Matthias Jochmann: Hi, you are listening to Record of Change.
Matthias Jochmann: My name is Matthias and I am your host for this episode.
Matthias Jochmann: Record of Change listens to 8 individuals located across the world about how their lives are being twisted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Matthias Jochmann: we listen to our interviewees at several points in time as we are eager to learn about how their lives are changing.
Matthias Jochmann: Today I am talking to you from Bonn in Germany, where the month of November is a month of lockdown.
Matthias Jochmann: we will listen to Mike van Graan, located in Cape Town, currently lockdown level 1, to hear how his
Matthias Jochmann: life and work as a playwright and advocate for cultural practitioners has been going in the past weeks.
Matthias Jochmann: in our first season, mike had already shared, how he's building up the STAND foundation which aims at making the South African theater
Matthias Jochmann: scene more self-reliant Mike and I first met in 2015 in Southern China for a theater workshop, we both were kind of used to travel a lot.
Matthias Jochmann: So, today I am also curious, whether he's still enjoying this new pace of life without flying around the globe.
Matthias Jochmann: Welcome to you.
Matthias Jochmann: Thank you for your time again.
Matthias Jochmann: How are you doing?
Mike van Graan: Yeah.
Mike van Graan: Okay.
Mike van Graan: Thanks.
Mike van Graan: , I'm in a little bit of a writing retreat at the moment.
Mike van Graan: So I had to do some, some writing of a preparation for television series thing,, but otherwise all good.
Mike van Graan: How's it going on your side?
Mike van Graan: How's fatherhood then.
Matthias Jochmann: Fatherhood is good.
Matthias Jochmann: , yeah.
Matthias Jochmann: how is your novel going?
Mike van Graan: Well, it's funny because I had an email from my supervisor yesterday.
Mike van Graan: Because the novel is kind of part of my supposed PhD with university of Pretoria.
Mike van Graan: And I had to report to him this morning that actually it's not going.
Mike van Graan: Lockdown has not been very conducive to working on the novel.
Mike van Graan: I just haven't been in space, you know, both, I suppose, psychologically and emotionally to work on the novel.
Mike van Graan: There've been other things to kind of challenge and occupy one.
Mike van Graan: but yeah, I mean, it's still very much there and I'm kind of hoping that it's something I'll get down to when our summer holidays happen in about six weeks time.
Mike van Graan: So it's still, it's still very much part.
Mike van Graan: it might not, you know, the whole thought of it would be part of a PhD is not particularly attractive or is not the thing that stimulates me most.
Mike van Graan: it's that I always going to want to write the novel.
Mike van Graan: So , it is something that I'll do at some point.
Matthias Jochmann: You say you're still very busy.
Matthias Jochmann: you told me you were very busy already some weeks ago when we talked first in August.
Matthias Jochmann: so your life has remained as busy as before with many zooms and many online works.
Mike van Graan: Yeah.
Mike van Graan: So, we had just launched the Stand foundation.
Mike van Graan: Then I was also at that time working with something called African no filter.
Mike van Graan: And then I was also doing work with the festival Academy.
Mike van Graan: and that required me to run things kind of online events , on a monthly basis.
Mike van Graan: So those three things, which all were kind of related to income generation were time consuming . And then of course,
Mike van Graan: with Stand taking off, and a whole bunch of projects kind of been initiated, and then in between all of that, there's
Mike van Graan: kind of, you know, the try to do some creative work and trying to, get some of the plays back on the road as well.
Mike van Graan: So, you know, I'm really not complaining as such as the nature of things in our country at the moment and in the world.
Mike van Graan: And in my life, actually, I've never really just done one thing.
Mike van Graan: I would be quite bored if I did, so I'm really not complaining.
Mike van Graan: It's just that at times he would like to have a bit more time just to, go and smell the sea air, which
Mike van Graan: I made a point of doing this week, as part of this retreat . I am kind of quite close to the scene.
