Certain countries have systems in which they declare living individuals national cultural assets. Primarily concerned with the preservation of folk art, skills, creative talents and oral traditions, especially with the transfer of craft skills that are in danger of being lost between generations, the system declares individuals to be national treasures and could be enlarged to include talented individuals of the highest distinction – poets, artists, musicians, story tellers.
Having watched Ghoema the other night it occurred to me how much musical history has been lost and distorted. Culture defines our identity and the identity of communities. If people like Taliep Petersen and David Kramer could be declared cultural assets – they could devote time to their passions – which although having tremendous value for all of us – are not commercially viable to pursue. I’m sure Ghoema will do well commercially, but the work that went into it and the research backstage has been going on for over twenty years – not to mention the people out there in the communities who Kramer and Petersen uncovered. As I see it, living asset status would be a bit like being awarded a life long sabbatical.
One could argue that this could be done through funding specific research projects at universities and museums to document the skills, but there is a big difference between going out and documenting and actually having the creative talent yourself to perpetuate the art. It’s about making life sustainable for individuals that embody our cultural identity or are developing it. How else is a poet to live? Besides the concept of “living treasure” or “living cultural assets” seems like much more fun. And it has that aura of recognition – like an honorary doctorate.
Of course government must attach strings – skills and knowledge has to be imparted – but people in this category live to do that in any event.
Japan started its system in the 1950s under the onslaught of capitalism and by 1994 it had 7 categories of performing arts with 36 specific skills, as well as 39 in the applied arts held by 52 individuals and 23 groups.
The Republic of Korea by 1995 had 167 individual holders and 50 organizations. The Philippines have “National Artists” by Presidential Decree, while Romania has a system of living treasures for folk artists and France’s Ministry of Culture by 2002 had elevated over 20 persons to the rank of “Maîtres d’art”.
In South Africa the application could be particularly exciting, and I would argue should be broad and encompass several categories – including creative individuals, our Nobel prize winners in literature for instance, as well as crafters and story tellers who are under siege from modernisation, globalisation, market forces and victims of historical social engineering by the apartheid ideologues.
After all, many of these as yet unidentified living treasures – particularly those in rural areas and practising African oral traditions and crafts – don’t have proper pensions, medical aid or any kind of support in their dotage. Our approach has been to get these crafters to adapt – paint Boeings and make fine art and commercial wares. This has merit too, but some things need preservation not globalisation.
Theatre veteran Nicholas Ellenbogen, together with partner Liz Szymczak and his sons Matthew and Luke, must constitute one of the last surviving classic Actor Manager Families in South Africa and possibly one of the last such entities in the world. In the great 19th Century tradition of people such as Henry Irving or of the Dibdin family, Ellenbogen, writes, directs, casts himself and family in his shows and presides over his own theatre – The Post Box Theatre, just opposite CCFM on the Muizenberg Main Road. 
