COLLATION 1 | ON AIR: VISUAL RADIO PLAYS

From 4 to 6 April 2024, The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted the first iteration of Collations, inviting a gathering of writers and performers in the realms of theatre to explore and expand upon the medium of the radio play by staging a series of Visual Radio Plays for a live audience.

Central to this exploration was the invitation to Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist Wole Soyinka to engage in The Centre’s processes. In addition to the live programme of Visual Radio Plays, there was also a HOW | Showing the Making led by Neo Muyanga, and an In Conversation featuring Muyanga, Soyinka, and William Kentridge.

EXPLORING RADIO PLAYS FOR THE STAGE

Following The Centre’s key methodologies of collaborative making, free-spirited engagement with materials, and allowing oneself to be led by image, sound and impulse, this series of original short-form radio plays will be mounted for the stage, using live foley and performance.

Conceptualised and led by Neo Muyanga, On Air: Visual Radio Plays form part of the first iteration of Collations – a short, focussed series of performance-based events around a central theme, method or point of interest. A second iteration of Collations is planned to take place in October 2024, inviting new filmmakers into the process and extending the exploration to the medium of silent films.

For Muyanga, who joined as The Centre’s Impresario in November 2023, the project has two key points of exploration, namely, a dramaturgy of sound, and a contemporary aurality.

“I’m interested in discovering what happens when sound becomes the driving force for what’s on stage,” explains Muyanga. “The other point of interest is the idea of orality or aurality having been described by many theorists as the way that the pre-colonial psyche received information, versus the contemporary post-colonial condition where we take in a lot of our information, visually. So, I’m interested in juxtaposing those two senses and seeing what’s revealed.”

From 4 - 6 April, a new programme of short-form visual radio plays will be staged at The Centre. Photographer Zivanai Matangi.JPG

PRODUCTION FOR THE CENTRE