{"id":204,"date":"2025-07-08T16:38:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T16:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/?p=204"},"modified":"2025-07-08T16:38:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T16:38:17","slug":"free-state-government-announces-the-return-of-macufe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/2025\/07\/08\/free-state-government-announces-the-return-of-macufe\/","title":{"rendered":"Free State government announces the return of MACUFE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mangaung<\/div>\n
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Following the 2025 State of the Province Address by the honourable Premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae, as well as the 2025 Budget Vote injunction of the Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation (SACR), the Mangaung African Cultural Festival (MACUFE) will be relaunched in September 2025.<\/div>\n
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In a press statement today the Sport Department said that preparatory work is already underway to give effect to the directive for the implementation of a recalibrated MACUFE programme with emphasis on culture, heritage and tradition.<\/div>\n
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The planned presentation of the Sesotho Musical Theatre as part of the MACUFE Theatre Programme as well as the Traditional Dance productions as part of the MACUFE Dance Fiesta, amongst others, underpins the cultural and heritage-oriented nature of the recalibrated MACUFE programme.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cGuided by the theme \u2018Back to our African Heart and Soul\u2019, the central focus of the recalibrated MACUFE programme will be on arts and culture related activities. Reverting back to its original concept, the festival will therefore elevate the African cultural heritage as a pivot around which our existence should revolve as Africans, and in line with the mandate of the Department of nation building and social cohesion\u201d, stated the Member of the Executive Council for SACR, Me Ntombizanele Sifuba.<\/div>\n
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The relaunch programme of the festival is anticipated to unfold as follows:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u2022 MACUFE Launch: 01 August<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Film Festival: 3 and 4 September<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Dance Fiesta: 3 and 4 September<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Theatre Festival: 3 to 5 September<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Comedy and Poetry Night:5 September<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Visual Arts, Craft and Literature Exhibition: 3 to 6 September<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Hiphop v\/s Amapiano: 5 September<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Main Festival: 6 September<\/div>\n
\u2022 MACUFE Gospel Festival: 7 September<\/div>\n
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It is further planned that this festival must continue to build on the positive socio-economic outcomes of the previous editions. These outcomes were underscored by the Socio-Economic Impact Study conducted by the University of the Free State: Local economic beneficiation for local entrepreneurs; increased tourism footprint into the province; participation benefits to local artists and so on.<\/div>\n
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The relaunched MACUFE programme will intensify and escalate these local beneficiation outcomes.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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More details around the 2025 MACUFE programme will be communicated in due course.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mangaung Following the 2025 State of the Province Address by the honourable Premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecmessenger.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}