The inaugural season of the Centre for the Less Good Idea was launched in 2017 with a lecture performance by its founder William Kentridge. He presented The Defence of the Less Good Idea which combined elements of Kurt Schwi]ers’s Ursonate in conjunction with a lecture and interactive video installation followed by a musical catastrophe that deliberately drowned out the logic and introduced the Blind Mass Orchestra, a nine person, 40 minute piece inspired by the long tradition of creating process scores by composers such as John Cage, Steve Reich and Alvin Lucier.
“Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu,
pögiff,
kwii Ee.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooo…
…often when working on a project you start with the good idea. There is the excitement of this good idea and all the forces are gathered to realize it: the drawing, film, theatre scene, concert. Then the work begins in the studio or on the stage, and as the work begins, the certainty of the good idea starts to waiver. Its logic, which was very clear when written down, begins to falter when put to the test and what starts to emerge
are fragments at the edge. At the periphery are strange combinations; someone drumming in one corner of the room and a gesture of an actor slumped over a chair waiting to perform in another corner suddenly come together — what holds us in these moments? It is always a recognition, seeing something we understand, but we hadn’t realized we already knew.”
Transcribed extract from Defence of the Less Good Idea, Season 1 of the Centre for the Less Good Idea, March 2017.
The amusing and grammatically awkward Tswana proverb: “If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor,” from the great Sol T. Plaatje, Sechuana Proverbs, (1916). A book containing 732 Setswana proverbs from the Tswana people of
Southern Africa, their translations and their 'European equivalents', goes a long way to describing our interests at the Centre and what we see as ideal artistic processes. Often, you start with a good idea. It seems crystal clear at first, but when you take it off the
proverbial drawing board, cracks and fissures emerge, and they cannot be ignored. It is the process of following the secondary ideas, those ‘less good ideas’ coined to address the first idea’s cracks, that the Centre nurtures, arguing that in the act of playing with an idea, you can recognize those things you didn’t know in advance but knew somewhere inside of you.
Director and performer | William Kentridge
Musical interruption by The Blind Mass Orchestra
Composer | João Renato Orecchia Zúñig (Chole Kulcha Harp, analogue synthesizer, electronics)
Musicians | Thandi Ntul (piano), Tlale Makhen (percussion, voice), Ann Masina (voice), Tsepo Pooe (cello), Waldo Luc Alexander (electric violin), Mpumelelo Mcata (electric guitar), Tshepang Ramob (electronic drums), Dan Selsic (trombone, EWI electronic wind instrument), Janus Fouché (theremin, artificial intelligence programming)
Cinematographer | Duško Marović
Projected Film Editor | Žana Marović
Editor | Žana Marović
Sound Engineer | SoulFire Studio
Lighting Engineer | Wesley France
Stage Managers | Dimakatso Motholo and Emil Lars
When João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga was invited by Animateur Bronwyn Lace to collaborate in Season 1, he immediately began to talk about a mad orchestra. As the collaborative process of making began in meetings and workshops the Blind Mass Orchestra took shape.
In João's words:
“What you will hear is the result of a process. This follows a long tradition of process scores by composers such as John Cage, Steve Reich, Alvin Lucier and many others.
Process scores range from thoroughly abstract to exactingly concrete. What they have in common is that they result from the setting up of experiments with a set of guidelines or rules, then making decisions and alterations in order to guide the outcome in a certain direction.
The scores presented here sit at different points on the scale from abstract to concrete, and as pleased as I am with the results, it's the process that I find most exciting and interesting. The scores do not change but the resulting music changes with each performance, as an unfolding movement, a collaboration of many parts that make up one mass. This mass is only given and can only see a part of the path that is laid out in front of it, while a part remains hidden in order to discover what could be.”
Composer | João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga
Musicians| João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga (Chloe Kulcha Harp, Analogue Synthesizer, Electronics), Thandi Ntuli (Piano), Tlale Makhene (Percussion, Voice), Ann Masina (Voice), Tsepo Pooe (Cello), Waldo Alexander (Violin), Mpumelelo Mcata (Guitar), Tshepang Ramoba (Electronic Drums, Voice), Dan Selsick (Trombone, EWI (electronic wind instrument) & Janus Fouché (Theremin, Artificial Intelligence Programmer)
Artist | William Kentridge (drawings and instructions to the orchestra)
Cinematographer | Duško Marović
Projected Film Editor | Žana Marović
Editor | Žana Marović
Sound Engineer | SoulFire Studio
Lighting Engineer | Wesley France
Stage Managers | Lungelo Winnet Shange
Requiem Request, a piece conceptualized by choreographer and core-curator of Season 1 Gregory Maqoma in collaboration with isicathamiya choir, Phuphuma Love Minus directed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and contemporary dancers Thulani Alfred Chauke and Xolisile Bongwana.
