Born from Season 5 of The Centre for the Less Good Idea, the 11-minute Epic is a performance that holds all of the activity, emotion, humour, triumph, and tragedy of the theatrical epic in the short form.
A solitary spaza-shop owner sweeping up the detritus of the day. The low buzz of the refrigerator in the heat. Outside, impatient customers wait for the store to open. It is a familiar scene that soon turns surreal.
In the ancient city of Harar, locals believe that hyenas are spiritual guides who rid the streets of bad spirits. After losing his brother, Shuzan, in horrific xenophobic attacks in South Africa, Ali (Sello Ramolahloane) is traumatised as his brother’s spirit lingers on as a hyena.
Conceptualised by Tony Miyambo and directed by Mwenya Kabwe and Phala Ookeditse Phala, Harar takes its premise from this harrowing tale. A simple set, a subtle, yet impactful soundscape, and a hyena designed and created by Ukwanda Puppetry Company allows the performers to convey this vivid narrative in the short-form without losing any its complexity.
It is a performance full of tension, expertly held, like the quiet, trembling hand that feeds the hyena.
CONCEPTUALISER | Tony Miyambo
DIRECTORS | Mwenya Kabwe & Phala Ookeditse Phala
PERFORMERS | Tony Miyambo, Xolisile Bongwana & Sello Ramolahloane
PUPPET | Designed & created by Ukwanda Puppetry Company
What does anguish, driven by yearning, loneliness and longing, look like? In The Letter That Never Reached The Receiver, Thulani Chauke builds a solo, movement-based work around the simple premise of miscommunication.
Dressed in a shabby suit, and moving through the detritus of unsent, unread letters, Chauke is mournful, erratic, anguished, exhausted. He carries his body across the stage in this way, collecting chairs and stools as he goes, weighing him down, making him clumsier, more absurd.
In the absurdity, there is great tragedy. Chauke holds this duality and complexity throughout, using the myriad possibilities of the body as a tool for surfacing and processing this narrative.
CONCEPTUALISER & PERFORMER | Thulani Chauke
DIRECTOR | Phala Ookeditse Phala
Conceptualised by Lynn "Daphne" Rudolph, Dop is my Taal surfaces the effects of colonialism and apartheid in the KhoiKhoi and San community.
Clinking bottles signal the beginning of the performance. This subtle, enduring refrain, elicited by Micca Manganye, does well to set the tone for a performance that highlights the instrumental role of alcohol as a tool for the sedation and eradication of indigenous communities.
Daphne takes to the stage, book in hand, and begins to read. The text loops, fragments, doubles up and folds in on itself. “I remember a time when I still spoke ncwa-njuu and ncwa-nama… then they came… the strange drink… I don’t feel well.”
A projected backdrop to the performance shows footage of traditional Khoi Khoi and San dances, juxtaposed with traditional Dutch folk dances. Interviews with individuals who were forcibly removed from their homes in Cape Town are interspersed with former South African prime minister and apartheid politician, John Vorster.
Daphne takes to the viola, teasing out the refrain of “Die Stem”, the former South African national anthem, amidst free-flowing improvisation. A cacophony emerges. It’s a sonic swell that rises, collapses and gives way to a lament. It ends as it begins – fingers clinking on empty alcohol bottles in the darkness of the stage.
CONCEPTUALISER | Daphne
MUSICAL DIRECTOR | Neo Muyanga
MUSICIANS | Daphne & Micca Manganye
FILM CREDIT | Extracts from ‘An Impossible Return’ by Dr Siona O'Connell
What exactly goes into the work of dismantling one world and seamlessly building the next? The Epic Changes is a performance that zeroes in on the choreography of the scene change, and the often-times unacknowledged art of the stage hand.
Emerging out of a scene change from the preceding performance, the work takes its structure from the unwritten rules of the stage hand – how to enter and exit, how to move certain objects on and off stage, and how to handle specific props – as well as some lesser-known insights into the job itself – the most difficult props to clear, how to handle delicate objects, and what to do when you accidentally exit on the wrong side of the stage.
As we see these instructions being followed on stage, we also hear them being issued by the work’s director, Athena Mazarakis. We gain access to the interiority of the stage-manager and in this way, it is a humorous piece, but it is also a surprisingly sentimental one, with each prop being drawn from the performance archive of The Centre’s past Seasons.
The chairs from Houseboy are there, as is the pot from Pitsana, the typewriter from Footnotes and the books from “every Season, everywhere”.
