Our story
The 2024 Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees plays sings this spring with more than 400 unique productions presented in nearly 60 venues in and around Stellenbosch. And with this year’s festival theme – “Play” (Speel), we invite festivalgoers to surrender to their own spontaneity, press the pause button, unlock new possibilities and just be in the moment.
We present a festival in the hope and aspiration to connect artists and communities from across South Africa through diverse expression and our respective experiences. And to find and celebrate each other in a whirlwind of energy, creativity, books, writers, theatre, music, art, dance, discourse, films and so much more.
The Woordfees has its origin in 2000 as an all-night celebration of Afrikaans literature. And over the last 24 years, we have grown to one of the largest arts festivals in Africa with around 50 000 annual festival goers.
“Play” is ook a celebration of the qualities that make the Woordfees a resilient festival: expression, innovation and the playful freedom of the arts.
During the Covid pandemic, the festival lived on in innovative new formats. In April 2021, the Flikker & Flash pop-up performances took place in empty shops and in the streets of Stellenbosch. In that same year, the festival made history by becoming the first South African arts festival to be presented via a pop-up TV channel. Woordfees TV was born. This pioneering project was such a success that it was also presented in 2022, followed by a festival in the flesh in Stellenbosch.
Express your own playfulness, spontaneity and creativity – unbridled – in the iconic Stellenbosch spring sun. This year’s Woordfees takes place from 28 September to 6 October.
Our impact
The Words Open Worlds (WOW) encourages learners a love for words through reading, spelling competitions, writers’ visits and creative writing projects. WOW reaches over 2 500 schools and 270 000 learners, across South Africa annually.
WOW also opens up the world of tertiary education to young people from backgrounds of severe disadvantage by providing bursaries, academic support and mentorship to help them access and complete their studies at university.
During the festival, WOW offers learners, teachers and principals from schools in the region the opportunity to attend discussions, academic debates and performances as part of the Woordfees commitment to supporting and stimulating interest in the written and spoken word.
SU Choir
The SU Woordfees manages and co-ordinates the celebrated Stellenbosch University Choir Stellenbosch University Choir which swept the boards at the 2018 Llangollen Eisteddfod in Wales winning the top awards for Youth Choirs, Mixed Choirs and Open Choirs. André van der Merwe won the Jayne Davies prize for Best Conductor at the Llangollen Eisteddfod. The SU Choir has been number one on the Interkultur ranking list of a 1 000 international choirs since 2012.
This remarkable choir is supported by the SU Woordfees and is comprised of 120 Stellenbosch University students from across all academic disciplines bonded together through their love of music and song.