Mike van Graan: So I go for a walk every morning and that's actually quite good.
Mike van Graan: Oh great.
Matthias Jochmann: You mentioned the STAND foundation, and yes, when we talked last time,
Matthias Jochmann: you were about to launch it and you said let's, let's talk again in two or three months.
Matthias Jochmann: So how is it going?
Matthias Jochmann: How's the foundation going?
Mike van Graan: Yeah.
Mike van Graan: So it's going really well, actually.
Mike van Graan: to date, we've initiated, about nine or 10 projects.
Mike van Graan: , so first of all, you know, when we, in way initiated, it was because of COVID-19 conditions and because of the
Mike van Graan: situation that many people in the dance and theater community particularly found themselves, which is that dance and
Mike van Graan: theater live by virtue of live audiences and live audiences are deemed to be the primary vectors of the Corona virus.
Mike van Graan: So dance and theater will always going to be closed down the longest in terms of sectors of society and the economy opening up.
Mike van Graan: And secondly, most dance and theater practitioners make their livings as independent contractors rather than as employees.
Mike van Graan: So the amount of funding kind of made available for the dance and theater sector by government
Mike van Graan: to support the sector, many dance and theater practitioners were not eligible for it.
Mike van Graan: So a lot of the emphasis, that led to the merchants of the STAND foundation, was about, how do we help the dance and theater sector?
Mike van Graan: both now, but also kind of in the medium to longterm post COVID.
Mike van Graan: because it would appear that dance and theater are always going to be in need of some kind of subsidy.
Mike van Graan: And the state couldn't really be dependent upon.
Mike van Graan: But I think, we also then made a decision than rather simply be an artist relief kind of agency or initiative, we would try to
Mike van Graan: initiate projects and provide work for people within the sector so that they were earning a living as it were through their craft.
Mike van Graan: So a lot of the projects were kind of geared towards that.
Mike van Graan: And one of the projects was, a women's standup comedy project.
Mike van Graan: So there aren't very many women stand up comics in our country.
Mike van Graan: Stand-up comedy is quite big, but it's kind of quite male dominated.
Mike van Graan: And so we initiated this project to identify new women stand up comics and out of the applications
Mike van Graan: we received, we basically identified about eight people based on the submissions made.
Mike van Graan: And so they are going through a process now of being mentored by standup comedians.
Mike van Graan: And in fact, on this Sunday, there'll be making the pictures as it were to a live audience.
Mike van Graan: and out of that, we hoping to select at least five who will then, constitute a program that will either be made available, online or physically as well.
Mike van Graan: And through this, we hope that, these young stand-up women will be able to generate an income.
Mike van Graan: so that's the one project.
Mike van Graan: There's another project where, I had, a publication of a whole bunch of sketches from six satirical reviews, I've done kind of one handers.
Mike van Graan: And then part of promoting the book, we had kind of had this relationship between my little company at the STAND foundation.
Mike van Graan: So we invite young actors to take one of those sketches within the book and basically perform it, film it, put it online and they would win prizes.
Mike van Graan: The top three would win prizes,
Mike van Graan: but it's up to what's the work that they're actually doing.
Mike van Graan: we also are doing a project, with an organization called the association for savings and investments in South Africa, basically a financial wellness project.
Mike van Graan: So one of the major challenges that we spoke about earlier was about, the dance and theater individuals just really suffering through this time.
Mike van Graan: And so this particular agency actually provides financial literacy for people generally, and we are now partnering with
Mike van Graan: them to develop one of their programs aimed, particularly at individuals and small enterprises within the dance and theater
Mike van Graan: community and how to advise them and develop their skills with regard to financial literacy and sustainability and the like.
Mike van Graan: And then there's like a big advocacy and vision project.
Mike van Graan: So what we really need for the dance and theater sector is to take advantage of this kind of lockdown time , almost to reflect on, where are we now as a sector?
Mike van Graan: Where do we want to be in the future?