As time begins to run out, the performance grows more frantic, ending with the last remaining stagehand, exhausted and defeated, being carried off stage herself.
CONCEPTUALISERS | Athena Mazarakis, Dimakatso Motholo & Nthabiseng Malaka
DIRECTOR | Athena Mazarakis
PERFORMERS | Dimakatso Motholo & Khanyisile Ngwabe
Two characters occupy an elasticated, rubbery world. As they move – long, languorous sequences that see them snap back into place in the blink of an eye – their actions are mirrored in their constant chewing of gum.
It’s a joy to watch Teresa Phuti Mojela and Thulani Chauke perform their impressively loose-limbed duet over the course of 11-minutes. But there is an underlying narrative at work, too. In the relentless chewing, expanding, popping, stretching out and snapping back, is the journey of the artist who, no matter the choices they make, or the heights they reach, is always one move away from landing back where they began.
This is not necessarily a negative. Through repetition comes refinement, and the opportunity to revisit the fundamentals. Similarly, there is nothing quite like the generative potential of free-spirited collaboration.
CONCEPTUALISERS & PERFORMERS | Teresa Phuti Mojela & Thulani Chauke
Meat, fire, metal and plastic. What will come to define this modern era? As humankind moves closer towards the end of the Anthropocene, and the beginning of the Plasticine, will we be remembered for our ingenuity or for having engineered our destruction?
Directed by Mark Fleishman, This Death Here… draws on Antigone’s Ode to Man and the story of the Greek inventor, Daedalus, to put forward a profound and prophetic lament on the human condition.
Jennie Reznek, Sisipho Mbopa, and Indalo Stofile share and embody the roles of the great inventor and his son, Icarus, accompanied by a resounding Greek chorus. Weaving together a rich soundscape is Neo Muyanga who, in the second half of the epic, drives its enduring lament.
The performance carries a reflexive throughline as it places humankind at the centre and cause of a seemingly incurable world, while also employing a mixture of live music, projected drawing, and physical language, culminating in a rhapsodic collapse.
The work’s closing lines, “Cannot cure, cannot restore, cannot heal… in the face of death”, are no less impactful, no less existentially mournful, for having been signalled at the start through a striking, bloody plunge. They are devastating and deliberate.
But it is not a work without hope. Sprouting up through the low, torrential keys of Muyanga’s closing composition – like the field of flowers that springs up in Neustetter’s drawing – are the high, faithful notes, the enduring ability to find hope in an otherwise irresolvable condition.
CONCEPTUALISERS | Jennie Reznek & Mark Fleishman
DIRECTOR | Mark Fleishman
COMPOSER | Neo Muyanga
PERFORMERS | Jennie Reznek, Sisipho Mbopa & Indalo Stofile
CHORUS | Tshepang Mofokeng, Nomathamsanqa Ngoma, Mapule Moloi, Anathi Conjwa, Khokho Madlala & Zandile Hlatshwayo
VISUAL ARTIST / PROJECTION | Marcus Neustetter
TEXT | Jennie Reznek after Sophocles and Ovid
Conceptualised and performed by Asanda Hanabe, Amen? uses the Lord’s Prayer as the starting point for a performance-based inquiry into notions of loss, faith and memory.
An ill-fitting shoe becomes a powerful metaphor in Amen? Largely physical, Hanabe’s performance uses the gestures and rhythms of prayer to begin her performance, reciting the Lord’s Prayer all the while.
As she continues, the rhythm falters and the choreography goes awry. Damp matches refuse to light and candles snap in two as the prayer grows more desperate, more frenzied, and is ultimately abandoned. All the while, a chorus behind her provides powerful musical accompaniment, building to a compelling crescendo.
She exits with an awkward gait, leaving a single shoe behind.
CONCEPTUALISER & PERFORMER | Asanda Hanabe
DIRECTORS | Asanda Hanabe & Nhlanhla Mahlangu
CHORUS | Thabo Gwadiso, Simphiwe Skhakhane, Sbusiso Shozi & Lindokuhle Thabede
The “Wounded Man Dance” is a devised choreographic exploration that emerged during the making of William Kentridge’s The Head & the Load and became a singular moment of the production.
Here, the sequence is performed and further developed by Gregory Maqoma, Thulani Chauke and Fana Tshabalala as a short-form epic – a choreographic story that, in isolation, still conveys all of the emotion and intention of the original.
