The inaugural season of The Centre for the Less Good Idea was launched in 2017 with A Defence of the Less Good Idea.
The performance lecture, delivered by The Centre’s co-founder William Kentridge, combines elements of text, live performance, and video projection, and is followed by a musical catastrophe, deliberately drowning out the logic of the performance.
Season 4 of The Centre for the Less Good Idea gave rise to the Collapsed Concert – a lecture delivered through the medium of live musical performance. In Season 10, The Collapsed Concert becomes an opportunity to revisit and experiment with live musical performance.
As a combined performance programme, Collapses & Defences does well to capture the kinds of interests, processes, and collaborative, cross-disciplinary ways of working that have become a hallmark of The Centre.
In part 1 of the Collapsed Concert, film composer and pianist Kyle Shepherd, and percussionist Angelo Moustapha, perform five compositions in collaboration with double bassist Thembinkosi Mavimbela, saxophonist Sisonke Xonti, and percussionist Micca Manganye.
All of these performers have a history of working with The Centre, save for Xonti, who was invited in by the musicians as a guest performer and frequent collaborator. As a result, the performance holds a unique synergy – onstage between the musicians and in the space more broadly – and they manage to fit what feels like a full-length concert into 50 minutes.
Shepherd and Moustapha lead the ensemble through each composition with a deliberate playfulness, allowing each musician to indulge in their respective solos, and leaving room for a few conversational moments between them all. “This is our happy place,” says Shepherd, “We love playing each other’s music and feeding off each other’s improvisations.”
While Moustapha introduces the rhythmic patterns and concepts from his home country of Benin, as well as “Lydia” a song dedicated to his mother, Shepherd brings his own compositions, including “Wassoulou”.
Throughout the performance, Shepherd’s keys serve as a refrain – a place to return to after the high, heady moments, and the looser improvisational sections – as does the steady percussive component delivered by Moustapha. They end the performance with a composition by another prolific South African musician, Afrika Mkhize.
COMPOSERS | Kyle Shepherd & Angelo Moustapha
MUSICIANS | Kyle Shepherd, Angelo Moustapha, Thembinkosi Mavimbela, Sisonke Xonti & Micca Manganye
A performance that emerged from a moment of incidental discovery in the workshops for Season 10, Inkomo functions as a performative interlude in Collapses & Defences.
Featuring performer and vocalist Thulani Zwane and violist Daphne, Inkomo is a short, musical work that sees the two performers beginning off-stage and engaging in a slow procession onstage. Zwane, mimicking the sounds and gestures of herding cattle, pushes Daphne onstage, who plays the viola from a mobile chair. Zwane then repeats the sequence, this time with a bicycle, animated as a cow.
While Zwane performs a choreographic sequence with the bicycle, Daphne continues on the viola, a responsive, improvisational performance that ends with the two moving off stage, and opening up the space for the following performance.
CONCEPTUALISER | Thulani Zwane
PERFORMERS | Daphne & Thulani Zwane
In many ways, A Defence of the Less Good Idea is one of the defining performances of The Centre for the Less Good Idea. Here, Kentridge delivers a performance-based lecture that, in its subject and its form, serves as a window into the processes, strategies, and interests of The Centre.
“Here we are in Season 10,” says Kentridge, backed by a projection of his text-based video work, “not blowing our own trumpet, but rather seeing what instrument we have made.”
As he goes on to outline The Centre’s inception, its progression, and the many ways of making art in the world, Kentridge is accompanied by a team of performers – a dancer, a percussionist, and a musician. These interventions serve both as a performative translation of the lecture, and a disruption of its flow and logic.
Ultimately, the lecture is drowned out by a choral swell, segueing into the final performance of the programme.
CONCEPTUALISER | William Kentridge
PERFORMERS | Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Angelo Moustapha, Bronwyn Lace, Duduza Serenade & Daphne
VIDEO EDITOR | Joshua Trappler
With its opening moments serving as the disruption of the preceding performance, Part 2 of the Collapsed Concert goes on to become a resounding choral performance of its own.
Here, the Duduza Serenade Choir, who first collaborated with The Centre on its 9th Season in 2022, are led by musicians and composers Sbusiso Shozi, Tshepang Mofokeng, Thabo Gwadiso, and choir director Hamilton Motloung.
A series of compositions, some drawn from the rich South African choral tradition and others composed by Shozi, are performed on stage and throughout the venue, with choir members weaving their way behind, between and alongside the crowd.
It is an immersive, engaging, and ultimately collaborative performance to end the Season’s opening programme.
COMPOSERS | Sbusiso Shozi, Tshepang Mofokeng & Thabo Gwadiso
PERCUSSIONIST | Micca Manganye
CHOIR | Duduza Serenade: Hamilton Motloung (Choir Director), Ntando Jileka, Goodman Nkosi, Palesa Makopo, Sphiwe Mnyakeni, Jacob Modisenyane, Gift Mkaza, Katleho Success Ntja, Nkululeko Mahlaba, Mduduzi Sindane, Katleho Mtembu, Lerato Mahlangu, Lerato Khoza, Tshepiso Pheko, Nonhlanhla Mvubu, Motlalepula Mohapeloa, Londiwe Radebe, Mpho Mokoena, Joyce Mashinini, Sbongile Motaung, Swazi Mtshali, Nthabiseng Sithole, Amohelang Mahloko, Lerato Kekana, Mammela Moremoholo, Bafana Mavimbela, Khulekani Nxumalo, Happy Ntuli, Thabiso Mokoena, Nomfundo Maleka, Tshepo Shabalala, Lerato Koele, Phumlani Tshabalala, Thoko Chauke, Lebogang Blos, Nomasonto Nhlapo, Mastorie Elizabeth Sebulele, Lerato Dibetso, Lethabo Rams & Hope Mabena
— David Mann
PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi