Johannesburg Arts Alive International Festival

The Johannesburg Arts Alive International Festival is an annual month-long festival of the arts held since 1993.

Originally simply called Arts Alive, it soon became the Arts Alive Festival and was finally renamed the Johannesburg Arts Alive International Festival or simply the Arts Alive International Festival.

The festival

Founded by Christopher Till in 1992 and inaugurated in 1993 as an annual festival. A project of the City of Johannesburg, it is intended to celebrate arts and culture.

The project offices are housed in the city's Directorate of Arts, Culture and Heritage [1] and since 2010 also includes the support of the Mayoral Committee for Community Development. Since 2009 the festival has been run by Zanusi Brand Solutions on behalf of the city and in 2015 it is presented by a Johannesburg city entity called Joburg City Theatres.

The festival takes place in spring each year and usually running for almost the full month of September. With the Newtown Precinct as its nucleus in recent years, the events take place at various venues in and around the city, covering all seven regions of the city. The festival fare features international and homegrown theatre, dance, music, visual art and general entertainment.

Speak The Mind

This is a subsection of the Arts Alive International Festival, and has been from the start. It was originally called the "Speak The Mind Session", a one night event consisting of poetry readings.

In 2015 it was billed as the Speak The Mind Poetry and Music Festival, but remains a one-night event.