Mike van Graan: So we've come up with this, basically, a vision document that is quite comprehensive in terms of what infrastructure do we want,
Mike van Graan: what kind of level of funding and company support do we want, what levels of, of social benefits and security we want and the like,
Mike van Graan: and so that's kind of in the process now of been discussed and consulted quite broadly within the dance and theater community.
Mike van Graan: and we hope to, gather support around this document.
Mike van Graan: So it becomes a way of mobilizing the sector towards national provincial and local government kind of policymakers and the like,
Mike van Graan: we also do these monthly webinars.
Mike van Graan: So we've had two so far.
Mike van Graan: obviously everybody is doing webinars, but what we are trying to do with the ones that we should be doing is to
Mike van Graan: have, a speaker from a South African dance and theater perspective, and then to invite people from around the world.
Mike van Graan: At least three from other kinds of contexts to also engage.
Mike van Graan: so that we are kind of learning from the practice and experience elsewhere.
Mike van Graan: So the most recent one for example, was, the impact of COVID-19 on the aesthetics of dance and theater.
Mike van Graan: So not so much looking at the social and economic impact, but what are theater and dance, what are the consequences of not having audiences?
Mike van Graan: We had someone from North Macedonia and we had someone from Uganda together with two South Africans kind of discussing that.
Mike van Graan: So some very interesting things, kind of emerging out of those kinds of webinars.
Mike van Graan: we have another project kind of aimed at older folk.
Mike van Graan: who used to make their livings within the sector, but who are now in a way kind of quite isolated because of COVID-19 or because
Mike van Graan: they are in the most vulnerable categories in retirement homes and the like, and they're living by themselves or whatever.
Mike van Graan: So we want to initiate a project where we just on a weekly basis, bring them into a zoom kind of gathering.
Mike van Graan: And to be able to read with each other and maybe have a speaker.
Mike van Graan: just to Let them network, you know, outside of their retirement homes in that we are putting together at the moment.
Mike van Graan: There's another project that we are also wanting to do, which is very much around, just again, in preparation for the post COVID 19 times, doing research
Mike van Graan: into we've got nine provinces, but over the last 26 years of post apartheid, South Africa, much of the resources have been concentrated in, very few cities.
Mike van Graan: That we've inherited from at the apartheid past in a way.
Mike van Graan: And so the more marginalized provinces don't really have resources and infrastructure and alike.
Mike van Graan: So we doing research at the moment into what currently exists with regard to performance spaces.
Mike van Graan: Let's say people want to do a national tour where are the spaces available, who do they contact?
Mike van Graan: What are the rentals, what facilities are available and alike.
Mike van Graan: And how do we lobby for these spaces to become more integrated into some kind of a national circuit?
Mike van Graan: Then a final kind of protocol through regard of research is, finding out what the remuneration rates are there.
Mike van Graan: So there's never been a study done of who's earning what and the different categories of work within the dance and theater communities.
Mike van Graan: What are the weekly wages that people get paid?
Mike van Graan: What do public theaters pay versus independent theaters versus community-based structures?
Mike van Graan: these are some of the things , that we've done or are in the process of doing at the moment,
Matthias Jochmann: Oh, great work.
Mike van Graan: a long answer to your question.
Matthias Jochmann: yeah.
Matthias Jochmann: Thank you.
Matthias Jochmann: I mean, it's super informative that you're thinking of so many angles of the theater and dance scene.
Matthias Jochmann: I maybe have two or three questions and Ill try to put it into one.
Matthias Jochmann: , before launching it, you said like you are aiming at individuals trying to, to convince them
Matthias Jochmann: to donate money, so that in the longterm round, you have money , to give subsidies to artists.
Matthias Jochmann: And I guess in the beginning, people would be maybe more positive than on a long-term run, like knowing, okay.
Matthias Jochmann: Now, the pandemic is going to be very long, and theaters might be shut down for very long.
Matthias Jochmann: So, I'm wondering would people at a certain point say, Hey, maybe I'd rather give my money to do something else.
Matthias Jochmann: and if I can add one more, you said how you want to find out how does theater look like?
Matthias Jochmann: Or how do we want to have theater to look like after COVID-19, maybe you can share some of how do you envision theater after this challenge?
Mike van Graan: Yeah.
Mike van Graan: . so, other theaters are beginning to open.
Mike van Graan: So the major theater in Cape town, the Baxter theater has, has just actually tonight has a big reopening, with a dance performer who
Mike van Graan: happens to be the cheapest and by the way of the STAND foundation and the, and a top musicina kind of doing a performance together.
Mike van Graan: And I went again to see an opera there over the weekend.
Mike van Graan: I mean, in the same venue.
Mike van Graan: And, and certainly in terms of how the theater is kind of now structured, you have to go through all the social distancing
Mike van Graan: protocols and, you have to have your temperature taken all the trace and tracking, kind of details one has to give.
Mike van Graan: And then in terms of the seating, the seats are ranged so that, you know, there's a space between spectators sort of things.
Mike van Graan: So, so from, from that particular kind of perspective, I think that that's going to be the reality for a while,
Mike van Graan: that people are going to need to be socially distanced from each other in terms of the actual attendance.
Mike van Graan: The actual opera, and, and performance in that, that was pretty much like old times in terms of the, obviously
Mike van Graan: if there's no social distancing, there's no mask wearing on stage, there isn't doing those kinds of things.
Mike van Graan: so in terms of the aesthetics of, COVID has impacted on the actual production.
Mike van Graan: So, you know, the basis of a whole one performance so far, that hasn't really been very evident.
Mike van Graan: I think though, what one might see , even more in the near future , you know, plays with small costs might be some kind of reaction to COVID-19.
Mike van Graan: so what we've been doing in these first two months in a way is building up some kind of a record as STAND to
Mike van Graan: show the kinds of things that we are doing so that when we go to people and say, Hey, come and support us.
Mike van Graan: Then we can show them.
Mike van Graan: These are the kinds of things that we've done so far with the money that we have raised so far.
Mike van Graan: So now come and be partners with us.
Mike van Graan: So what we are asking subscribers to do is, a couple of things and the people that we are
Mike van Graan: going to, are actually people , who also are traditional supporters of theater and dance.
Mike van Graan: So we're not going to the broader public as it were at this stage.
Mike van Graan: And we think there must be at least a hundred thousand people in our country out of 59 million who are supporters of theater and dance in our country.
Mike van Graan: I mean, that's a very tiny proportion of our actual population.
Mike van Graan: And even in terms of income and equality in our country, that's a very tiny proportion.
Mike van Graan: Of the people with disposable income.
Mike van Graan: And so our idea is that if we eventually get a hundred thousand people to be giving a donation of a hundred Rand, which in Euros would be the equivalent
Mike van Graan: of, I think maybe about five euros a month, not substantial by any means, but if you get a hundred thousand people in our country to be donating in
Mike van Graan: a year or two's time, five Euros a month, that's 500,000 euros a month, quite significant funding that one can then do with that on a monthly basis.
Mike van Graan: So our idea is that, to start off our initial aim, 10,000 people giving a hundred Rand, that will be a million Rand a month.
Mike van Graan: Which is not in the kind of theater and dance ecosystem at the moment.
Mike van Graan: So that will be an injection of new money into the ecosystem.
Mike van Graan: And what we are asking people to do is to make this very small contribution, which would be the equivalent of three cups of coffee, you know, a month, to STAND.
Mike van Graan: And not only are we asking them to do it to support theater and dance, but we will say and provide tangible benefits so
Mike van Graan: that on a weekly basis, it will be something that they'll be able to access in exchange for their hundred rand a month.
Mike van Graan: So for example, every week we will offer for 52 weeks next year, something of interest to them that only they can access as subscribers to STAND.