In Wounded Man, the two soldiers engage in a duet where one can no longer stand, but is propped up by his fellow soldier who carries him and shakes him back to life, repeatedly. It is a striking and devastating sequence that speaks simply, but deeply, to the great burden of duty, and asks: what do we owe each other, ourselves, and our communities?
CONCEPTUALISERS | Devised by Gregory Maqoma & Thulani Chauke during The Head & the Load
COMPOSER & MUSICIAN | Neo Muyanga
PERFORMERS | Thulani Chauke & Fana Tshabalala
The epic operatic finds a natural home in the short form. 1 Round is a kasi opera that holds all of the drama, danger and thrill of a contemporary love triangle, and merges the grand operatic tradition with the unmistakable lyricism of South African township slang.
The betrayal is revealed at the very beginning. Matshidiso, waiting to meet her upstanding, religious husband, Mfundisi, gets a surprise visit from Zacharia, her lover, who has just been released from prison. The love triangle meets and the drama ensues, all told through striking musicality.
Gertrude, Matshidiso’s friend, is something of an audience surrogate, constantly breaking the fourth wall to express her shock and confusion, while the only non-verbal performer (Alfred Motlhapi) lends an engaging physicality to the performance.
There is laughter and outrage, lust and refusal. It ends as it begins, with a new love triangle developing out of the quarrel of the first.
CONCEPTUALISERS | Zandile Hlatshwayo, Simphiwe Skhakhane, Dikeledi Modubu & Lindokuhle Thabede
DIRECTOR | Phala Ookeditse Phala
PERFORMERS | Zandile Hlatshwayo, Simphiwe Skhakhane, Dikeledi Modubu, Lindokuhle Thabede & Alfred Motlhapi
A group of musicians, dancers and musicians step onto the stage, each of them carrying a traditional grass mat (icansi). They enter the space slowly, deliberately, and in silence. A mat unravels and falls to the ground, breaking the silence and the tension. They exhale and begin.
A key impulse for Bonolo is the reminder to embrace rest and play. Signalled by the dropping of the grass mat, an object that is otherwise treated with great reverence, the world inhabited by the performers shifts from cold and stultifying to a space of open abstraction and possibility.
As they move, they begin to play, laugh, and breathe. And while they remain vigilant and deliberate in their gestures, they build to a collective pause and a brief, but significant moment of respite.
CONCEPTUALISER | Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu in collaboration with the cast
PERFORMERS | Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu, Hlengiwe Lushaba Madlala, Thembinkosi Mavimbela, Micca Manganye & Vusi Mdoyi
What sort of story can be told by a single performer in the space of 11 minutes? In Shadow Beatz, Simphiwe “Beatz” Bonongo uses beatboxing and shadowplay to build a vivid world.
The clock has already begun its countdown. He enters and begins his conjuration. Here is a character returning home, turning on the TV, placing food in the microwave. It is an ordinary enough scene until it isn’t.
Without warning, a shadow character emerges and begins its own performance. A duet ensues and builds to a dramatic cacophony of sound and movement.
Shadow Beatz is a performance that plays with the constraints of the 11-minute Epic itself. As the clock times out, there is a collapse into nothingness, leaving him in a state of limbo, without even a shadow to keep him company.
CONCEPTUALISER & PERFORMER | Simphiwe ‘Beatz’ Bonongo
VIDEO EDITOR | Joshua Trappler
Paper Woman performs and plays with traditional wedding songs to illuminate how patriarchy, land dispossession, and labour-migration influence the foundations of marriage.
Carrying only blankets and armed with traditional wedding songs, the chorus of Paper Woman speaks to the longstanding problems of patriarchal marriage systems. Here, repetition and the musical, visual refrain are important. A refusal becomes a runaway train, and a blanket constricts instead of comforts.
Musically, rhythms break like traditions and something new emerges, always. At the heart of it all is a reflection on the enduring effects of labour, displacement, and disempowerment on young women as an indirect albeit enduring result of colonialism.
CONCEPTUALISER & DIRECTOR | Nhlanhla Mahlangu
MUSICAL DIRECTOR | Sbusiso Shozi
PERFORMERS | Asanda Hanabe, Khokho Madlala, Mapule Moloi, Zandile Hlatshwayo, Nomathamsanqa Ngoma, Tshepang Mofokeng & Dikeledi Modubu
— David Mann
PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi