanish hairdressers. Alex Rendon and Josephine Grunzy of the Instituto Ramon Llul of Spain make their debut at the Festival this year with the surreal performance-art display Osadia .

South Africa has got rhythm, beat and a euphonic soul. The best way to hear and feel the musical vibrations of our land is through the sounds of the drum.

Big drums, small drums or steel drums, all of them reverberate with their own expressions.

Lerato Monageng, member of Steel Drums and Bass, explains how special the steel drum, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, is to him.

Victor Masondo’s arrangements of Duke Ellington’s music create textures that are both complex and easy on the ear.

What do Young Artist Award winners do when they get older? They conquer the world. That is, if Victor Masondo’s example is anything to go by.

Arts journalist Adrienne Sichel says pantsula is “very much an urban South African dance form”. Pantsula is the language of the township. Complicated rhythmic formations, gangster swagger and tsotsitaal (scamto) make up the vocabulary of this edgy dance form.

Brent Meersman, member of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) and performing arts critic for the Mail & Guardian, facilitated an international panel of theatre critics at this year’s festival.

XHOSA tradition will be on spectacular display in Abathembu Dance and Music – Umtsholoza waBathembu with their portrayal of Imini yoMdudo – a day of celebration where Xhosa clans come together in harmonious traditional songs and dance, while women, men, boys and girls adorn themselves with colourful beads and attire.

TWO of this year’s most important intercultural music productions are The Songs of Madosini, an oratorio by Hans Huyssen, and 88 Tuned Drums: Facets of African Pianism, a recital of contemporary African-inspired piano music performed by the eminent concert pianist Jill Richards.