20 INFECTING THE CITY Cape Town’s favourite Public Art Fest

INFECTING THE CITY Cape Town’s favourite public arts festival set to make a strong return

The Institute for Creative Arts and curator, Jay Pather, have once again teamed up to transform Cape Town’s public spaces into open-air galleries, theatres and performance venues for the popular public arts festival, Infecting the City (ITC). For seven days, from 18 to 24 November, a series of day-time and night-time programmes will see audiences traverse city blocks following 50 acts, from giant puppets and vertical dancers to traditional cleansing and burial ceremonies.

Included in this year’s diverse programme are award-winning and young and upcoming artists from across the country and as far as Namibia, Zimbabwe, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland. City parks, shopping and transport hubs, from the Station to St George’s Mall, to the Cathedral and various city museums will be activated with live performance, installations and artistic interventions.

“An emerging theme from this year’s proposals is work based in classical African tradition. Works that explore how classical African performance and rituals work inside of the urban space. This is also to create atmospheres of cleansing and interiority within these commercially driven, materialistic spaces,” says Jay Pather.

Joining Pather as a curatorial fellows for the festival are internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer of African Indigenous and cross-cultural dance, Elvis Sibeko, who brings extensive experience with traditional African productions and young up and coming curator, Amogelang Maledu. “Working alongside emerging voices in public art curation is critical to developing the vision and reach of Infecting the City”, says Pather. “

Sibeko will be co-curating two programmes for ITC featuring work by artists and performance companies such as Siwela Sonke, Indoni, Mandla Mbothwe, Mzo Gasa, Kwanele Thusi, Aaraadhana Indian dancers and Zamanani Brothers.

Maledu is co-curating a one-day programme of 15 art installations, some with performative elements, spread in clusters around Church Square, the Slave Lodge, Government Avenue and the Company’s Gardens. The programme, on Thursday 21 November, will run from 10am to 3pm, with a map guiding visitors, in their own time, from one work to the next. Artists include Sydelle Willow-Smith, Asemahle Ntlonti, Qondiswa James, Nicolene Burger, Spirit Mba and Well-Worn Theatre Company with their Swarm Theory – a big hit at this past year’s National Arts Festival.

ITC features a large body of work by women artists, performers, choreographers and curators, “Women traverse a thin line of security in our public spaces. Foregrounding these issues in a public space is essential. And no amount of bringing this to the center and in public will be enough”, says Pather.

Pather continues, “The festival features work that create visibility of all of the City’s identities, publics and cultures and not just the mono culture that often dominates Cape Town.”

Above and Left: MovingStoriesTheatreOrg. Photo by MovingStories Theatre.

Diagonale Ascendante (Company Retouramant)

“Cityparks, shopping and transport hubs, from the Station to St George’s Mall,to theCathedral and various city museums will be activated with live performance, installations and artistic interventions.”

The ITC public arts festival is the longestrunning public arts festival in South Africa. Pather explains that as our environment becomes more trying, riddled with complexities and debates around land, poverty, race, safety and security and the environment, there is growing insularity. Public art creates the circumstances for emotions to be stirred, and for discussions to take place publicly.

He goes on to say that public art combines the intimacy of art with the public encounter. Infecting the City creates a space for issues to be raised and debated, which is needed in the country now more than ever.

More than 20 years into democracy, South Africa is still one of the most unequal countries in the world and spaces where we can feel and think together are becoming increasingly important.

For information about artists and works represented at this year’s event, visit www. infectingthecity.com.

Follow Infecting the City on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for programme updates and festival information.

Infecting the City is presented by the Institute for Creative Arts in association with the University of Cape Town, Africa Centre, Institut Francais Afrique du Sud and Pro Helvetia. The festival is supported by the City of Cape Town and with venue support from the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at UCT, Company’s Garden, Iziko, Castle of Good Hope, District Six Museum, St George’s Cathedral, PRASA, Metrorail and others.