A COLLECTIVE NAVIGATION: SEASON 11 OF THE CENTRE FOR THE LESS GOOD IDEA

A COLLECTIVE NAVIGATION

Curated by composer, musician, installation artist and Impresario for the Less Good Idea, Neo Muyanga, and supported by The Centre’s core team, Season 11 focuses on work made by and in collaboration with Johannesburg’s many artists, theatremakers, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and thinkers, as well as a host of invited artists. 

In this way, many of The Centre’s key methodologies inform the Season – public performances and processions, the intersection of visual art and performance, short-form theatre, and curated conversations – but these ways of working have also evolved and deepened over the years. Specifically, it’s the act of collective seeing and shaping that runs through this Season.

Mary Sibande will be one of the artists in Moving the Mark, a programme of visual artists and dancers in collaboration. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi

All of this makes for a Season that asks its artists and audiences to reflect on the idea of collectivity, how we navigate the city and, by extension, the world, together. As Muyanga puts it: 

“It’s about how we become a performance ensemble, whether we are performers, audience members, or neighbours. It’s how the city performs itself through us, and also how we choose to perform the city. Johannesburg is a place that requires a collective navigation, a mutual reliance, a particular call and response.”  

William Kentridge will be one of the artists in Moving the Mark, a programme of visual artists and dancers in collaboration. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi

Bronwyn Lace, co-founder and director of The Centre, echoes these sentiments, adding that Season 11 is, in part, a culmination of two years of provocations and experimental forms put forth by Muyanga. 

“The deeply integrated and interconnected results of these forms are evidence both of Muyanga’s extraordinary capacity for deep listening and play as well as The Centre’s capacity as a collective to develop context-specific, collaborative and cross-disciplinary new work,” says Lace. 

Alongside Muyanga’s curation over the last two years, which has seen programming interrogating a dramaturgy of sound, contemporary readings of the city, and collective ways of seeing and responding, there has been a growth and deepening of SO | the Academy for the Less Good Idea as a space of learning and sharing led by Athena Mazarakis, as well as an increase in the international opportunities for The Centre Outside the Centre, led by Lace. 

Opening Season 11 is Moving the Mark, a new programme pairing prominent visual artists and dancers towards a series of responsive, interdisciplinary experiments in movement and mark-making. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi.

“I think of the Less Good Idea at this point as a multi-limbed complex organism – our arms reaching out in various directions but connected to the same robust body,” says Lace. “It makes sense for us to share a Season at the end of this year, because we have an abundance of new strategies, forms, and artworks to test, show, and celebrate.” 

MERGING VISUAL ART AND DANCE

Opening Season 11 is Moving the Mark, a new programme pairing prominent visual artists and dancers towards a series of responsive, interdisciplinary experiments in movement and mark-making. Artists and dancers include William Kentridge, Vincent Mantsoe, Penny Siopis, Shannel Winlock-Pailman, Mary Sibande, Nandipha Mntambo, Kitty Phetla, and more. 

Micca Manganye creates sound effects for the Visual Radio Plays

Here, the interest is in what might be discovered as a result of pairing movers and mark-makers, but also what’s revealed in the act of collaboration – what new methodologies or creative decisions emerge when a dancer must mimic an ink stain, or a painter must choreograph their brushstrokes?

Penny Siopis will be one of the artists in Moving the Mark, a programme of visual artists and dancers in collaboration. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi

CONTINUED COLLATIONS

Season 11 features both newly incubated, interdisciplinary work, and continued explorations of compelling works from the first three Collations series, namely –Visual Radio Plays,Sounding Pictures, andThe Unexpected City. Collectively interrogating a dramaturgy of sound, moving image, and the stories of the city, these programmes are spread across the Season and will each feature for one night only. 

Again, it is the uniquely generative ways of working that came out of these experiments in their first iterations that The Centre is interested in carrying forward in Season 11, with Sounding Pictures also featuring a host of new films by directors and filmmakers, including Dutch director and filmmaker Frank Scheffer, Beninese musician Angelo Moutsapha, and William Kentridge. 

The Unexpected City sees the evolution of its sketch theatre performances, written by MoMo Matsunyane, Jefferson Tshabalala, Melusi Mnqobi Molefe, and Balindile ka Ngcobo, while Visual Radio Plays sees the return of musicians including Shane Cooper, Micca Manganye, Daniel Stompie Selibe, Reggie Teys, Pertunia Msani, and Candice Moleshe. 

Season 11 features a series of performances and public light installations in and around Fox Street and Arts on Main, curated by Marcus Neustetter. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi. 

SITE-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCES & INSTALLATIONS

Downtown Johannesburg remains a vital site and source of inspiration, informing how works are situated both inside and outside of The Centre. An ongoing component of the Season is Site, Light, Action | Fox Street Activations, a series of performances and public light activations in and around Fox Street and Arts on Main, curated by Vienna-based South African artist Marcus Neustetter. 

