William Kentridge is a draughtsman, performer, filmmaker, and is the founder of The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Kentridge is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre, and opera productions. Embracing collaboration and cross-pollination of various media and genres, including performance, film, literature, and more, his work frequently responds to the legacies of colonialism and apartheid, within the context of South Africa's socio-political landscape. Erasure, play, uncertainty, and a process-led methodology are also central to his practice. A background in theatre, as well as his early experimentations with stop-motion animation continue to inform and characterise much of the work he produces today, be it for the stage, the gallery, in the studio or the lecture hall.

In early 2016, Kentridge met with fellow artist Bronwyn Lace to discuss his ideas for an interdisciplinary incubator space for the arts based in Maboneng, where his own studio is located. As conversations developed and ideas began to take shape about what the space could be, Kentridge shared with Lace a Tswana proverb he’d used in one of his Blue Rubric works: ‘If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor’. The grammatically clumsy and awkward phrase captured, perfectly, the periphery and secondary nature of the artistic process, and thus the methodology and philosophy of The Centre for the Less Good Idea was born.

For Kentridge, The Centre for the Less Good Idea is a space that is partially informed by his own artistic practice and processes, while also affording him a space to experiment and collaborate with fellow artists, performers, and ways of working. It is this ability to be both in and outside of The Centre that sees Kentridge working to hold, inform, question, and draw out the seemingly disparate lines of thought that are necessary agitators and animators for the particular kinds of work that take shape in the mixed-media terrain of the space.

In addition to his facilitation of and participation in The Centre’s Seasons of work, Kentridge also drives many of its IN CONVERSATION artist talks, and frequently collaborates with invited artists, composers, performers, and academics for its FOR ONCE events.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Bronwyn Lace is a visual artist who has collaborated with William Kentridge on the founding and establishing of The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

For Botswana-born Lace, who currently works between Austria and South Africa, her artistic practice is concerned with the relationship between art and other fields such as physics, literature, philosophy, museum practice, education, and more. Site-specificity, responsiveness, and performativity are also central to her practice, and have informed a great deal of her early work. Similarly, a balance between an isolated, introspective studio process and a collaborative, communal process sees Lace embracing incidental discoveries underpinned by an informed pursuit of new ideas.

In early 2016, when Lace was living and working in Johannesburg’s Maboneng, she was contacted by Kentridge and asked to join him in a discussion on an idea for an experimental incubator space for the arts. Lace was to work alongside Kentridge and his team, helping to establish a space that would ultimately become The Centre for the Less Good Idea. Since then, Lace has worked to drive and facilitate The Centre through its various Seasons, FOR ONCE programme and the curation of its many online and public art projects, first as Animateur for The Centre and now as a director on the board. Currently, Lace also oversees The Centre’s broader projects and visions, in particular the formation of the SO Academy alongside international partnerships for the Centre.

For Lace, whose own work grapples with themes of transition, mortality, illuminating thresholds, and finding a physical form for collapse, The Centre holds a strong methodological and philosophical resonance. Working to hold the myriad and often intangible processes of artists, seeking out new ways of seeing and introducing disparate threads to their work is a role that she’s occupied since The Centre’s inception. Working alongside the production and technical teams, as well as the invited curators, choreographers, directors, composers and dramaturgs leading a process, and providing a space for encouragement and understanding is also central to Lace’s role at The Centre.

At present, Lace’s position between South Africa and Austria also sees her working to establish relationships between The Centre and other collaborative, experimental arts spaces and institutions across the globe.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Adine Sagalyn

Neo Muyanga is a composer and installation artist, and The Centre’s Impresario for the Less Good Idea. His work traverses new opera, improv and African idiomatic song.

At The Centre, Muyanga works to develop and implement a unique performative programme within our spaces. This programme runs alongside and intersects with SO | The Academy for the Less Good Idea, as well as The Centre Outside The Centre. Together with The Centre team, Muyanga devises new incubation and development strategies, curates unique programming, and draws new artists and thinkers towards The Centre.

Born in Soweto, Muyanga grew up singing in choirs before starting formal music theory lessons, and later pursuing the Italian madrigal tradition in Trieste, Italy.

