SEASON 3 | DESERT | THE FILM

In April 2018 The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3.

One of the core curators for the season was Lindiwe Matshikiza. In the course of the season Lindiwe’s play DESERT was manifest as both a theatre piece and a film by Boitumelo Moroka.

SEASON 3 | DESERT GUESTS | VIDEO EXCERPT

In April 2018 The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3.

We were privileged to have several international guest artists jon us for the season.

From Madagascar, Temandrota & Naty Kaly. Supported by an ANT Mobility Grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Thanks to Meghan Judge for initiating to collaboration via the collective Africa|Nosy|Art|Echange (ANAE).

From Mexico, Javier Velázquez Cabrero. Supported by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) through the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE), in the framework of the Mobility grants) and The Nirox Foundation.

From Scotland, Mele Broomes, invited by core curator Lindiwe Matshikiza.

These guests collaborated with Johannesburg based Season 3 artists to create prelude pieces to DESERT.

The programme was as follows:

Temandrota & Naty Kaly
LIA AN' EFITSE
https://vimeo.com/272772775
https://vimeo.com/272911678

Mele Broomes and Javier Velázquez Cabrero
UNTITLED
https://vimeo.com/272771061

and

João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga
PROCESS SCORES with Danger Gevaar Ingozi (Chad
Cordeiro & Nathaniel Sheppard III), Simnikiwe
Buhlungu, Temandrota, Naty Kaly, Mele Broomes,
Gretchen Blegen, Andrei van Wyk aka Healer Oran and
Lindiwe Matshikiza
https://vimeo.com/272768289

SEASON 3 | PUBLIC HEARING | Keleketla! Library | VIDEO EXCERPT

In April 2018 The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3.

https://vimeo.com/272338868

WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE
curated by Anne Historical and Bhavisha Panchia

PUBLIC HEARING by Malose Kadromatt Malahlela of Keleketla! Library
On Saturday 14 April a satellite performance took place at The Drill Hall | 16 Twist Street.

Members of Committee Present | Malose Malahlela (co-founder Keleketla! Library), Rangoato Hlasane (co-founder Keleketla! Library) and Joseph Gaylard (Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, formerly Joubert Park Project co-organiser). Contributions by Eric Itzkin (Deputy Director Immovable Heritage), Nicolette Pingo (Johannesburg Development Agency) and Khwezi Gule (curator-in-chief JAG).

With a site-specific performance by @_ntsoana

LIVE STREAMING | @content.bar
CINEMATOGRAPHY | Boitumelo Moroka
EDITING | Noah Cohen
SOUND | SoulFire Studios and Contentbar

SEASON 3 | THIS SONG IS FOR... | Gabrielle Goliath | VIDEO EXCERPT

In April The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3.

https://vimeo.com/271122082

WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE
curated by Anne Historical and Bhavisha Panchia

Gabrielle Goliath
THIS SONG IS FOR…
collaborator DJ Ready D

CINEMATOGRAPHY | Boitumelo Moroka
EDITING | Noah Cohen
SOUND | SoulFire Studios

SEASON 3 | MISSED TIME PIECES | ENSEMBLE | VIDEO EXCERPT

In April 2018 The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3.

https://vimeo.com/270630215

This extract is of WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE
by Bettina Malcomess and Bhavisha Panchia

Joining Room
MISSED TIME PIECES

PERFORMERS | Gretchen Blegen, Ntsoana Contemporary Dance Theatre, Dion Monti, Andrei Van Wyk aka Healer Oran, Lebohang Kganye, Danger Gevaar Ingozi, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Anne Historical and Abri de Swardt

CINEMATOGRAPHY | Boitumelo Moroka
EDITING | Noah Cohen
SOUND | SoulFire Studios

SEASON 3 | DESERT | PERFORMANCE | VIDEO EXCERPT

In April 2018 The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3.

https://vimeo.com/270094813

SEASON 3 | 11 April performances | Video Excerpt

In April 2018 The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3 .

https://vimeo.com/268541473

This extract is from WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE by Bettina Malcomess and Bhavisha Panchia

11 April 2018

Lebohang Kganye
THE MECHANICS OF MEMORY
collaborator Lesedi Zondo

Andrei Van Wyk aka Healer Oran with Dustin Van Wyk
FURNISHED REDUNDANCIES FOR GUITAR AND THINGS
Ntsoana Contemporary Dance Theatre (Sello Pesa,
Humphrey Maleka, Brian Mtembu) ‘UNPACK’ GO PAKA LE GO PAKOLLA
Anne Historical
NEGLECT(
LIGHTING DESIGNER | Gretchen Blegen

