MY BODY MY SPACE: PUBLIC ARTS FESTIVAL PROGRAMME
22 – 27 MARCH 2016
The My Body My Space Public Arts Festival, now in its second year, runs from the 22nd to 27th March 2016 in the scenic Emakhazeni Area of Mpumalanga.
The ‘Arteries Programme’ kicks off the festival with a series of dance flash mobs and public performance happenings at taxi ranks, markets, shops and parks in the Sakhelwa / Dullstroom, Siyathuthuka / Belfast and Emthonjeni / Machadodorp areas. These ambush-style events, which run from the 22nd to 24th March, take place at key points along major transport arteries and routes in the Emakhazeni area and are created by The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative in partnership with local artists. Workshops will also be on offer as part of the Arteries programme, these include a workshop at the Belfast Children’s Home presented by practitioners from Wits University’s Drama For Life Programme and pinhole photography and permaculture gardening workshops aimed at children in Machadodorp, presented by theSLOW (Social Life of Waste) Art Network. An Arts and Crafts Market showcasing work by local crafters will also be set up at Milly’s, along the N4, on the final day of the Arteries programme.
The ‘Central Nervous System (CNS)Programme’ is the Main Programme of the My Body My Space Festival that has been curated to include a wonderful mix of dance, music, culture and performance art by some of the country’s leading dance companies and performance practitioners. The CNS Programme is split over two days into CNS 1, on the 26th March and CNS 2 on the 27th March.
CNS 1 takes place in Machadodorp between 10h00 and 16h00 on Saturday 26th March.
Saturday 26th March.
The Audience will meet at Pholani Park, Machadodorpat 9.30am.
9.45am to 9.50am: Opening and Program Briefing by PJ Sabbagha Festival Director
9.50am to 10am: Welcome address by Emakhazeni Local Municipality Leadership
The audience will be guided on foot along a 2km route that weaves through the streets of Machadodorp where an exciting mix of dance, music and performance art will pop up in iconic Machadodorp sites.
The audience will first encounter a solo dance work at the ChazonTekna Hall entitled, Limbs, choreographed by New York City-based Maria Bauman and performed by Marina Magalhães (Brazil/USA). The work debuted in Los Angeles (USA) in 2015 and delves into questions of nature, space and natural phenomena that is juxtaposed with an ugly history of racism and other ills. It looks at how these ills often permeate these spaces and how in some cases they have imposed themselves on nature.Magalhães says that her work strives to engage people in a way that moves them: for them to feel moved, to move their bodies, to move into collective action and to understand their role in the larger social movements of our time.
Joao Paulo Bias of the SLOW Art Networkwill be presenting his work, that includes painting on recycled materials such as recycled canvas, old pieces of clothing and frames in the ChazonTekna Outdoor covered area. Bias is also affiliated with Núcleo de Arte, the internationally recognized cultural association of Mozambique. The ChazonTekna school also hosts a workshop by Bias for crafters throughout that morning.
The audience will then move on to The Hog, on Potgieter Street, which will be the site of the first of six shortDrama For Life (DFL)solo performancesthat take place over the duration of the festival.This collection of DFL solos is entitled Occupying self…and the in-between and are performed by Applied Drama Masters Students NjabuloMkize, BonginkosiMnisi, SithembisoKhalishwayo, NgesihleMkhize, Sue Hall and TebogoRadebe. These solos are connected by their understanding of space and body, revealing the connections between ‘my body’ and ‘our stories’, in the space. The solo at The Hog, entitled, Stick to It! by Sue Hall, uses objects to represent communities in divided spaces and explores the breaking down of barriers and possible shifts into new sharings. The audience then walks to the LA Eggs Shopping Complexto enjoy the glorious sounds of theEmakhazeni-basedSakhelwa Gospel Choir.
The MachadodorpMunicipal Building will then host a performance by one of The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative’s (FATC) EmakhazeniCommunity Outreach groups from the town of Machadodorp.
The next stop for the mobile audience will be the Car Wash for a solo dance work by 2016 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for Dance, ThembaMbuli.
Moving Into Dance Mophatong’s (MIDM) SunnyboyMotau presents his work, That Timber, on the Ecoleges balcony. The work explores the beauty of earth that has been drained and misused by humanity. Describing the work, Motau says: “God gave earth nature. Nature gave out trees. Trees give man food and shelter. Man changed trees as weapons”. Motau works as a performer, choreographer and educator for MIDM and has performed extensively both nationally and internationally.
The Old Stone Town Hallbecomes the site for two more performer-choreographers of the internationally acclaimed Moving Into Dance Mophatong.Here ThenjiweSoxokoshe and AsandaRuda present Women in Men. The work deals with the expectations and thoughts of women in male-dominated spaces.
Independent choreographer, NichoAphane, presents his new work, Due Solo, in front of Adams Supermarket before the audience makes their way to the Methodist Church for a performance by the Belfast Children’s Home Senior Girls Choir.
The next stop is the stoep of the Environmental Center for the second performance by Wits University’s Drama For Lifeprogramme, Scopophilia, choreographed and performed by BonginkosiMnisi. Staying at the Environmental center the audience will encounter FATC’sThulaniChauke in his new solo work, Container.
The Machado Slaghuisthen becomes the site for two works, the first that ofFATC’s FanaTshabala, the 2013 Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner for Dance, and the second another work from the Drama For Life programme – Where is Equality? written and directed by NjabuloMkize.
