GIPCA director Jay Pather has curated the organisation’s Live Art Festival, which opens on Wednesday. It features 39 works in 12 days, many of them South African or world premieres. DEBBIE HATHWAY finds out more.
LOCAL and international artists across the visual arts, dance, theatre, music, architecture and literature spectrum will descend on the Cape Town City Hall and UCT’s Hiddingh Campus this fortnight as part of the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA)’s second Live Art Festival.
The works, according to director Jay Pather, will be “maverick, mongrel, collaborative, interdisciplinary, vexing. Some may be a breeze; others may need a strong stomach or a thick skin.” But he commends the sponsors for supporting this platform for innovative art works, as well as the artists for “continuing to push the boundaries of their work, inviting discomfort, debate and critique.”
Interestingly, at a recent event hosted by Design Dialogues, a World Design Capital 2014 project that is a platform for emerging creatives and industry thought leaders to “make critical appraisals and consider our unique offering within the global context”, architect Makona Makeka of Makeka Design Lab gave perspective to the audience receptivity challenge.
“Ultimately, creativity is about the joy and the discipline of doing what we do, and accepting that maybe only one out of 10 people will understand (it). So I think that if you really want to resonate and have an impact on society, be in line with your values, do what you do that makes sense, and… time will often be the best judge of your works.”
In trying to get a sense of what audiences can expect from internationally renowned performance artist Sello Pesa’s work, Limelight on Rites, in which the artist looks at death as “big business” in South Africa, and how traditional African rituals are comprised by community pressure to host an “extravagant funeral”, Pesa was reticent. The Soweto-born dancer, choreographer and director of Ntsoana Contemporary Dance Theatre (Ntsoana) says he’s learned to not put words to his work. “I provide an entry point for people to get involved with the piece, the extent of which is determined by their own life experience and education,” says Pesa. “They experience a range of emotions after the performance, which can sometimes lead to a need for reflection.”
Pesa draws inspiration from various influences, but African idiom is a key reference.
“It’s something that’s ingrained in me, and guides my response to things,” he says. Location, because of its site-specific nature, and Pesa’s head space also affect the delivery of the piece. “It depends what’s been happening in my life,” says Pesa.
Limelight on Rites has been presented at Pole Sud in Strasbourg and Danse L’Afrique Dans in Soweto. Produced by Ntsoana for the Live Arts Festival, Cape Town audiences will see Pesa’s creation performed with Humphrey Maleka and guest artists from the UCT student fraternity.
Meanwhile, the festival is celebrating several impressive feats this year: Nigerian multi-media artist Jelili Atiku presents a new work Eleegba(Oginrinringinrin III) and award-winning choreographer Boyzie Cekwana presents the South African premiere of In Case of Fire, Run for the Elevator. The latter piece comes on the back of its world premiere at the esteemed experimental dance space, fabric Potsdam, in Berlin.
London-based performer Brian Lobel brings BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer directly from the Edinburgh Festival, while Season Butler puts a twist on a familiar Hans Christian Anderson tale in The Woman Who Walks on Knives, which premiered at the SPILL Festival of Performance at the Barbican last year.
Together with local performers, they’ll team up in the Cabaret Crawl, described as a “progressive night of levity, dancing and art… in the drag and cabaret clubs and bars of Cape Town.”
Swiss choreographer Nicole Seiler’s South African premieres of Shiver and Un Acte Sérieux(A Serious Act) combine technology and dance, while burlesque comedy is the vehicle for Amsterdam-based Ntando Cele to comment on power and prejudice in the manufacture of African art markets for Europe. His piece is entitled Complicated Art for Dummies.
In addition, there’s a new work by Brussels-based architect Eduardo Cachuco, called Flatland, which is based on a 1930s experiment carried out by Hendrik Verwoerd.
Cameroonian artist Christian Etongo, Nigerian-American artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Ghanaian artist Bernard Akoi-Jackson and South African performance artist Julia Raynham have all secured top billing.
In addition, inaugural Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner for Performance Art Anthea Moys presents a world premiere of The Impossible Auction, featuring Gerard Bester as auctioneer, while veteran performance artist and co-founder of the iconic Glass Theatre, John Nankin premieres Shakespeare’s Chair. Mohau Modisakeng, winner of the SASOL New Signatures Award (2011), also creates Ukukhumula(“unclothing”).
Moys’ successor in the award stakes, Donna Kukama, presents Museum of Non-Permanence (MuNPer) around several one-on-one encounters aimed at recognising aspects of our histories that are “not necessarily part of popular historical narratives”.
Other local premieres include Johannesburg-based Albert Khoza’s Influences of a Closet, Grahamstown-based choreographer Nomcebisi Moyikwa’s Caught, Annemi Conradie’s collaboration with suspension artists John Wayne Stevens and Svend Jensen, and Tebogo Munyai’s scrutiny of the mining industry called Doors of Gold.
Finally, Michaelis Galleries hosts the Independent Curators International’s do it exhibition. It is the widest-reaching, longest running international ‘exhibition in progress’.
Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the project comprises a list of 250 instructions for artworks by artists like Marina Abramovic, John Baldessari and Dara Birnbaum to be interpreted differently in each reiteration.
l The Live Art Festival runs from Wednesday until September 7. See www.gipca.uct.ac.za To book, see www.webtickets.co.za for daily or season tickets.