SEASON 3 | 12 April performances | Video Excerpt

In April 2018 The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Season 3.

https://vimeo.com/269149490

This extract is from WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE
by Bettina Malcomess and Bhavisha Panchia

12 April 2018
Abri de Swardt
WORDS BENEATH BRIDGES
WRITTEN BY | Abri de Swardt
PERFORMERS | Quinton Manning and Danie Putter
LIGHTING DESIGN | by Gretchen Blegen
SOUND INTERVENTION | Dion Monti

CINEMATOGRAPHER | Boitumelo Moroka
EDITING | Noah Cohen
SOUND | SoulFire Studios

Countdown to Season 3 | 1/6

Each performance of Desert is preceded by short performances by |
Temandrota & Naty Kaly
LIA AN' EFITSE

Mele Broomes and Javier Velázquez Cabrero
UNTITLED

and

João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga
PROCESS SCORES with Danger Gevaar Ingozi (Chad
Cordeiro & Nathaniel Sheppard III), Simnikiwe
Buhlungu, Temandrota, Naty Kaly, Mele Broomes,
Gretchen Blegen, Andrei van Wyk aka Healer Oran and
Lindiwe Matshikiza

DESERT
WRITTEN BY | Lindiwe Matshikiza
DIRECTOR | Mwenya Kabwe
PERFORMERS | Mncedisi Shabangu, Mele Broomes and Lindiwe Matshikiza
CINEMATOGRAPHY | Boitumelo Moroka
VISUAL LANDSCAPER | Alexia Webster
SHADOW PLAY AND ANIMATOR | Meghan Judge
SOUND DESIGNER AND MUSICAL COMPOSER | João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga with Temandrota and Naty Kaly
INSTALLATION AND COSTUMES CREATOR AND DESIGNER | Noluthando Lobese
ASSISTANT SET DESIGNER AND MINIATURE MAKER | Mmakhotso Lamola
LIGHTING DESIGNER | Mandla Mtshali
STAGE MANAGER | Cammie Behrens

(Temandrota & Naty Kaly are supported by an ANT Mobility Grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

(Javier Velázquez Cabrero is supported by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) through the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE), in the framework of the Mobility grants) and The Nirox Foundation

Countdown to Season 3 | 2/6

In it’s 3rd Season The Centre for the Less Good Idea is proud to be working with Malose Kadromatt Malahlela of Keleketla! Library through Curators Bhavisha Panchia (Nothing To Commit Records) and Bettina Malcomess / Anne Historical (the Joining Room)

On Saturday 14 April a Season 3 satellite performance called PUBLIC HEARING will take place.

The Drill Hall | 16 Twist Street

PUBLIC HEARING is a performance of memory against erasure and accountability, in which people (rather than property itself) are implicated in issues having to do with land, rent and the asymmetry in how culture is produced, consumed and memorialised in a country such as South Africa.

PUBLIC HEARING forms part of Malose Malahlela’s contribution to The Centre for the Less Good Idea Season 3, itself part of Keleketla!’s 10 year reflection, embedded within that process is the need to create transparency and highlight the narrative around the Drill Hall issue in relation to Keleketla!’s exile from the site.

Members of Committee Present: Malose Malahlela (co-founder Keleketla! Library), Rangoato Hlasane (co-founder Keleketla! Library) and Joseph Gaylard (Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, formerly Joubert Park Project co-organiser). Contributions by Eric Itzkin (Deputy Director Immovable Heritage), Nicolette Pingo (Johannesburg Development Agency) and Khwezi Gule ( curator-in-chief JAG)

Drill Hall
14 April 2018 from 8pm - 10pm. Arranged transport will begin leaving from Arts on Main from 7pm.
Admission is free, but booking is essential on www.lessgoodidea.com

If you would like to get transported from Arts on Main and back, please book for this event to pre pay for transport. Transport costs from Arts on Main, Maboneng to The Drill Hall and back again is R60/person

EDITING | Noah Cohen
MUSIC FOR PUBLIC HEARING | Thathi Cover Okestra
VOICE | Lynn Carneson

PUBLIC HEARING

In it’s 3rd Season The Centre for the Less Good Idea is proud to be working with Malose Kadromatt Malahlela of Keleketla! Library through Curators Bhavisha Panchia (Nothing To Commit Records) and Bettina Malcomess / Anne Historical (the Joining Room)

On Saturday 14 April a Season 3 satellite performance called PUBLIC HEARING will take place.

The Drill Hall | 16 Twist Street

PUBLIC HEARING is a performance of memory against erasure and accountability, in which people (rather than property itself) are implicated in issues having to do with land, rent and the asymmetry in how culture is produced, consumed and memorialised in a country such as South Africa.