His research and performance interests include investigations and explorations of the aesthetics of protest song, with a particular focus on opera within the black community in South Africa, and more broadly concerning the history of musical storytelling in the global south.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Dimakatso Motholo is the Holder at The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

Born in the Free State and growing up in Johannesburg’s East Rand, Motholo’s early engagements with the arts came by way of performance when she motivated for the inclusion of drama lessons at her high school, subsequently seeing her form part of the first group of students to take drama as a formalised subject at the school. Following a degree in the dramatic arts specialising in arts management from the University of Witwatersrand, Motholo worked with a number of arts institutions and organisations with a keen interest in working from a place of advocacy and learning how the South African arts industry could function to serve the artist. Motholo has subsequently obtained her Masters in Cultural Policy and Management, and currently works as a part-time researcher in addition to her work for The Centre.

A chance meeting at The Market Theatre with lighting designer Wesley France saw Motholo being introduced to The Centre for the Less Good Idea where she went on to work as a stage manager for Seasons 1, 4, and 5. Since then, she has worked as administrator and resident stage manager for The Centre before moving into her current role of Project Manager.

For Motholo, The Centre sees her occupying a hybrid position located between administration and person-orientated work. Liaising with artists and production, overseeing the various physical spaces at The Centre, and working to ensure that processes run smoothly for production teams, curators, and collaborators alike are a few of the daily roles she occupies.

Being able to work in an experimental incubator space for the arts with a non-hierarchical and organically orientated system of people allows her to both inform and learn from the way the space is run, while her background in performance affords her greater insight into the nature of generating and producing creative work. Above all else, it is the inherent experimental and process-orientated nature of The Centre that resonates with Motholo’s own creative methodology – the act of learning and producing through doing.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Athena Mazarakis is a South African choreographer, performer, somatic arts educator, arts manager and embodied mindfulness practitioner. She joins The Centre for the Less Good Idea as the Momenteur of the SO Academy.

Athena brings the resourcefulness and creativity implicit in her creative practice as a choreographer and movement artist over the past 25 years to her work within arts administration, arts activism, project design and programme innovation.

As an arts educator Athena has worked across a range of formal and informal learning spaces. She held a lecturing position at Wits University (1999 – 2007) and played a leading role in the establishment of The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative’s Ebhudlweni Arts Centre, in rural Mpumalanga, where she served as the Development Manager from 2016 to 2019.

A common thread that runs through Athena’s choreographic works is the exploration of the relationship between the body and live digital arts interfaces, whilst investigating the connection between memory and the body. The concept of ‘the body as archive’ has been the key focus of her artistic and scholarly research and continues to underpin her choreographic methodology and teaching practice. It also informs her embodied approach to mindfulness practices, which she has consolidated in her embodied mindfulness work through her company, EMBODIMENT NOW.

Athena has always valued inter-disciplinarity in her own artistic practice and is deeply interested in how The Centre is able to support and extend artistic investigation, learning, exploration and innovation through its collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects.

In her role as the Momenteur, Athena hopes to lean on her deep understanding of creative processes to hold and enable the learning and work processes within the SO Academy.

Photographer | Zivanai Matangi

Noah Cohen is a filmmaker, theatre-maker, actor, and the Director of Cinematography and Editing for The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

With a background in acting for stage and film, Cohen’s subsequent interest in filmmaking led him from the United States to Canada, before moving down to South Africa in 2016. Shortly after arriving in the country, he met the founder of the Centre for the Less Good Idea William Kentridge, and was brought on to help with the production of The Centre’s debut Season. Following Season 1, Cohen moved away from the more administrative roles he was occupied with and began editing the process-based footage filmed throughout the course of the Season. He has fulfilled this role, as well as the role of Director of Cinematography and Editing, since.

At The Centre, Cohen is interested in the challenge of documenting, guiding, and sharing the diverse and immense personal processes of the artists through the medium of film. The precarious act of documenting, distilling, and reflecting the creative process in a way that both informs and inspires The Centre’s artists and audiences is of great importance to him. While a level of proficiency and technical knowledge around filming for performances is key, Cohen’s alignment with the central ethos of The Centre informs his way of working in the space – engaging in an experimental and collaborative creative process, watching it fail and succeed in equally productive ways, and bearing witness to it all. Similarly, his history of performance lends him a certain empathy for what takes place on stage and in The Centre’s workshops. The result of all of these ways of working sees Cohen filming and editing with a gentle, considered, and critical eye, always with the intention of working alongside the creative process, and archiving from the margins of that process.

With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cohen’s role has become decidedly more filmic and sees him as an active collaborator in the filming of The Centre’s work – a creative eye in the technical aspects as well as in the edits. More recently, he has also moved into a mentorship role, working to train and upskill young filmmakers at The Centre. Ultimately, Cohen views The Centre as a productively unresolved space, the pliability and uncertainty of which finds strong resonance with his own practice. Collaboration, improvisation, and a commitment to reflecting the unique processes of The Centre and its growing network of collaborators remain central to the work he does.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Zain Vally is a multidisciplinary sound engineer, location recorder, and the Sound Engineer for The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

Vally works extensively in the music industry and is an accredited recording engineer on Beyoncé’s album, The Lion King: The Gift. He also holds location recording credits for documentaries and television shows such as Stony Hill to Addis, Yo! MTV Raps Africa, and Gqom Nation.

Having gravitated toward music from a young age, Vally pursued a diploma in Audio Technology and Post-Production from the Academy of Sound Engineering in Auckland Park, Johannesburg. Following his studies, he worked for two years as a sound engineer for The Orbit Jazz Club and Bistro where he crossed paths with SoulFire’s Gavan Eckhart and was subsequently brought on as a recording assistant during an early workshop for William Kentridge’s The Head & the Load. Since then, Vally has worked with The Centre for the Less Good Idea on numerous Seasons and programmes, recording, mixing and sound designing as part of the SoulFire team, as well as independently.

For Vally, managing sound for The Centre sees him documenting the sonic activity of its workshops, rehearsals, and live performances, as well as helping to facilitate and realise the ideas and early expressions of The Centre’s various collaborators. As such, Vally’s work enables him to serve as both a mirror to the creation of new work, and an active collaborator in its process. Capturing ambient sound and activity across The Centre’s different spaces, as well as recording audio and looping live sound for performers and musicians alike are roles that resonate strongly with Vally, and the process of collaboration in sound is something that he continues to explore through the space.

Most recently, Vally has been working on location recording for The Centre’s Considered 3 Minute films, helping to capture and edit sound and performance for films produced both at The Centre and on location.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

David Mann is a writer, editor, and arts journalist, and is the Writer and Communications Manager for The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

With a Masters in Creative Writing and having worked as a writer and editor for various South African art publications, Mann is interested in the role art can play in helping one make sense of the world, and one’s place in it. Specifically, it is in the act of writing alongside, rather than in response to, the artistic process that he finds a home for his practice. A background in journalism grounds his writing in a constant pursuit of certainty, while a keen interest in how text or language can perform outside of the conventional structures of writing and reading lends his work an incidental and experimental methodology.

Mann joined The Centre from Season 4, following a need for written documentation and reflection on the often-intangible processes and methodologies taking place in the space, and has been producing writing on its workshops, collaborators, staged performances, exhibitions, and other projects since. Being able to bare witness to the inception of ideas and follow their processes through the stages of ideation, rehearsal, and public showing, he works alongside the sound, film, and photographic arms of The Centre to provide an ongoing contextual archive of writing for a space that is in a state of constant change and experimentation.

In addition to his writing for the online project #FromTheArchive, which looked back at seven Seasons of work at The Centre in words and images, Mann is also producing writing for The Centre’s past and ongoing Seasons, as well as its various projects.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Nthabiseng Malaka is The Centre for The Less Good Idea’s Scenographer and Costume Designer, and a theatre-maker who works across stage, film and television as a production designer, art director, set dresser, and props master.

Through her work with theatre, Malaka has designed for numerous well-known South African productions. Her first Naledi Theatre Award nomination for costume design was for the 2018 production of Shoes and Coups. In 2019, she was also nominated for a Naledi Theatre Award for her set design for Strange Land.

Malaka’s practice has always been informed by change. Raised in a rural village by her grandmother, she has had to welcome change, adapting to every location she moved to, and the different kinds of people she was surrounded by. She approaches life and art with this same openness – always receptive to a new challenge, a new venture, and the acquisition of new knowledge and skills.

