The Centre for the Less Good Idea continues its work of bringing fresh and experimental work and performances to Joburg with this year's live performance programme. Season 9 began with the provocation 'translation' and the 19 artists and 36-member choir have explored its implications over the past six months. This is a hallmark of the Centre's work – providing a freeing space in which to explore ideas in performance, through workshops and collaboration. It results in highly inventive and often challenging works – as much for the performers as for the audience. Many of these performance pieces get reworked and find their way across the world, spilling out of Arts on Main in Maboneng to make a profound global impact.
By locating translation in our daily lives the works of this season delve into dreams, language, memory, identity and space, often leading the viewer down surprising avenues of thought.
Season 9 performances and ticketing
Season 9 is divided into six programmes, each featuring a complementary series of short performance pieces by an array of collaborators. The performances take place at the Centre for Less Good Idea's event spaces and studios at Arts on Main in Maboneng. Tickets for each performance programme cost R150, or R250 for a day pass and can be booked online here. Entrance to the installations is free.
Season 9 Art Exhibition
Alongside the performances for Season 9 there will be three installations. Kwizulu Lesithathu and Goraa goreng? will be showing at 2nd Space and Izandi zemizila yethu | The Sounds of Our Traces will show at the Other Space.2nd Space, open from Wed Oct 26 to Sun Oct 30 (from 18:00 on Wed, 15:00 Thu–Fri and 13:00 Sat–Sun)
The Other Space open from Wed Oct 26 to Sun Oct 30 (from 18:00 on Wed, closed Thu, 15:00 Fri and 13:00 Sat–Sun)
Kwizulu Lesithathu
Kwizulu Lesithathu is an installation by Elvis Sibeko and Zain Vally. By ferrying messages back and forth using sonic passages and ritual objects it interrogates the separation of space and time.
Goraa goreng?
In Goraa goreng Nthabiseng Malaka uses scenography to look at the recurring converations which take place in translation and how translation is a way of seeking enlightenment, conversation and understanding.
Izandi zemizila yethu | The Sounds of Our Traces
An audiovisual that uses song, breath and ritual to commemorate the artists that have passed away over the last two years. It translates and transcends loss and pain into power to carry on.
The exhibitions open Wed Oct 26 at 18:00. Entrance is free.
SEASON 9 PERFORMANCES
At Events Space, Programme 1 Ezembewu | Of the Seeds, Part 1 and 2
Part 1: An immersive journey through a collection of images, works and songs that speak to first translations – of soil, seeds, words, birth, growth and loss – threaded together by an aesthetic of dreams, both of the waking and the sleeping life.Part 2: An ensemble work of second translations. From names to notes, dreams to movement and text to visual image, the performative vignettes of this work deal with the complexity and simultaneity of translation.
Wed, Oct 26 at 19:30
Sun, Oct 30 at 17:00 (only showing part 1)
Please note. Part 1 is not a seated performance. The audience will be asked to move with the performers and remain standing at some intervals. General seating will be provided for those who would like to rest. Part 2 will be a seated performance.
At The Centre, Programme 2 Scores & Scapes | Metlhala ya Dilo le Dibaka
Landscapes, dreamscapes, soundscapes, scores and codes are either the translated material or the material for translation in this programme. Sometimes they are both. These are works that playfully re-interpret scores or re-purpose codes as tools for translation.Thu, Oct 27 at 19:30
At Events Space, Programme 3 Melapo le Melatswana | Imifula nemi Fulambo
A programme of works that travel through sites and across literal and figurative thresholds. Works of personal and collective journeying that translate and transmute experience.Fri, Oct 28 at 19:30
Please note. This is not a seated performance, audience will be asked to move with the performers and remain standing at some intervals. General seating will be provided for those who would like to rest. You will be asked to remove your shoes at one point in the programme.
At The Centre, Programme 4 Μετάφραση of iZinguqulo | Translation of Translations
Playful, performative and sometimes profound translations of translations, translators, and codes of translation.Fri, Oct 28 at 20:45
At The Centre, Programme 5 Ingxubevange | The Mix Up
Made up of a combination of performances from previous programmes, these works explore translation conceptually and literally. They reflect the wide range of responses to the provocation of translation in the season through their diverse themes of names and identity; the life of objects in translation; roots that bind and empower; and the healing power of conversations that transmute and translate trauma.Sat, 29 at 16:30
At Events Space, Programme 6 Next to Yesterday Today | Pele ha Maobane
Kajeno | À côté d'hier aujourd'hui
Stories, fragments and reflections on how we are translated across generations, spaces and time. Pieces about lineage, family, memory and migration translated into and against the present.Please note. This is not a seated performance, audience will be asked to move with the performers and remain standing at some intervals. General seating will be provided for those who would like to rest
Sat, Oct 29 at 18:00
Here's the Season 9 programme dates and times at a glance
Wed, Oct 26 Exhibition launch Kwizulu Lesithathu and Goraa goreng? at 2nd Space and exhibition launch Izandi zemizila yethu | The Sounds of Our Traces at The Other space (18:00), Programme 1 at Events space (19:30)
Thu, Oct 27 Programme 2 at the Centre (19:30)
Fri Oct 28 Programme 3 at Events space (19:00), Programme 4 at the Centre (20:45)
Sat Oct 29 Programme 5 at the Centre (16:30), Programme 6 at Events space (18:00)
Sun Oct 30 Guest performance (15:30), Programme 1 at Events space (17:00)
GUEST PERFORMANCE: A HOLE IN WAITING BY CALVIN RATLADI
Sun, Oct 30 at 15:30Performed by Calvin Ratladi and Xolisile Bongwana. A Hole in Waiting examines the position of the body in the postcolonial conditions of the mining industry in South Africa. The work acknowledges the graves of thousands of people as a result of an aggressive drilling system.
Theatre director and performer Calvin Ratladi comes from a family that has been working in the mines for generations. In this performance Ratladi exposes the system of exploitation while attempting to negotiate between the human body and the Earth through rituals and soundscapes.
Please see more details and all the names of the performers, and book your tickets on Centre For The less Good Idea's website.