PUBLIC HEARING forms part of Malose Malahlela’s contribution to The Centre for the Less Good Idea Season 3, itself part of Keleketla!’s 10 year reflection, embedded within that process is the need to create transparency and highlight the narrative around the Drill Hall issue in relation to Keleketla!’s exile from the site.

Members of Committee Present: Malose Malahlela (co-founder Keleketla! Library), Rangoato Hlasane (co-founder Keleketla! Library) and Joseph Gaylard (Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, formerly Joubert Park Project co-organiser). Contributions by Eric Itzkin (Deputy Director Immovable Heritage), Nicolette Pingo (Johannesburg Development Agency) and Khwezi Gule ( curator-in-chief JAG)

Drill Hall
14 April 2018 from 8pm - 10pm. Arranged transport will begin leaving from Arts on Main from 7pm.
Admission is free, but booking is essential on www.lessgoodidea.com

If you would like to get transported from Arts on Main and back, please book for this event to pre pay for transport. Transport costs from Arts on Main, Maboneng to The Drill Hall and back again is R60/person

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Desert

Desert | the making of through the lens

a script by Lindiwe Matshikiza | Don Key Child

[Desert contains extracts of work by John Matshikiza, Harold Courlander's A Treasury of African Folklore and Filipa Domingues (@checkmyplants)]

Temandrota & Naty Kaly are supported by an ANT Mobility Grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Countdown to Season 3 | 3/6

WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE
by Bettina Malcomess and Bhavisha Panchia

booking online at www.lessgoodidea.com

14 April 2018
Andrei Van Wyk aka Healer Oran with Dustin Van Wyk
FURNISHED REDUNDANCIES FOR GUITAR
AND THINGS | running time 45min
Danger Gevaar Ingozi and Simnikiwe Buhlungu
STATE PROOF: THE PEOPLES’ BABEL |
running time 30min
Malose Malahlela (Keleketla! Library)

PUBLIC HEARING
with Rangoato Hlasane
and Eric Itzkin, Nicolette Pingo, Khwezi Gule and Joseph Gaylard
sound by Gavan Eckhart

PUBLIC HEARING will be live streamed on www.lessgoodidea.com from The Drill Hall from 8pm on Saturday 14 April

CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING | Noah Cohen
SOUND | Joining Room Ensemble

STAR MAP

A star map of all artists involved in Season 3

Countdown to Season 3 | 4/6

WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE
by Season 3 curators Bettina Malcomess and Bhavisha Panchia

Joining Room
MISSED TIME PIECES | running time 1hr
PERFORMERS | Gretchen Blegen, Ntsoana Contemporary Dance Theatre, Dion Monti, Andrei Van, Wyk aka Healer Oran, Lebohang Kganye, Danger Gevaar Ingozi, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Anne Historical, Malose Malahlela, and Abri de Swardt

Gabrielle Goliath | 21:30 - 22:30
THIS SONG IS FOR… | Running time 1hr
Collaborator DJ Ready D

CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING | Noah Cohen
PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi
SOUND | SoulFire Studio

Countdown to Season 3 | 5/6

WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE
by Bettina Malcomess and Bhavisha Panchia

Words Beneath Bridges departs from the limits of journalism in documenting queer experiences in order to register the agency of youth in unravelling white supremacy and annexation of land. De Swardt structures the work in four sequences as “sunstrokes of voice”, searing, exhaustive articulations in which techniques of collage - such as the cut, the inlay and occlusion - are transposed to performance.

LOST LOVER 1. Direction and emergence explores the distorted image of the Lost Lover and the constant re-adaptation of perfect potential through movement, music, video and light.

Anne Historical
NEGLECT( | running time 45min
LIGHTING DESIGNER | Gretchen Blegen

Anne Historical plays the role of a technician attempting to fix an analogue Artificial Intelligence constructed out of magnetic tape loops and analogue projectors, with a glitch: this AI suffers from Neglect. Neurological damage to one of the cortical hemisphere's affects one's ability to recognise objects, sounds, people located on the left or right sphere of perception. The analogue AI becomes a metaphor for our inattention, for the half we neglect.

CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING | Noah Cohen
PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi
SOUND | Soul Fire Studio

Countdown to Season 3 | 6/6

WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE

WEDNESDAY 11 April 2018 | 20:30 - 22:15

Lebohang Kganye
THE MECHANICS OF MEMORY | running time 15min
COLLABORATOR | Lesedi Zondo

Andrei Van Wyk aka Healer Oran with Dustin Van Wyk
FURNISHED REDUNDANCIES FOR GUITAR AND THINGS | running time 45min

Ntsoana Contemporary Dance Theatre (Sello Pesa,
Humphrey Maleka, Brian Mtembu) ‘UNPACK’ GO PAKA LE GO PAKOLLA | running time 15min

Anne Historical
NEGLECT( | running time 45min
LIGHTING DESIGNER | Gretchen Blegen

WRITING FOR THE EAR, WRITING FOR THE EYE brings together a group of artistic practitioners, musicians and performers to produce a series of works that focuses on the interplay between sonic, visual and gestural forms. This has resulted in a process driven by improvisation, and acts of listening. A key element is the construction of a suspended, staging device that becomes an agent and a mechanism that we respond to, and that also determines encounters and conversations between artists. This is a continually transforming and living space in which different practices can co-exist ; here light becomes image, sound becomes space. The project also expands beyond the Centre into the city for a performance by Keleketla! Library at the Drill Hall in Johannesburg.

Curators Bhavisha Panchia and Bettina Malcomess under their respective platforms, Nothing To Commit Records and the Joining Room, worked with Gabrielle Goliath, Danger Gevaar Ingozi (Chad Cordeiro & Nathaniel Sheppard), Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Andrei van Wyk (Healer Oran), Abri de Swardt, Lebohang Kganye, Dion Monti, Ntsoana Dance Company (Sello Pesa, Humphrey Maleka, Brian Mtembu), Gretchen Blegen and Malose Malahlela. The process has resulted in a series of experimental, intermedial and durational independent and collective works, including an improvised ensemble piece called Missed-time pieces. writing for the eye, writing for the ear stages intimate encounters with multiple pasts and presents as mediated through technologies of transmission and reproduction, from the digital to the analogue.

A detailed performance schedule is available on the bookings page of the site. Audiences are encouraged to attend one or more of the evening’s performances as each one will be unique.

DESERT | the making of | through the lens

Desert | the making of through the lens
a script by Lindiwe Matshikiza | Don Key Child

[Desert contains extracts of work by John Matshikiza, Harold Courlander's A Treasury of African Folklore and Filipa Domingues (@checkmyplants)]

Temandrota & Naty Kaly are supported by an ANT Mobility Grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Lebohang Kganye and Gabrielle Goliath

See visual artists Lebohang Kganye and Gabrielle Goliath in process for Season 3 at The Centre

Invited by curators Anne Historical and @Bhavisha Panchia | writing for the eye / writing for the ear

Lebohang Kganye (b. 1990, Katlehong) is an artist living and working in Johannesburg. Kganye received her introduction to photography at the Market Photo Workshop in 2009 and completed the Advanced Photography Programme in 2011. She also completed her Fine Arts studies at the University of Johannesburg in 2016 and forms a new generation of contemporary South African photographers.

Although primarily a photographer, Kganye’s photography often incorporates her interest in sculpture and performance. Over the past six years she has participated in photography masterclasses and group exhibitions locally and internationally. Kganye was the recipient of the Tierney Fellowship Award in 2012, leading to her exhibition Ke Lefa Laka. She created an animation from the series, which was launched on Mandela Day 2014 in Scotland, entitled Pied Piper’s Voyage. Kganye was then selected as the Featured Artist for the 17th Business and Arts South Africa Awards in 2014. She was also awarded the Jury Prize at the Bamako Encounters Biennale of African Photography in 2015 and the recipient of the CAP Prize 2016 in Basel. Kganye recently received the coveted award for the Sasol New Signatures Competition 2017, leading to a solo show in a year. Kganye’s work forms part of several private and public collections, most notably the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pennsylvania and the Walther Collection in Ulm.

Gabrielle Goliath (b. 1983, Kimberley) is a multidisciplinary artist known for her conceptually distilled and sensitive negotiations of complex social concerns, particularly in relation to situations of gendered and sexualised violence. She is currently working on a number of long-term performance projects, including her Elegy series, initiated in 2015. Elegy performances have been staged throughout South Africa and internationally, with each iteration marking the absent presence of a specific woman, or LGBTQI+ individual raped and killed in South Africa. Goliath is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Creative Arts (UCT), and holds a Master’s degree in Fine Art, University of the Witwatersrand (with distinction). Drawing on music’s capacity to both commemorate and evoke nostalgic memory, her current research aims to explore the possibilities and ethical demands of ‘performing’ and making ‘shareable’ traumatic recall, specifically the lived and perpetually relived trauma of rape survivors in South Africa. As an artist, she has exhibited widely, and was recently selected to participate in the 11 th Bamako Encounters Biennale (2017), Mali, where she was awarded the Institut Français, Afrique en Créations Prize (Jury Prize) for her 5-channel video installation Personal Accounts.
Her work features in numerous public and private collections, including the Iziko South African National Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery and Wits Art Museum.

CINEMATOGRAPHERS | Kutlwano Makgalemele & Chris Soal
PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi
SOUND | Soul Fire Studio
MUSIC | Dorothy Ashby
EDITOR | Noah Cohen

Gretchen Blegen and Dion Monti

The Centre is excited to have Gretchen Blegen and Dion Monti join us for Season 3

Invited by curators Anne Historical and Bhavisha Panchia

WRITING FOR THE EYE / WRITING FOR THE EAR

Gretchen Blegen is an interdisciplinary artist navigating the boundaries of conglomeration: space, light, sound, text, collage, and image. an amalgam. these boundaries are continually explored in an ongoing book practice as well as in the theatrical realm of dance, movement, and performance.

Parallel to her own work and of equal importance is her involvement in collective structures supporting artistic thought and spaces of exchange. some of these (still) existing spaces are ausland - an artistic venue and residency space; SissiFM - a queer/feminist radio show on Reboot FM; Radio F* - live radio broadcasts on PI Community Radio; Vierte Welt - a political/discourse based theater.

Johannesburg-based Dion Monti is an artist and producer. With a background in sound design and experimental composition he has worked with artists and filmmakers lAyten Mutlu Saray, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum to name a few, a on Art Installations, films and performances. Over the past 4 Years, Dion has also been moving into music, always keeping the ‘sound’ of his production central and the approach to composition often experimental and conceptual. He performs with hardware synths and sequencers but also DJ’s. Since 2016 he has been creating a live show and music with Nonku Phiri, which so far has taken them on an Asian tour and to shows in the USA, Mozambique Croatia, Switzerland and the UK. Other than in Production, Dion Monti is also very involved in work with Johannesburgs experimental imprint, ‘Mushroom Hour - Half Hour’ where he regularly contributes with mix-down and co-production work.

Andrei Van Wyk and Abri de Swardt

Andrei Van Wyk and Abri de Swardt are two of the artists invited by curators Anne Historical and Bhavisha Panchia to produce new work for Joining Room | Nothing to Commit Records.

Andrei van Wyk is a musician and sound artist with a focus on experimental composition, muzak and the relations between sound, noise and music within the context of human experience. Through sound-collage, plunderphonics and free improvisation, van Wyk seeks to recreate and amplify significant aspects within basic human interaction and experience such as humour, boredom and loss among others. He performs in various other projects including in the Experimental Jazz band The Wretched alongside drummer Tumi Mogorosi and vocalist Gabisile Motuba and as a solo artist with his industrial-noise project Healer Oran.

Abri de Swardt is an artist and writer who works across video, photography, costume, sound, sculpture, and performance through what he calls “an aesthetics of drowning” and “the sunstroke of voice”, terms pointing to the seething, theatrical and exhaustive limits of images as interpellations. He is concerned with the difficult visibility and audibility of queer and Southern subjects as proxies of what Michael Taussig terms “effervescent”, “no sooner emerged than” disappearing, the “exact opposite…of monuments”. De Swardt holds a MFA in Fine Art with distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has taught at Stellenbosch University and the Wits School of the Arts, University of the Witwatersrand. He has held solo exhibitions at White Cubicle, London (2015); MOTInternational Projects, London (2013); and blank projects, Cape Town (2011), and has a forthcoming solo exhibition with POOL, Johannesburg (2018).

Recently his work has been focused on local microcosms of tertiary education and viniculture as persistent markers of annexation of land in order to address injustices of recognition more broadly, and the agency of queer youth more specifically, through methods of disorientation and disidentification. This focus has informed him working during 2017 for South African History Online as a researcher, and for 'Piekniek by Mpande née Dingaan'', (dir. Wolf Britz), an Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa follow-up of the Voëlvry Movement protest cabaret 'Piekniek by Dingaan' (1988), as a projection scenographer, as well as his writings published in Adjective magazine.

Named one of the inaugural Young African Artists by Wanted Magazine in 2011, De Swardt was also selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2015, and shortlisted for The Rome Fellowship in Contemporary Art (2016).

DESERT | THE CAST

Meet the outstanding artists performing Lindiwe Matshikiza 's DESERT for Season 3

Lindiwe is one of 3 core curators of Season 3, as a performer, director and writer she uses her background in theatre-making as a base from which to approach work that is predominantly collaborative and cross-disciplinary.

For Season 3 she has gathered a group of artists working in various disciplines to explore an experimental treatment of Desert, a piece originally written as a play.

Mncedisi Shabangu is an artist of critical acclaim in local theatre, he marks his debut at the Centre in this performance of DESERT. Mncedisi has collaborated with many of the countries greats, including Robyn Orlin, Lara Foot, James Ngcobo, Malcom Purkey, Aubrey Sekhabi, Paul Grootboom, Vice Monageng, Prince Lamla and William Kentridge.

Choreographer extraordinaire, Mele Broomes is based in Glasgow and the Centre is honoured to have her join us for this season. Mele's work experiments with the extremities of movement and voice, she is the Artistic Director of Various Dance Artists (V/DA) and Co-Founder/Lead Artists of Project X. Mele has performed nationally and internationally and has choreographed works that has been presented across the UK.

DESERT | THE MAKERS

Meet the artist collaborators turning Lindiwe Matshikiza 's DESERT in to reality

Mwenya Kabwe - a maker of theatre and performance, student of revolutionary mothering and lover of collaborative live art practices. She is a performer, writer and educator with migrant tendencies.

Mmakhotso Lamola - is an architect and explorative artist who is concerned with the “in between” spaces of creative disciplines where she feels her work should exist. Her current work focuses on performance art, interactive architecture and model building. As an architect who navigates the city and reads complex layerings of urban fabric, she is interested in how those layers of socio-politics, identity and everyday mundanity collide into an urban landscape.

Meghan Judge - is a multimedia artist and co-founder of the Africa|Nosy Art Exchange (ANAE) Meghan Judge has been working both as an artist and an arts organiser in the Indian Ocean, Southern and Eastern Africa and China. Her artwork includes personal as well as collaborative explorations such as film, sonic arts and light as well as tactile, site-specific interactions with the social.

As an organiser, Judge works collectivy with ANAE members (Madagascar/South Africa). Together, they find connections between artists and support the emergence of artist-lead networks through the Festival d'Art Urbain in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Here, ANAE operates between islands and countries within close proximity to the festival (so far Comores, Reunion, Seychelles, Zambia, Kenya, DR Congo, Benin, Zimbabwe and South Africa) locating artists to partake in artistic exchange with Malagasy artists. ANAE works against the patterns and the divides set up by colonial networks that are still in place and opens up links into current networks that are strengthening across Africa and within the Indian Ocean.

João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga is a Peruvian Italian Brooklyn-born Johannesburg based artist, composer and maker of physical and virtual “things” that play with reality by deconstructing it, shifting expectations of standard uses or purposes of objects and processes. Through experimentation and improvisation Orecchia explores sound’s connective capacities through both its physical properties and material preconscious properties, seeking a balance between computer technology, hand-made electronics and real world sounds like the human voice, field recordings and traditional musical instruments. Orecchia’s background as a self-taught musician is in improvised performance and composition for video art, film and theatre. His practice extends to public performance and intervention and his recently completed master’s degree in Digital Arts brought a shift towards a more spatial and physical approach to composition, where sound, vibration, space, music and audience become connected in experience.

Boitumelo Moroka - is a Cinematographer, Director of Photography, Photographer and Fictional Writer. Born in Lusaka Zambia, Boitumelo currently lives and works in South Africa. She is a film maker who Graduated from AFTDA with a degree in Film and an Honours Degree in Cinematography.

Thando Lobese Moropa - armed with a fashion design background and mentored into maturity by set designer Nadya Cohen, Noluthando Lobese Moropa has been nominated for several awards and has travelled the world with her designs for theatre under a range of directors, including Lesedi Job, James Ngcobo, Vanessa Cooke and others. She’s had the opportunity of studying under Sweden’s theatre maestro Charlie Koroly and she’s enabled her theatre design background to digress into the visual arts. She was one of the artists on JHB Massive a project showcased at the street festival in Accra, Ghana 2015.

Alexia Webster - is a Johannesburg born documentary photographer and visual artist currently based in Cape Town. From creating family portrait studios in spaces of displacement to documenting youth culture movements, her work explores dislocation, identity and intimacy, primarily across the African continent. She has received a number of awards including the Artraker Award for Art in Conflict, the POPCAP award for Contemporary African Photography and the Frank Arisman Scholarship at the International Centre of Photography in New York City. Her photographs and video work have been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, WIRED, and Time magazine amongst others.

Danger Gevaar Ingozi | Simnikiwe Buhlungu | Keleketla! Library

In this video we feature Danger Gevaar Ingozi Studio, Simnikiwe Buhlungu and Malose Kadromatt Malahlela from Keleketla! Library

Chad Cordeiro is an artist who works predominantly in linocut and collage. Cordeiro’s interests lie in print culture and practices in South Africa, and the ways in which they filter into other mediums and methods of producing, publishing and dissemination. Based in Johannesburg, he earned his Bachelor of the Arts in Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2015. He currently works as a collaborative and editioning printer at David Krut Projects. Together with Nathaniel Sheppard, he is the co-founder the printmaking collective Danger Gevaar Ingozi Studio (DGI). DGI Studio explores structures of power embedded within the contemporary art world, specifically relationships between the spectator, artist, technician and historian. An important part of their collaborative practice is leveled at the historical and cultural conditioning of Africa, the critique of institutional power structures, including class dynamics in relation to access to content and unwritten histories.

Nathaniel Sheppard III was born in Washington D.C. to a U.S. American father and South African mother. It was at the Southern California Institute of Architecture where he began to engage in conversations and ideologies surrounding the architect and artist in relation to space and the people within those spaces. Sheppard lived and studied in the United States until 2010, after which moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. Pivoting away from architecture, he studied Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. Through his studies he became aware of the significant position the practice of art has, particularly within socio-political discourses relating to South Africa's access to spaces and opportunities within a post-apartheid society. Along with a growing group of printmakers and artists, Sheppard works to challenge exclusionary traditions that are deeply rooted within the South African apartheid regime.

The story of Danger Gevaar Ingozi Studio began long before any of its members were born. It began fragmented across the globe through a series of imperceptibly connected narratives. Its genesis lies not only in an accumulative global history of print as a craft, means of knowledge production and dissemination, but also an accumulative global history of colonization, migration, forced removal, relocation and slavery. These combined histories of practical and theoretical knowledge form the basis of a collaborative practice at Danger Gevaar Ingozi Studio, one that attempts to dismantle and disrupt historically oppressive spaces and systems within a traditionally western art world.

With a current focus on printmaking - linocuts and relief printing in particular - DGI Studio represents a preservation of a medium deeply rooted in the cultural, political and social histories of South Africa (and other countries) as a means of widely disseminating information where freedom of speech was not equally distributed. Based in downtown Johannesburg, Nathaniel Sheppard III, Chad Cordeiro and Sbongiseni Khulu can typically be found carving, inking or editioning prints whilst in conversation and collaboration with other artists, writers and collectives.

Simnikiwe Buhlungu is a Johannesburg-based artist, having recently obtained her BA (Fine Art) degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Her work has also existed in a variety of forms though a number of exhibitions and spaces. She is immersed in sonic engagements: from listening Afrobeat, electronic, soul amongst many others; and reading/watching interviews with artistic practitioners. he ls akes ine an ublications xtensio e practice. She is one of the members of the Johannesburg based collective, Title in Transgression.

Through print and text based mediums and often taking form of sensory, video and installation based forms, her interest in navigating through the personal, experience, transgenerational and socio-historical narratives presents itself as a complex web of [re]imagined engagements surrounding, but not exclusive to, issues surrounding the positionality of the aforementioned lived experiences in relation to language and knowledge production(s) - which are [un]written, [un]spoken, [un]performed, made [in]visible. Her practice begins to develop into conversation between posing questions and attempting to provide answers to the ideas with which she is wrestling.

Malose Kadromatt Malahlela is an artist, organiser, cultural producer, events manager, shebeenist and co-founder of Keleketla! Library – a platform for collaborative and experimental projects. Keleketla! was nominated for the Vera List Prize in Art & Politics (2014) and the Visible Awards (2017). Malose was invited as a guest author with Rangoato Mma Tseleng Hlasane for the book Creating Spaces: Non-formal Art/s Education and Vocational Training for Artists in Africa Between Cultural Policies and Cultural Funding (2014) by Nicola Laure Al-Samarai. He was invited by the British Council to attend the Arts and International Development Conference at Cumberland Lodge in London (2015). He participated in the Global Cultural Leadership Programme in Athens hosted by Cultural Diplomacy Platform (2017). Malose collaborated with UK based In Place of War to rollout a two-part project on creative entrepreneurship and music exchange workshop with Coldcut/Ninja Tune (2017). He was one of the five selected creators to be a fellow at the ArtCenter/ South Florida, Miami as part of the Recalibrated Institution fellowship programme (2017).

As an artist under the alias Kadromatt he took part in a sound expedition exploring two cities Lisbon and Marseille organised by Sound Development City (2013) and in the same year he installed work at KHOJ Studios, New Delhi. In 2014 he staged three installations at different venues supported by Samsung Electronic South Africa. Kadromatt oversees the Thath’i Cover Okestra, an evolving okestra that makes what we termed new super nostalgic African futuristic spiritual chant non-genre, co-curated with Rangoato Hlasane. His next move is a 2nd phase research process in Berlin, March 2018. As a liquor licence owner at KingKong building Malose curates and manages rooftop events drawing from the role shebeens played as a meeting place for cultural discourse and political dissidents.

CINEMATOGRAPHERS | Kutlwano Makgalemele & Chris Soal
PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi
SOUND | Soul Fire Studio
MUSIC | Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
(1978) Columbia/CBS Records, Horace Andy - Skylarking Dub [or A Better Version]
EDITOR | Noah Cohen

SEASON 3 | 3 CURATORS

The Centre for the Less Good Idea is proud to announce Season 3's core curatorial team.

Lindiwe Matshikiza | http://www.donkeychildprojects.org/
Bettina Malcomess | A.K.A Anne Historical | https://annehistorical.hotglue.me/
Bhavisha Panchia | https://nothingtocommit.org/

Coming 11 - 14 April 2018

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Lindiwe Matshikiza is a performer, director and writer. She uses her background in theatre-making as a base from which to approach work that is predominantly collaborative and cross-disciplinary. Commissioned from time to time as an actor and director in the theatre and film industries, her own work is more process-based and exploratory.

For Season 3 Matshikiza has gathered a group of artists working in various disciplines to explore an experimental treatment of Desert, a piece originally written by Matshikiza as a play.

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Bhavisha Panchia is a curator and researcher within the field of visual and audio culture. Her research interests are leveled at anti/decolonial practices, global South-North relations, production and circulation of (digital) media, tech-colonialism, including the politics of sound and music In relation to diasporic formations. Panchia holds a BA Fine Arts Degree and MA History of Art Degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, including a MA in Curatorial Practice from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York.

Panchia has brought label and publishing platform Nothing to Commit Records (NTCR) to the season. NTCR is committed to the production and expansion of knowledge related to contemporary art, literature and music within and across the global South. NTCR serves to expand on existing cultural artifacts, to not only recuperate neglected histories and cultural heritage, but also as a means to producing an archive for future consideration and exploration. One of the platform’s more directed concerns is dedicated to exploring the social and ideological signification of sound and music to rethink the social, spatial and geopolitical.

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Bettina Malcomess is a writer, academic and artist. Her work exists in a diverse set of media and forms, ranging from long duration performance, to the staging of shorter interventions, and installation projects to the book as site of practice. She produces performances under the name Anne Historical.

Malcomess' writing traverses art, film, history, urbanism, as well as fiction. Historical/Malcomess' work has shown at various national and international exhibitions and spaces. She is a lecturer in Visual Arts at Wits School of Arts and is currently doing a PhD in Film Studies at Kings College, London.

She has recently formed an interdisciplinary project called the joining room, a non|space for intermedial intimacies. Season 3 plays host to the joining room.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi
CINEMATOGRAPHERS | Kutlwano Makgalemele & Chris Soal
EDITOR | Noah Cohen

Lindiwe Matshikiza

Lindiwe Matshikiza Lindiwe is a performer, director and writer. She uses her background in theatre-making as a base from which to approach work that is predominantly collaborative and cross-disciplinary. Commissioned from time to time as an actor and director in the theatre and film industries, her own work is more process-based and exploratory.

For Season 3 Matshikiza has gathered a group of artists working in various disciplines to explore an experimental treatment of Desert, a piece originally written by Matshikiza as a play.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Bhavisha Panchia

Bhavisha Panchia is a curator and researcher within the field of visual and audio culture. Her research interests are leveled at anti/decolonial practices, global South-North relations, production and circulation of (digital) media, tech-colonialism, including the politics of sound and music In relation to diasporic formations. Panchia holds a BA Fine Arts Degree and MA History of Art Degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, including a MA in Curatorial Practice from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York.

Panchia has brought label and publishing platform Nothing to Commit Records (NTCR) to the season. NTCR is committed to the production and expansion of knowledge related to contemporary art, literature and music within and across the global South. NTCR serves to expand on existing cultural artifacts, to not only recuperate neglected histories and cultural heritage, but also as a means to producing an archive for future consideration and exploration. One of the platform’s more directed concerns is dedicated to exploring the social and ideological signification of sound and music to rethink the social, spatial and geopolitical.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Bettina Malcomess

Bettina Malcomess is a writer, academic and artist. Her work exists in a diverse set of media and forms, ranging from long duration performance, to the staging of shorter interventions, and installation projects to the book as site of practice. She produces performances under the name Anne Historical.

Malcomess' writing traverses art, film, history, urbanism, as well as fiction. Historical/Malcomess' work has shown at various national and international exhibitions and spaces. She is a lecturer in Visual Arts at Wits School of Arts and is currently doing a PhD in Film Studies at Kings College, London.

She has recently formed an interdisciplinary project called the joining room, a non|space for intermedial intimacies. Season 3 plays host to the joining room.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi