The Centre for the Less Good Idea is an interdisciplinary incubator space for the arts based in Maboneng, Johannesburg

 SEASON 11 | THE UNEXPECTED CITY

All cities have personalities. Johannesburg is understood as an electrifying city that’s fast and ever-changing, comprised of various exposed and submerged working parts, always seemingly on the precipice of collapse or great change. It is this everyday complexity that is of interest. 

Curated by The Centre’s Impresario, Neo Muyanga, The Unexpected City engages the city through its artists, inhabitants and everyday voices in order to present a programme of short-form theatre, site-specific performances, films, and installations.

OF BLESSINGS & SPEARS

Written and directed by Jefferson Tshabalala, Of Blessings and Spears takes the form of a rap battle or cypher and sees the inherent performativity of language being put to work. 

It’s Jimmy versus Joburg, the rural kid versus the city slicker, tradition versus modernity. Through this fast and lyrical sketch, we hear the story of migration, labour, capital, gold, and extraction – the story of Johannesburg and the people who continue to build it, or pick it apart.  

CREDITS

WRITER & DIRECTOR | Jefferson Tshabalala
PERFORMERS | Didintle Khunou, Billy Langa, Katlego Letsholonyane, Jaques De Silva, Peggy Mongoato, Siya Radebe, Nomsa Myth, Jack Katleho Moloi, Melusi Mnqobi Molefe, Toby Ngomane & Qondiswa James
MUSICIANS | AusTebza Sedumedi, Anathi Conjwa & Nozipho Mnguni  

UMTHETHO AWUVUMI

Written by MoMo Matsunyane and directed by Mahlatsi Mokgonyana, Umthetho Awuvumi takes its lead from two of Johannesburg’s ubiquitous characters – the city’s security guards. 

Featuring an overzealous TV commercial director (Katlego Letsholonyane) and his two actors (MoMo Matsunyane and Peggy Mongoato), this short, sharp performance uses the set as a space for the two women to start rethinking their blackness, their identity, their place in the world, in the system, and in this city.  

CREDITS

WRITER | MoMo Matsunyane
DIRECTOR | Mahlatsi Mokgonyana 
PERFORMERS | MoMo Matsunyane, Peggy Mongoato & Katlego Letsholonyane
MUSICIANS | AusTebza Sedumedi, Anathi Conjwa & Nozipho Mnguni

GAUTENG (FOR EBENHAEZER) 

Written by Melusi Mnqobi Molefe and directed by Qondiswa James, Gauteng (For Ebenhaezer) is a poetic lament and tribute to the changing face of Johannesburg’s inner-city, as well as the experiences of those who occupy the inner-city, move through it, and are influenced by its rhythms and realities. 

Through a prose-based personification of the city, this is a melancholic portrait of a city, where its different neighbourhoods are presented to us as drug addicts, alcoholics, troublemakers, and lovers, all of them flawed, complicated, and full of aspiration.  

CREDITS

WRITER | Melusi Mnqobi Molefe
DIRECTOR | Qondiswa James 
PERFORMERS | Melusi Mnqobi Molefe & Qondiswa James
MUSICIANS | AusTebza Sedumedi, Anathi Conjwa & Nozipho Mnguni

FLEEING THE CITY: OUT OF JOHANNESBURG

“In the city, things happen too fast.”

Newly created for Season 11, Fleeing the City: Out of Johannesburg adapts a text by writer Mbe Mbhele and positions it as a short-form performance lecture as part of the Unexpected City programme. 

Performed by Mahlatsi Mokgonyana, the narrator/lecturer in Fleeing the City is alone on stage, like a doomsday preacher standing in the centre of the city, proselytising in a language of steadiness, of slowness, of sense, in a place that refuses to acknowledge this logic, and this way of being.  

He ends as he begins: alone at the lectern.  

CREDITS

WRITER | Mbe Mbhele 
PERFORMER | Mahlatsi Mokgonyana
MUSICIANS | AusTebza Sedumedi, Anathi Conjwa & Nozipho Mnguni

WE ARE THREE

Originally conceptualised as a musical interlude and interpretation of each sketch-based performance, the trio of Anathi Conjwa, AusTebza, and Nozipho Mnguni grew into their own performance as part of the original Unexpected City programme during Collation 3. This ‘Unexpected Trio’ became a musical translation of the myriad stories that emerge from a city like Johannesburg. 

In Season 11, they reprise their role, this time as ‘We Are Three’, and stage the closing musical performance of the Season.

CREDITS

MUSICIANS | Anathi Conjwa, AusTebza Sedumedi & Nozipho Mnguni

All text by David Mann