Much of Neustetter’s thinking revolves around what lies inside and outside the buildings that surround us in Downtown Joburg, as well as the personal narratives and questions carried by those who move through and inhabit these environments. Site, Light, Action emerges from these explorations. 

“These small experimental moments embrace the unknown, seeking connections and stories that might reveal themselves through artistic languages. Framed by temporary sets and focused by mobile light, these moments function as small public studios of attempted sense-making,” says Neustetter.  

The Unexpected City is a programme of sketch theatre performances inspired by the stories and characters of the city. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi.

Regular Centre collaborators will feature in Site, Light, Action including the musicians Jill Richards, Shane Cooper, Reggie Teys, and Candice Moleshe, who will perform pop-up, coffee-shop performances. Sello Pesa and Phala Ookeditse Phala will present Ngoana oa Noka ea Kubetu, a new iteration of their Nokeng ya Kubetu series, which explores water as both a resource and a life necessity. Neustetter, in collaboration with Zivanai Matangi will also be presenting a new series of light drawings which will be on exhibition during the Season.  

Site, Light, Action activations take place from 26 to 29 November and are free to the public. 

THREE NEW PLAYS FROM THE SO ACADEMY

SO | From Script to Stage, is a programme of three newly incubated works of theatre from the interrelated series of mentorship programmes –Thinking In Writing,Thinking In Directing,Thinking In Lighting, and Thinking In Staging – curated by Athena Mazarakis and SO | The Academy for the Less Good Idea. These first iterations take the form of 20-minute performances, shown back-to-back in a single programme.  

The three featured plays are The Braai Republic, written by Mongezi Ntukwana and directed by Noluthando Jupiter Sibisi; Chosi Three Times, written by Uvile Ximba and directed by Chris Djuma; and Exodus With No Last Name, written by Nolwazi Mahlangu and directed by Aalliyah Matintela. Lighting design for the plays will be by Joël Leonard. 

These new works have come out of an intensive mentorship format where young theatre makers receive guidance from leading South African theatre makers. 

Sounding Pictures sees a group of musicians and performers creating a live, responsive score to a series of short films. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi

“So, here we have play texts mentored by incredible writers like MoMo Matsunyane, Neil Coppen and Jefferson Tshabalala, and directorial approaches inspired by brilliant practicing directors like Monageng Vice Motshabi, Mwenya Kabwe, and Qondiswa James. It also gives a novice lighting designer the opportunity to apply the learning from internationally acclaimed lighting designer Urs Schönebaum,” says Mazarakis. “In these plays, we see writers dealing with key concerns in South Africa today, telling stories about migration, capitalism, and disconnection in the digital age.”

GUEST PERFORMANCES, TALKS & ACTIVATIONS

A number of invited works will form part of Season 11, by local and international artists alike, including Indian artist and activist Mallika Taneja (India) and journalist and author Dele Olojede (Nigeria), who will both feature in separate In Conversation programmes. 

Olojede will enter into a sonic call-and-response with vinyl selector, Nombuso Mathibela, around the theme of Money Miss Road, a Nigerian phrase that means money is wasted, thrown away, or spent on frivolous things. Taneja will be in dialogue with Nomsa Mazwai about the act of challenging fear, patriarchy, and the limitations imposed on women’s freedom of movement in public spaces. 

As a solo work, Taneja brings Be Careful to Season 11, a satirical piece that challenges the notion of safety as it’s prescribed and practiced in women’s lives. 

Shanell Winlock-Pailman will present Oh, death. Where is your sting! as a guest performance for Season 11. Photographer - Zivanai Matangi

While she is visiting Johannesburg, Taneja and the women members of the Maboneng Community Policing Forum will hold a series of conversations towards hosting a Johannesburg iteration of Women Walk at Midnight, an initiative that invites women volunteers to join a nighttime walk along a predetermined route in Johannesburg, as a gesture of reclaiming their right to inhabit the city. Keep an eye on Women Walk At Midnight’s social media for further details.   

Internationally renowned dancers and choreographers Vincent Mantsoe and Shanell Winlock-Pailman will each present a guest work as part of a special double bill. Mantsoe’s Desert Poem encapsulates the allure and tranquillity of an environment characterised by extremes, while Winlock-Pailman’s Oh, death! Where is your sting?, conceptualised and developed at The Centre, is a work about death, grief, and the moments in between. 

Season 11 will also see The Centre continue its collaboration with cultural collective, NarowBi, who will activate the Arts on Main courtyard with Party + Market, a curated experience featuring stalls and artists showcasing music, art, style and more over the weekend. 

View the full programme for Season 11 at www.lessgoodidea.com 

- David Mann is a Johannesburg-based writer, editor and art critic and is the resident writer at The Centre for the Less Good Idea.