The morning’s proceedings come to a close in front of Grey’s Inn with the performance of MamelaNyamza’s internationally acclaimed 19 Born 76 Rebels. A South African activist once said: “People need to defeat the one element in politics which is working against them. And this is the psychological feeling of inferiority.” These are the words that underlie 19 Born 76 Rebels. The work breaks away from the normative presentation of the political struggle and triumphs against Apartheid. It seeks to build on the notion that remnants of the 1976 uprising have laid the foundation for artists to triumph over adversity. The work is performed by MamelaNyamza and OyamaMbopa.
From 13h00 the CNS 1 programme continues at the PholaniPark Hall with a performance of Everlastby EugeneBafanaMashiane. Everlast is a journey into the dehumanization of labour through the separation of product from the producer and a forfeiting of rights of ownership to the product created.
Pholani Park Hall will also host a series of pieces by Community groups from the Emakhazeni area which include the Waterval-BovenSeswati Group and the FATC Dullstroomoutreach group.
FATC’s FanaTshabalala and ThulaniChauke also perform their widely toured and internationally acclaimed work Between Usin the afternoon session of CNS 1 at Pholani Park.
A photographic workshop presented by Emmanuel Munamo and ReatileMoalusiof Pretoria Street Photographyand SLOW will run during the morning at the Pholani Park Hall. Munamo and Moalusi will be a conducting a pinhole camera workshop to educate the public about various tools they can design and create to document their own environments. In addition, a permaculture workshop will also be offered by two permaculture experts from Kufunda Village in Harare, Admire Gwatidzo and Irvine Muzuva (also part of SLOW).
In the afternoon Flying House will be running a participatory public art project, entitled Flying Dreams. Members of the public are invited to write down a secret wish, fold the paper into an aeroplane and hang the plane in an installation, creating an enormous flock of aeroplanes. The work is created and facilitated by Flying House core members Tamara Guhrs and Athena Mazarakis. Guhrs is a playwright and arts educator that uses a variety of modalities to explore individual and community expression. Mazarakis is an award-winning South African choreographer and performer working in the areas of Physical Theatre and Dance both nationally and internationally.
Poet Bobby Gordon also presents The Poetry Trading Post, a live poetry writing installation, for the festival. Gordon creates mobile and interactive poetry that, through the medium of manual typewriters, puts a poet in public spaces to create original poems on the spot for the surrounding community. Gordon will present his installations over both days of the CNS programme.
The Pholani Park grounds will also host an open Arts and Crafts Market, food stalls and a local crafter sourced Arts and Crafts Exhibition.
Sunday 27th March
Starting at 11am at FATC’s Ebhudlweni Arts Center.
The second day of the Main programme, CNS 2, takes place on the 27th March and starts at the Ebhudlwenicentre just outside of Machadadorp at 11h00 where the Cape Town-based integrated dance company, Unmute Dance Company, stages AndileVellem’sUn-mute. The work is a way of Andile finding his voice as a choreographer, using sign language as the source of the movement vocabulary. He has brought together performers from different dance backgrounds to find and explore what they would like to un-mute – feelings, perceptions, social norms, expectations and deconstructing what society perceives as dance.
The audience then travels to GoodersonKloppenheim Country Estate for the rest of the day’s activities. En route they will be intercepted by a solo work by FATC’s FanaTshabalala. Once at GoodersonKloppenheim Country Estate the audience will be treated to a performance by the Belfast Children’s Home Circus School on the lawns.
Staying on the lawns the audience will then get to experience MIDM’sThenjiweSoxokoshe dance work, Abstract of female.The audience then moves inside the Kloppenheim main building to the Library for the fourth performance by Drama for Life (DFL), SithembisoKhalishwayo’sTo Sleep…To Die. They then walk down to the bar for DLF’s TebogoRadebe’sPainful Joy, and up to the lounge for the last of the DFL solos,A Life Forgotten,by NgesihleMkhize. The lounge will also include an exhibition with works byZimbabwean Johnson Zuze (SLOW), who will exhibit sculptures made of waste, and a still-life photography series byPretoria Street Photography (PSP). The six images making up the PSP exhibition showcases inanimate objects that represent homelessness. A video installation work, entitled 100 Dollar Mask, by SLOW’s David Aguacheiro, will be screened in the Kloppenheim conference room. The video installation reflects on the dimensions of pollution as a result of excessive consumerism.Aguacheiro is also affiliated to Mocambique’s cultural association, Núcleo de Arte.
The audience then gets to enjoy the magnificent views again from the landing at the pool as they watch Sisonke Art Productions’Slindelo and his Bones. This performance uses music and dance to tell the story of Slindelo, who lived in a little hut surrounded by grass and flowers.
FATC’s ThulaniChauke then performs his work Swanbefore the final performance of the day byVuyani Dance Theatre, Ketima. Ketima was first presented in 2003 as a male quartet. In 2016 choreographer Gregory Maqoma is reviving the work with a double cast of a male and female quartet. Ketima examines phases of development from crawling through the toddler phase to the time when human thoughts, feelings and actions get hooked to the mainstream of life. The work flows from the rhythm of Bach’s much celebrated orchestration of Air and Percussion.
Bobby Gordon’s The Poetry Trading Post poetry installation will run at Kloppenheim Country Estate through the day.
The Flying House installation from the previous day culminates in a performance at Kloppenheim country estate where the paper airplanes are launched in a “plane procession” giving flight to the wishes they contain, allowing then to drift, to fly and to land.
Completing what will be an ideal family outing, there will also be arts and crafts markets, traditional food for sale by local merchants, locally sourced arts and crafts exhibitions and even an Easter egg hunt at Kloppenheim. Another exciting activity on the 27th March is that one of FATC’s partners, 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela, will be hosting a knitathon at Kloppenheim from 10h00 to 13h00.