COLLATION 5 | BETWEEN GHOSTS & SHADOWS
The Centre for the Less Good Idea is excited to announce COLLATION 5 | Between Ghosts & Shadows.
Between Ghosts & Shadows takes place at The Centre from 15 to 17 October 2026, and is a three-day mini-festival featuring exhibitions, installations, live performance, and a pop-up market and live DJ set by Kids Love Jazz.
As its name implies, Collation 5 operates in the marginal space between ghosts and shadows, and sees our artists and collaborators exploring new short-form performances in our upscaled Pepper’s Ghost device, as well as in our Shadow Space.
Through smaller Pepper’s Ghost dioramas, and the use of filmed, projected shadows, we also explore the idea of the perpetual performance, the looped image and silhouette that moves and speaks in the absence of the human performer or audience.
VIEW THE FULL PROGRAMME AND BOOK YOUR SEATS BELOW.
DAY 1 | THURSDAY 15 OCTOBER
THE SHADOW | PROGRAMME 1
Programme 1 of The Shadow merges text, archival footage, live projection art, and shadow puppetry. Programme 1 features Rayi Rayi (circa 1934), Bonani – the dimensions of grief, Trash Concert, and The three-headed beast (circa 1971).
TIME | 18H30
VENUE | THE OTHER SPACE
TICKETS | R150
THE GHOST | PROGRAMME 1
Programme 1 of The Ghost features a variety of short-form solo and ensemble works inside of our upscaled Pepper’s Ghost device. Featuring The Double, In a Jug, Uthando, Mongolian Train Tracks (circa 1912), Falling from a building, flat on the floor, Paper Dancer, Ganges, iingxilimbela ZamaPhepha, and Git Black (circa 1928), this opening programme moves between experimental performance lectures, playful explorations with contemporary film and photography, and collective interrogations of archival film.
TIME | 20H00
VENUE | THE EVENTS SPACE
TICKETS | R150
DAY 2 | FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER
THE SHADOW | PROGRAMME 2
Programme 2 of The Shadow merges archival footage, video projection, and shadow theatre. Programme 2 features Let the deal go down (circa 1928), African Soldiers (circa 1918), IIZWE/I, and Circle Back.
TIME | 19H00
VENUE | THE OTHER SPACE
TICKETS | R150
THE GHOST | PROGRAMME 2
With meditation on play, mortality, dispossession, worldbuilding and more, Programme 2 of The Ghost features The First Supper, Over a Landscape, Surplus Circus, Paper Fire, Oh Thebes! Shrouded in Shame, Ready Player III, Umtwalo (circa 1955), Spinning Instruments, and Casting Bones.
TIME | 20H30
VENUE | THE EVENTS SPACE
TICKETS | R150
DAY 3 | SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER
THE SHADOW | PROGRAMME 3
Programme 3 of The Shadow features select performances from across The Shadow programmes, and merges organic silhouettes and archival footage to produce short-form shadow theatre. Featuring: Rayi Rayi (circa 1934), Trash Concert, Let the deal go down (circa 1928), and African Soldiers (circa 1918).
TIME | 14H00
VENUE | THE OTHER SPACE
TICKETS | R150
GUEST PERFORMANCE | NOAH
Noah is a multi-media dance work exploring the notions of loss, love and letting go. It uses the frame of climate change as an immersion in the moment of crisis, from which there is no return. Conceptualised by PJ Sabbagha and created in collaboration with the cast, Noah is performed by Nicholas Aphane, Athena Mazarakis and Shawn Mothupi. It is a layered conversation between live performing bodies, video projection and shadows that surfaces the personal and collective response to this moment of crisis, to loss and letting go.
Photograph by Val Adamson, courtesy of Jomba!
TIME | 16H30
VENUE | THE OTHER SPACE
TICKETS | R150
THE GHOST | PROGRAMME 3
The closing programme for The Ghost features select performances from across The Ghost programmes, to present experiments in scenography, collective choreography, live projection and more. Featuring: The Double, In a Jug, Banks of the Ganges (circa 1914), Paper Dancer, Git Black (circa 1928), Paper Fire, Umtwalo (circa 1955), Spinning Instruments, Falling from a building, flat on the floor, and The Last Supper.
TIME | 18H00
VENUE | THE EVENTS SPACE
TICKETS | R150
NAROWBI | KIDS LOVE JAZZ
Collation 5 sees The Centre for the Less Good Idea partnering with Narowbi once again for Kids Love Jazz — a courtyard market and live DJ set on Saturday.
TIME | MARKET FROM 12H00 & LIVE DJ SETS FROM 20H00
VENUE | ARTS ON MAIN COURTYARD
TICKETS | AVAILABLE VIA NAROWBI
DAILY | PEPPER’S GHOST DIORAMA EXHIBITION
The Pepper's Ghost is a theatrical illusion technique of Victorian origin that, since 2019, has become one of The Centre's signature performance tools.
This exhibition of Pepper’s Ghost dioramas – featuring Hands by Micca Manganye, Tata by Anathi Conjwa, Amazing Grapes by Bronwyn Lace and and A Letter to Felice by William Kentridge – combines this illusion technique with tabletop and puppet theatre, creating layered, perpetual performances.
Individually, the boxes serve as singular art objects – performative, immersive worlds in miniature. Collectively, and through the Pepper’s Ghost’s otherworldly ability to lean into other realms, they explore enduring and universal themes of memory, physicality, materiality and more.
TIME | OPEN DAILY FROM 12H00
VENUE | THE CENTRE SPACE
TICKETS | FREE (NO BOOKING REQUIRED)
