The following three pieces were gifted to me by Myer Taub. Thanks Myer!


Recently I presented at VANSA’s 20:20, me talking about the relationship between visual arts and theatre. I didn’t get very far because I was determined to speak in the time allocated by the instruction of the presentation. I spoke very much in the context of my experience and the interdisciplinary work that I do; all being said, I covered a lot of ground in 6 minutes, spanning four years and several continents. Nonetheless, I am back in the stomping ground of the arts, seeking refuge in the demise of Studio 2666, in fact I have been here for while but have been busy doing other things. Any further explanation: I will save for another time. The point of this introduction is to reinstate my position that theatre is an interrelated art form, and in being heterogeneous, it does many things including the embodiment and activation of various codes, signs and texts presented in amongst other things: the dialectic of performance-and it is the notion of performance that often serves as the conduit between art and theatre. These texts…and there are three of them, written in my mind and performed only in mind over the last several weeks, as back issues/bitching sessions before I got them down as text, and they perform, because that’s what texts can do in writing and reading–

INFECTING THE INFECTION
Ok so I rarely go to the theatre these days… Its far too middle class, too separatist, far, far too needy, far too made with nepotism, far too to complacent, far to Northern / Southern Suburbs, far too curio, far too far away. These days when I get to the foyer of some of the traditional institutions in the Cape that pretend to be the temples of high theatrical art and I feel like I am in Bournemouth skating naked on a grater. I celebrated with relief when Infecting the City came along… And I continue kick myself for not being in Cape Town for its inauguration last year. Pity that its inspired theme and context as in Home Affairs, is not as nice. The festival has creatively expressed resistance to the attacks of Xenophobia made least year, and resistance to this kind of fanaticism was expressed in the various performances, collaborations, movement, site-specific works and gestures, all of which are worthy of praise for crossing boundaries, placing the allegory of cultural resistance into the present-day frame of reference and remaking new meanings. Sadly, the infection prior to the cultural one has already crept in; the damage (the selfishness, hypocrisy, the fear, the violence):–these all have already wounded ourselves. We are the infected. The works on the festival that managed to reroute the infection from the aftermath by infecting the infection were the works that meet the mandate of my own criteria; of being cutting edge, performing effectively against terror and enacted the recovery of space / place. Very few met this standard. Most fell by the wayside, primarily because they were bland and indigestible. It is a pity that not all works on the festival were compelling. The premise for the festival is brilliant and needs to be encouraged for being a sincere attempt in taking theatres out of the institutions and putting theatres back onto the streets and cities and in the minds and bodies of the people. I was infected by three: In Limbo, a collaboration by Brian Geza, Fabrice Guillot Kai Lossgott and Julia Raynham, I recognised how the monument can be dismantled by performing acts of recovery In Cape Town’s Church Square a group of people were moving as if dancing to very hypnotic sequence of music and they had a rope wrapped around the base of the statue of Jan Hofmeyer (19Century Cape politician and statesmen) and then struggled as if to pull the statue down. An act that was similar to the tearing down of statues in Russia and Iraq during regime changes there. This metaphorical dismantling in Church Square did not last long, one by one the group of people dissipated from their dismantling, eventually leaving the ropes to their own devices; as if in limbo. Consequences, which were in effect liminal, for both the aftermaths of slavery, once centred on this square and the more recent xenophobic had merged into the same continuum–leaving everything else-performers, objects, sound and audience scattering on their boundaries. I watched the performances again and again over the several days of its performance. Sometimes I happened to be part of the audience and on other days, a passer-by who happened to cross the square on my way to work at Studio 2666. My repeated incursion with Limbo also softened my attitude to it as if its daily occurrence succeeded to dismantle my own enclosure embracing the potential to discover what else remains out there to be discovered.
Exile, a collaboration by Alfred Hinkel, Michael Lister, Mary Manzole, Penelope Youngleson was superb. Water is effective when it performs alongside people. Refugees wading in fountains as if crossing borders, their burgeoning suitcases hampering their every movement except… was a potent image; as was the wire man that was set alight at the edges of the fountain. Call Culcutta in a Box created by Rimini Protokoll a reality / trend theatre group from Germany, literally took me to another place. The experience was so uplifiting, sublime and transcendental that I would need more time and space (perhaps another time) to real consider its brilliance. I like this kind of work that challenges perceptions of oneself and the other, immediately and effectively as this piece did. It was homo-erotic, daring, magical and intimate. In an hour, myself as the only audience, conversed with Rishi Rajpal, acall centre representativein Kolkata, India. The office where the conversation takes place literally came alive with gadgets, a kettle and web cam. It was the moment when I found myself dancing on the desk to some tune from a Bollywood movie sweetly sung to me by Rishi so many miles away that I realized that going to the theatre can still make me happy-

THE DESIGN INDABA ATE MY NOTEBOOK

My happiness did not last long. I went to the Design Indaba Expo Stand the following Saturday. I arrived paid my entry and was given a no-name bottle of water. Was this a joke I thought? How kind but what has this bottle have to with design. If anything, it is an example of terrible design. It has no branding. It is plastic. It is nothing. Instead of handing out a (no-name) bag of some sorts to store all of the pamphlets that are thrown at, you––as you make your way through this hyped up-neo-displaced version of the Rand Easter Show. To make matter worse the barrage of cards, pamphlets, and magazines swallowed my only Mujji notebook, given to me on my birthday, which is masterpiece of design. It is simple, functional, trendy and quite pretty. Now its gone, lost for ever in the junk-fast food malaise that was the Design Indaba. Later on when reflecting on one of the worst experiences in my life as a spectator watching the art and craft world dance to a miserable tune; I thought loosing a notebook is like loosing your reputation. You hope both come back, even in tatters.

THERE ARE WINNERS: THERE ARE LOOSERS.
You reap what you sew I thought as myself and Modesty Blasé en-stated a intervention in the outside parking lot for award nominees for the Fleur de Cap Theatre Wards on Saturday night. I have been to these awards before and have always found myself insulting someone. So-I decided upon an intervention this year. After collecting broken glass form a car repair shop in town, myself and Modesty drove to the Arts cape Centre looking for the place to make our intervention. We eventually decided upon the outside parking lot, at the back of the theatre. Besides the security guard there-agreed to let us in after we explained what we intended to do. He understood, people need to express themselves-responsibly. We formed a long line of glass in the sand across the parking lot. A line of broken egos. A line of broken glass car windows. A line for the winners…. One side had another line that said:
‘There are only winners…’ There other side had another side that said: ‘There are only losers.’ I liked the work because it was strange, like ephemeral graffiti. I felt special doing this. It was green just like the awards hoped to be. The glass will disappear back into the imported Cape sand. Just like the organizers, said this was better than the Tonys………….