Isicathamiya is a harmony based type of singing, developed by migrant Zulu communities, which can be best compared to a cappella. Isicathamiya choirs are traditionally all male. Its roots reach back before the turn of the 20th century, when numerous men left the homelands in order to search for work in the mines close to the cities. Isicathamiya would have merged from a combination of Blackface minstrel inspired songs from the United Kingdom and the United States, and Zulu traditional music. Maqoma contrasts this traditional singing with Ravels Bolero.
In Maqoma’s words: “I decided to dig in the music of Ravel’s Bolero for I felt strongly that the music was very close to the structure and the sense of infinity of the music that is created in the traditional African setting; where there is a sense of sitting around a fire or dancing around a fire. The music also gave me the sense of a requiem, a lament. I now wanted to bring it into the context of African traditional music and to use voices in order to create this requiem. I further developed this idea in Cion; Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero.”
Choreographer | Gregory Maqoma
Dancers| Thulani Alfred Chauke and Xolisile Bongwana
Choir Director | Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Choir | Phuphuma Love Minus
Cinematographer | Duško Marović
Photographer | Stella Olivier
Editor | Žana Marović
Sound Engineer | SoulFire Studio
Lighting Engineer | Wesley France
Stage Manager | Lungelo Winnet Shange
Lebogang Mashile, one of core-curators of Season 1 invited a number of contemporary poets to perform experimental and short works within the At The Centre programme. Here we see Mutinta Simelane perform her poem ‘Battleground’ in collaboration with a typist who attempted to keep pace and live type the words whilst accepting and celebrating the meaning that comes with the mistake and typo.
An extract from the poem: “Looking straight into my eyes
“I can’t believe I bore you”
Words from decades ago that still stop the earth’s rotation when I recall them
Call it being human
Call it a reaction to my attitude
But nothing, nothing should ever hear of the regret of its creation”
Poet | Mutinta Simelane
Cinematographer | Duško Marović
Photographer | Stella Olivier
Editor | Žana Marović
Sound Engineer | SoulFire Studio
Lighting Engineer | Wesley France
Stage Manager | Lungelo Winnet Shange
Here we see Mutle Mothibe perform his poem ‘Listening For Indigo’ in collaboration with a dancer/choreographer Thandazile Sonia Radebe.
An extract from the poem “ The second she would slip I would bring her back to life by telling her that
The constellation you were born under is that of nymphs.
When you move my inner world shakes.
For the beauty you generate sends tingling shocks to his shoulders and limbs.
Atlas fallen titan shakes his shoulders and the earth quakes .
So please keep dancing!”
Poet | Mutle Mothibe
Dancer | Thandazile Sonia Radebe
Cinematographer | Duško Marović
Photographer | Stella Olivier
Editor | Žana Marović
Sound Engineer | SoulFire Studio
Lighting Engineer | Wesley France
Stage Manager | Lungelo Winnet Shange
Here we see Mutle Mothibe perform his poem ‘Psalms & Palms’ whilst attempting to do a handstand.
An extract from the poem: “Her scent caught me by the toes and had my tongue stumbling over words trying to sum ways…
In which my spirit orbits her temple on Sundays.
Tell them she is my prayer mat.
My flaws unfold before her feet
My stubborn logic: The breath.
Her lucid emotions: The movement.
We are a meeting of Asanas.”
Poet | Mutle Mothibe
Cinematographer | Duško Marović
Photographer | Stella Olivier
Editor | Žana Marović
Sound Engineer | SoulFire Studio
Lighting Engineer | Wesley France
Stage Manager | Lungelo Winnet Shange
Here we see Masai Dabula perform his poem ‘Trapped in the Township’ whilst cleaning the stage. Dabula speaks about being raised by struggle veterans and as a result seeing art as a weapon, a mean to interrogate and activate.
Poet | Masai Dabula
Cinematographer | Duško Marović
Photographer | Stella Olivier
Editor | Žana Marović
Sound Engineer | SoulFire Studio
Lighting Engineer | Wesley France
Stage Manager | Lungelo Winnet Shange