Mike van Graan: For example, a reading of a new play.
Mike van Graan: By the country's top playwrights, there'll be a reading, they'll be given a link and they'll be able
Mike van Graan: to see that really or even standing in a physical space in which many of those people are located.
Mike van Graan: They'll be invited to come to the theater and see that people love seeing things when they're still in development, you know,
Mike van Graan: or there's an interview with a top director or choreographer either from here or from elsewhere, or we'll put a webcam in
Mike van Graan: the rehearsal room of a ballet company and provide them with access to an hour of ballet rehearsals, and things like that.
Mike van Graan: so in a way, what we're wanting to do is to say, to supporters of theater and dance,look, this is what your funding will
Mike van Graan: support, but also these are the direct benefits that you as individuals can get, in exchange for making those contributions.
Mike van Graan: In fact, I've just been looking at my list of things to do.
Mike van Graan: That's kind of the next big thing that we're going to be initiating.
Mike van Graan: in terms of recruiting, an initial database of the alumni and personally is to get a thousand
Mike van Graan: people myself by the end of this year to make that a hundred rand contributions to STAND.
Matthias Jochmann: wow, fingers crossed
Mike van Graan: Yeah.
Mike van Graan: So we'll talk in January and see our success to , there's not much time to do it now before the end of the year.
Mike van Graan: I think that that there's an appetite.
Mike van Graan: It's not everybody is going to do it, but as I said, out of the big database that exists, there should be a number of people who could.
Mike van Graan: And what we are wanting to do is also identify people within the dance and theater ecosystem who have profile, who.
Mike van Graan: People are they kind of really respect and, and, and get them to become the ambassadors on behalf of STAND to also go and
Mike van Graan: raise, we get a hundred people, each of them to get a hundred, a thousand people to come on board, you know, we will do that.
Mike van Graan: And what we're also doing, Matthias, is we are offering people who are doing that outside of STAND, a financial incentive.
Mike van Graan: So if the individual within the dance and theater sector, Gets a hundred people to come on board.
Mike van Graan: They get 10% of the income that is generated for every hundred people.
Mike van Graan: After that, up to a thousand, the percentage kind of increases so that if they get a thousand people to come on board, they will get 20% of the income.
Mike van Graan: And for as long as those people continue to contribute towards STAND, the people who have done the recruiting will continue to get a monthly income as well.
Mike van Graan: From that money.
Mike van Graan: So the idea is that in a way STAND also then provides a vehicle through which people
Mike van Graan: within the dance and theater sector can almost get like a passive income by virtual.
Mike van Graan: So it's like this ecosystem where in order for you as a person that doesn't have work within the sector, or might have work, but doesn't have a regular income.
Mike van Graan: You get people to contribute to STAND and then STAND basically gives you a regular income and the bigger amount
Mike van Graan: of money that has been raised through the contributors go towards dance and theater projects within the country.
Mike van Graan: So that's kind of the model.
Matthias Jochmann: That sounds amazing.
Matthias Jochmann: I want to share maybe one sentence.
Matthias Jochmann: What was the current status of theater in Germany, because we just went into, like a new kind of lockdown and,
Mike van Graan: Yeah.
Matthias Jochmann: all sorts of gastronomy and theaters and operas and all culture places were closed down, even though they had fantastic
Matthias Jochmann: hygiene concepts and so what I see in my bubbles now, people around me that are in the culture field are very, very disappointed.
Matthias Jochmann: And maybe starting to feel some kind of hopelessness that, they're closed down.
Matthias Jochmann: They're labeled under entertainment rather than education, for example.
Matthias Jochmann: and people start to realize, even if Germany as a rich country will get through this kind of well now, someone
Matthias Jochmann: has to pay the debt, which is going to be there in the end, after this, whenever this, after is coming.
Matthias Jochmann: So my question to you is how do people working in the cultural field in South Africa
Matthias Jochmann: currently look to the future or, what is the atmosphere among people and what are their hopes?
Mike van Graan: you know, we don't have the levels of subsidy that Germany has.
Mike van Graan: So in a way, our theater and dance community are much more used to having to eak out some kind of
Mike van Graan: existence through struggle, you know, find ways of doing this that's outside of dependence upon government.
Mike van Graan: It doesn't mean that people do not always continue to fight with government to get greater resources
Mike van Graan: and the like, but I think that there's now the general acceptance that government , is not our ally.
Mike van Graan: They're not our friends.
Mike van Graan: so people have found all kinds of ways of doing things.
Mike van Graan: And to some extent, STAND is an expression of that.
Mike van Graan: And when STAND was launched and people heard about it, it was just such an outpouring of incredible support from it,
Mike van Graan: from the dance and theater community, because people said, you know, this is the kind of thing that we are needing.
Mike van Graan: It shows that we can do things ourselves, and the like.
Mike van Graan: Certainly initially there was a lot of depression and you know, people who left the industry, there were people who committed suicide.
Mike van Graan: Very much again, what, what, what has happened in other parts of the world too.
Mike van Graan: But I think now that we are kind of in a lockdown level one, which is the easiest one is kind of this
Mike van Graan: reemergence of theater again, and people are doing things and people are finding ways of doing it.
Mike van Graan: You know, there's a theater down the road, which is like a more community-based space and they can only really in terms
Mike van Graan: of their space accommodate 15, but they've been doing this for the last three months they've been having 15 people.
Mike van Graan: There's been this kind of initiative of people learning skills to project their work online, and some of it quite amateurish, but then you've had others,
Mike van Graan: like more resourced, particularly in the Afrikaans arts community that are incredibly resourced that has a whole kind of channel, television channel in
Mike van Graan: Afrikaans, they kind of had, multi-camera kind of productions of particular plays, and they'd been filming this to almost make a festival of online theater.
Mike van Graan: Not so much, in terms of, you know, there's like, theater that happens in a normal theater space in front of a live audience.
Mike van Graan: and then there's theater that kind of happens in the studio space that has been filmed without a live audience.
Mike van Graan: So then there's theater that is filmed in front of a live audience.
Mike van Graan: So which of those is more theater in a way?
Mike van Graan: And, and it's funny because, the theater that kind of happens with multi cameras in the theater space, but without an audience,
Mike van Graan: probably has much greater production values to be able to compete with the Netflix offerings that audiences now have access to.
Mike van Graan: but can you define that as theater in a way?
Mike van Graan: you know, because it's not happening in front of a live audience, but because they've got all these different camera angles the experience
Mike van Graan: for the audience was now at a distance that is mediated through a screen is, is kind of quite different to the kind of live encounter.
Mike van Graan: so I think it certainly is a time of great transition, but I think there's also this
Mike van Graan: kind of sense that, you know, what, we've been through crisis before in this country.
Mike van Graan: this country is rather constantly presents crises and challenges.
Mike van Graan: And because of that experience of having got through the previous ones, there's this kind of sense that we don't know what the
Mike van Graan: future is going to look like, but there's an element of resilience that we have based on experience that we know will get us through.
Mike van Graan: And there's a sense also that you know what we need to be doing much more together.
Mike van Graan: one of ironies of the past is that because our sector is so vulnerable, financially there's been a lot of
Mike van Graan: competition and division within the sector because everybody's chasing the limited resources that there are.
Mike van Graan: And I think there's maybe a growing understanding now that actually it's in our collective interest to be working together for
Mike van Graan: a bigger kind of vision for a bigger pie while not denying that we have independent and our own individual interests as well,
Mike van Graan: but how do we get the bigger picture to be taken care of, so that at a micro level, we all stand a better chance of surviving?
Matthias Jochmann: Very interesting, what you said about crisis.
Matthias Jochmann: I mean, one of our interviewees is based in Gaza, in Palestine and she said we are used to crisis.
Matthias Jochmann: So we, we get through this and this is not the last crisis.
Matthias Jochmann: I'm wondering last time we talked about like, maybe by end of the year, we could travel again.
Matthias Jochmann: You told me, even though you really enjoy being at home such a long time, you really miss some places, you miss going to Berlin.
Matthias Jochmann: if I remember correctly, I'm wondering, because I also asked myself the question just yesterday.
Matthias Jochmann: Would I travel now?
Matthias Jochmann: If I could, would you travel now?
Matthias Jochmann: If you could, would you feel safe in an airplane?
Mike van Graan: yeah, well, it's interesting because I kind of had my first travel in an airplane, not internationally, but even
Mike van Graan: just to Johannesburg towards the end of September . And that was the first time I was in an airplane since january of this year.
Mike van Graan: , and it's one of those ironies where, from the theater perspective, how you can actually manage people, being socially distanced, whereas
Mike van Graan: in an airplane, people are just so close to each other and you know, right next door to each other, there aren't any spaces between people.
Mike van Graan: and if you, this particular airline, if you wanted to have a space between you and the person, you
Mike van Graan: know, two people away from you, you had to pay an extra amount of money to keep that seat free.
Mike van Graan: so first of all, you know, obviously everyone is kind of masked up.
Mike van Graan: So, you know, it's like one of those things that, as I was saying earlier, if we come to accept that this might be
Mike van Graan: the future, that we are going to have to live with the pandemic, if not this one, then possibly others that arise.
Mike van Graan: And if you accept that, you know, maybe as I do, that this particular pandemic is a forerunner
Mike van Graan: of other kinds of issues that we are going to face with climate change, for example.
Mike van Graan: Then how do we deal with it?
Mike van Graan: How do we live with those things in the same way as there's no cure for HIV, but we've learned to live with it.
Mike van Graan: We know how it's conveyed.
Mike van Graan: So how do we live with it safely?
Mike van Graan: How do we live our lives and interact with each other in a way that doesn't contribute towards, that kind of epidemic, being enhanced?
Mike van Graan: And so I think similarly people are increasingly just because also people need to earn a livelihood.
Mike van Graan: So many people are now unemployed, so many people don't have an income.
Mike van Graan: And so people have to get back to be doing things.
Mike van Graan: no matter what sector they're in, and if that is the case, then you know, we going to have to learn how to deal with it.
Mike van Graan: Obviously, when it comes to, in answer to your question, traveling internationally
Mike van Graan: again, I think that I'd probably give much more thought to, is this traveling necessary?
Mike van Graan: How necessary is it in terms of what the impact is going to be?
Mike van Graan: and considering where the destination is and what are the potential risks involved?
Mike van Graan: If people are coming from Europe and they learn and they hear to go to Africa.
Mike van Graan: There's this, sanitation is a problem in that particular country or there's a particular malaria outbreak or whatever.
Mike van Graan: Would you travel to that place?
Mike van Graan: And now would we travel to Europe given that, you know, the rates of Corona viruses is just so, is just so huge.
Mike van Graan: I'd probably consider traveling to Europe with greater anticipation with greater reluctance, then traveling somewhere else in Africa, ironically at the moment.
Mike van Graan: so yeah, it's not about traveling for its own sake.
Mike van Graan: It's about traveling and context, all these things are about context, isn't it?
Mike van Graan: yeah, but what is interesting about , when I did go to Janice, we could, was to basically facilitate a three-day
Mike van Graan: workshop that I was invited to do in Alexandra, which is a township in Johannesburg that is kind of parallel to
Mike van Graan: Sandton, which is one of the richest areas in our country, but Alexandra is one of the poorest and most marginalized.
Mike van Graan: Anyway, I was invited to come and do a workshop on cultural policy and alike, like for community theater practitioners.
Mike van Graan: and I went there and I was very impressed because of the way in which they kind of handle the social distancing and the
Mike van Graan: likes .The first time they were doing something like that in this particular venue, in terms of taking venue, you know,
Mike van Graan: keeping people socially distanced, taking temperatures in the beginnin, and alike, but if you'd go through the township.
Mike van Graan: You know, it's like, there's just, it's as if there's no pandemic, no one was wearing a mask.
Mike van Graan: People were in very close proximity to each other.
Mike van Graan: It was a hive of activity as much as anytime else, just because of the nature of the living conditions as well.
Mike van Graan: There's so many people living on top of each other.
Mike van Graan: It's very difficult.
Mike van Graan: If not impossible, to conform to the social distancing that is required in order to keep safe from the virus.
Mike van Graan: And yet the level of infection in that particular area is relatively low.
Mike van Graan: So, you know, this is, comes back to the question, would I travel to Europe, so here's, the issue, here's an area in Alexandra that is incredibly cramped.
Mike van Graan: That one would think that all the factors point towards, you know, the high spread of the virus.
Mike van Graan: And yet that is not the reality.
Mike van Graan: And I kind of chose to go there to conduct this workshop because in terms of the potential impact that we'll
Mike van Graan: have, and the need for it to get people who are now marginalized as much more integrated into the mainstream.
Mike van Graan: I felt it was kind of very necessary.
Mike van Graan: I would do that again before I would consider going on an airplane to Europe where the conditions might be a little bit different with regard to the virus.
Matthias Jochmann: Yes.
Matthias Jochmann: Understandable.
Matthias Jochmann: if I may ask one last question.
Matthias Jochmann: the first time we talked, I saw you were sitting in a warm coat, now you going towards summer and you told me you were, you just went for a walk every morning.
Matthias Jochmann: Would you already see some changes due to the pandemic?
Matthias Jochmann: do you see changes in your environment of how people behave, how people, prepare their homes?
Mike van Graan: Yeah.
Mike van Graan: Well, it's actually quite an interesting one because going for a walk this morning along the sea of the pavilion, almost no one is masked.
Mike van Graan: I mean, I go with the maks, but almost no one is massed anymore.
Mike van Graan: And it was very interesting because that's initially with a, with a lockdown level, level five, you weren't allowed outside to exercise.
Mike van Graan: And then when it was relaxed later, that became such a popular area for people to go and walk, but everyone wore a mask
Mike van Graan: , People are now much more relaxed.
Mike van Graan: We still have very high number of cases, more than 700,000 cases.
Mike van Graan: but the mortality rate has declined quite substantially.
Mike van Graan: the country has maybe become better at managing the Corona virus pandemic, you know, but at the moment I would say that with the
Mike van Graan: heat, with lockdown level one that we've been in, you know, for the last four to five weeks, there is a greater feeling of relaxation.
Mike van Graan: You can't go into a shopping mall, without a mask.
Mike van Graan: Generally, I think people are trying to play safe and at the same time, revert to some kind of pre COVID normality.
Matthias Jochmann: Yeah.
Matthias Jochmann: Okay.
Matthias Jochmann: Thank you very much, Mike.
Matthias Jochmann: I'm curious to hear what has changed in January.
Matthias Jochmann: Hope the foundation is going well as it did so far, and, you have a good time off.
Matthias Jochmann: And maybe you find time to write on your novel or others.
Matthias Jochmann: Yeah, I'm kind of hoping that too.
Matthias Jochmann: Thanks for the chat and I hope you stay safe during this time, particularly the young family.
Matthias Jochmann: This was episode 3 of our second season with Mike van Graan from Cape Town.
Matthias Jochmann: Stay tuned for the following episode of Record of Change when we will listen to Dat, a Vietnames
Matthias Jochmann: pilot, who will share with us, how the pandemic slowed down the airline industry in Southeast Asia.
Matthias Jochmann: If you like this episode or Record of Change in general, we would be very pleased about your feedback and even more, if you'd like to share it in your networks.
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