Namaqualand

Namaqualand (Afrikaans Namakwaland; historically also Little Namaqualand or Klein-Namakwaland, to distinguish it from Great Namaqualand north of the Orange River in present-day Namibia)

An arid region of the north-western Cape, in the Northern Cape province, which has served as setting, subject and site of production across South African writing, theatre, dance, film and television. In popular and theatrical usage the name is applied loosely, often stretching to Nieuwoudtville, the Bokkeveld and parts of Bushmanland.

The region

Namaqualand was originally inhabited by the Nama, a Khoi group, and takes its name from them. Simon van der Stel led an expedition to its copper mountains in 1685, and copper mining later built the towns of Springbok, O'okiep, Nababeep and Concordia; diamonds built Kleinzee and Port Nolloth. Mission settlements including Steinkopf, Leliefontein, Komaggas, Kharkams and Pella remain centres of Nama community life. The spring flower season draws substantial tourism. The region has its own variety of the language, Namaqualand Afrikaans, which derives from Orange River Afrikaans and carries strong Khoi influence.

Writing

D.J. Opperman's poem "Namakwaland" is among the best-known Afrikaans literary treatments of the region. George Weideman drew on Namaqualand and the Richtersveld in ’n Staning onder sterre (1997)*, and Willem Steenkamp collected regional tales in Namakwalandse Oustories (1983). More recently Lynthia Julius, who is from the region, has brought Nama vocabulary into Afrikaans verse in Uit die kroes (2020, Kwela Books), and Dianne Du Toit Albertze has published the play Huis van sand and the novel Bottelnek breek bek* with Human & Rousseau.

Theatre

1986: The Horse Thief by Willem Steenkamp and Tony Robinson, staged by CAPAB.

2013: Koperkoors, a chamber musical produced by Sakka Stone* at the Woordfees, tracing the region from before European arrival to the discovery of copper in 1685.

2017: Nêrens, Noord-Kaap by Nico Scheepers premiered at the Vrystaat Kunstefees, Bloemfontein, with Geon Nel, Albert Pretorius and De Klerk Oelofse as the three Adendorff brothers. It won Best National Debut there and a Fiësta Award for ensemble work, and was published by Protea Boekhuis. The farm is located generically in the Northern Cape rather than in Namaqualand itself.

2018: Klip Kween by Dianne Du Toit Albertze, directed by Jason Jacobs, at the Woordfees.

2023: My kroon se krank by Veronique Jephtas and Lynthia Julius*.

2024: Suurdeeg by Miché van Wyk, directed by Sandra Temmingh, premiered at the twenty-first Suidoosterfees on 27 April and played at the Woordfees. Set on a Namaqualand farm and named for the local bread-baking tradition, it follows two prospective sisters-in-law, Anna (René Cloete) and Emma (Jodine Ockers), who fall in love. Miché van Wyk was nominated for a Fiësta Award as Best Emerging Artist.

2025: Huis van sand by Dianne Du Toit Albertze won the Reinet Nagtegaal Text Prize and was staged at the Woordfees in October, with Tinarie van Wyk Loots as Sandy, alongside René Cloete, Kristen Raath and Jefferson J. Dirks-Korkee. René Cloete and Jefferson J. Dirks-Korkee won Woordtrofees and Fiëstas for their supporting performances*.

2025: Kinderlê by Lynthia Julius, at the Woordfees, staging an episode of Namaqualand history from 1867, with Miché van Wyk, Theodore Jantjies, Lynette du Plessis and Damian Jacobs.

2025: Skatkis vol stories by Danneline Ramsden and Miché van Wyk, at the Suidoosterfees, drawn from Kommagas.

2026: Kraal by Jason Jacobs, presented at the National Arts Festival as his Standard Bank Young Artist Award production and performed in both a theatre and a matjieshut. It addresses the colonial legacy of the dop system and draws on knowledge of the Kamiesberge; an earlier version was staged at the Black2Normal Festival in Denmark.

The Cape Town company Djamaqua Productions took its name from Jamaqua, a disused Namaqualand copper mine.

Dance

Alfred Hinkel founded Die Namakwalandse Dans Geselskap at Nababeep and O'okiep in 1976, the region's first dance company, and the beginning of his long association with John Linden and Dawn Langdown. From 1997 Dawn Langdown ran Namjive, Jazzart Dance Theatre's Namaqualand Rural Dance Project. Hinkel and Linden returned to O'okiep in 2010 and founded the Garage Dance Ensemble there in 2011; its work includes Krummelpap, afval en Sunlightseepbaddens (Woordfees, 2020), set to poetry by Ronelda Kamfer, and it has toured internationally, appearing at the Ruhrtriennale in 2025. The rieldans (also ikhapara) and the Nama Stap are indigenous Nama dance forms of the region, now widely performed at competitions run by the ATKV.

Film and television

1969: Namaqualand / Namakwaland, directed by Ashley Lazarus.

1993: Die Manakwalanners, written by Johan van Jaarsveld and directed by Koos Roets for SABC 2, ran for two seasons, with Hans Strydom as Nols Labuschagne and the storyteller Oupa Swartsak addressing viewers directly. Filmed at Nieuwoudtville, it is credited with carrying Namaqualand Afrikaans to a national audience.

2018: Nama Swaan, the first short film written and directed by Jason Jacobs, premiered at the kykNET Silwerskermfees. A boy is visited by a magical Nama "Oerstem" as he pursues a life in dance, the premise set against Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. With Joshua Vraagom, Celeste Mathews and Quinton Manuels.

2021, 2024: Nêrens, Noord-Kaap, adapted by Nico Scheepers from his play, with Saartjie Botha as script editor, and co-directed by Scheepers and Johan Cronjé for Nagvlug Films. Two seasons of thirteen episodes each were broadcast on kykNET from 31 August 2021 and 17 September 2024, with Frank Opperman as Lourens Adendorff and Tinarie van Wyk Loots as Katja. Also filmed at Nieuwoudtville.

2024: Carissa, co-directed by Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar, screened in the Orizzonti section at the Venice International Film Festival.

2026: Variations on a Theme, co-directed by Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar, won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Best African Film at the Joburg Film Festival. An eighty-year-old goat herder in the mountains above Kharkams, played by Jacobs's grandmother Hettie Farmer, is defrauded by a scheme promising reparations for her father's wartime service in the Cape Corps.

2026: Out of Mined, a documentary directed by Arthur Neumeier*, on the legacy of mining in the region.

Artists and companies based in the region

Two companies work from within Namaqualand rather than from the metropolitan centres. The Garage Dance Ensemble is based at O'okiep, and KRAAL, the collective of Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar, works between Kharkams and Cape Town; it received the 2026 SAFTA for Outstanding Provincial Contributor. Both run training and skills development locally. Jason Jacobs, the 2026 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for theatre, lives and works at Kharkams, some 25 km south of Kamieskroon. Other theatre-makers and writers from the region include Dianne Du Toit Albertze, Miché van Wyk (from Steinkopf), Lynthia Julius, Geralt Cloete, Marquen Carstens, Danneline Ramsden and René Cloete*.

The region in the cultural imaginary

Namaqualand has long circulated in popular culture through a small set of images: the spring flowers, the copper and diamond ghost towns, and a regional comic idiom built on Namaqualand Afrikaans. Screen versions of the region have frequently been filmed elsewhere, with both Die Manakwalanners and Nêrens, Noord-Kaap shot at Nieuwoudtville, which lies in the Hantam rather than in Namaqualand.

Artists from the region have objected to this treatment. Writing in the Woordfees festival newspaper INK in 2025, Dianne Du Toit Albertze stated that the period in which Namaqualand's narrative was appropriated by tourist writers was over, naming Hans du Plessis's Innie skylte vannie Jirre and Boegoe vannie liefde as examples, and listed Miché van Wyk, Geralt Cloete, Marquen Carstens and Lynthia Julius as artists from the region now writing about it themselves.