For The Centre, Malaka has designed sets and costumes for Seasons 8 and 9 as well as for The Centre’s 2020 production of Waiting for Godot. For Season 9, Malaka also created Goraa Goreng?, a project that incorporated scenography as installation.

Photographer | Zivanai Matangi

Gracious Dube is the Housekeeper, Space Manager, and Costume & Props Assistant for The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

Originally from Zimbabwe, Dube moved to South Africa in 2007. Following a few years of work as a waitress in Norwood, as well as housekeeping work through Sunshine Girls, Dube was introduced to The Centre for the Less Good Idea by its co-director, Bronwyn Lace.

Over the years, Dube’s role at The Centre has continued to grow and take on more shape, expanding from upkeep and maintenance of The Centre space, to working alongside artists and assisting with the design and sourcing of costumes and props for artists and performances.

Dube enjoys the collaborative and cross-disciplinary nature of The Centre, as well as the various artists and modes of performance she’s encountered throughout her years in the space. For Dube, working at The Centre requires one to adapt to the needs of the space and its many moving parts. As such, an average day can range from general upkeep and the clearing of the stage and spaces, to assisting as a sounding board or a stagehand for early iterations of a performance.

The ability to locate the intangible narratives and experiences of contemporary life through performance is something that strongly resonates with, and inspires Dube. She cites The Centre’s seemingly endless capacity for experimentation, generosity, and collaboration as crucial components to its success and distinctiveness as an incubator space for the arts.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khoza is a performer and pantsula, and is the Junior Cinematographer and Editor for The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

Growing up in Vosloorus, Johannesburg, Khoza ventured into dance in 2011, experimenting with tap, gumboot, and contemporary pantsula for dance outfits and collectives such as Vusi Arts Projects (VAP). In 2019, Khoza performed with VAP at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in various iterations, one of them seeing him dancing in accompaniment to a performance lecture by founder of The Centre for the Less Good Idea, William Kentridge. It was here where Khoza met The Centre’s Director of Cinematography, Noah Cohen, expressed his interest in camera work, and has been shadowing and working alongside Cohen since.

At The Centre, Khoza works primarily as a junior cinematographer while also learning basic directing and editing skills, and the art of working alongside the various artists and collaborators he films. With a rootedness in dance and performance, Khoza is acutely aware of what takes place in the body of a performer on stage and it is this proximity to performance that lends him a keen and empathetic eye behind the camera.

In addition to documenting and archiving the various creative processes that take shape at The Centre, Khoza is interested in harnessing the minutiae of performance through film – the slight gestures and facial expressions that might be lost on a live audience, but which can be harnessed and expanded upon through the documentary tool of the camera.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Zivanai Matangi is a documentary and performance photographer, and is the Process Photographer for The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

Family photographs sparked Matangi’s interest in the photographic medium from an early age and after arriving in Johannesburg from Zimbabwe, he began working in photo labs and camera stores, first as a printing assistant in the labs, and later managing and overseeing labs and stores. These early interactions and experiences with commercial film photography have lent him a strong affinity toward the importance of a single image, what a photograph does, how it represents a moment or a person, and what the medium of photography means to the average person. It also lent him an intuitiveness that is still present in his practice today.

Following some photographic work with Trinity Sessions for a public art project in Johannesburg, Matangi was introduced to The Centre in its second Season by visual artist Marcus Neustetter. Since then, Matangi has worked to document and interpret the myriad perspectives and processes at The Centre, working alongside videographers and writers to capture the workshops, rehearsals, and live performances as well as its individual performers, the technicians, production team-members, and all of the moments in between.

For Matangi, photographing for The Centre affords him a level of creativity and experimentation that’s expanded his view on the craft, exponentially. He cites his time with The Centre as having contributed a great deal to his growth as a photographer, as well as his journey as an artist. Instinct, sensitivity, and a love for storytelling are all qualities that he holds close to his practice.

Most recently, Matangi has been applying his photographic skills in a more collaborative capacity at The Centre, working to photograph artists and their work for The Centre’s public art project The Highway Notice Project, as well as co-curating seven Seasons of photographic work at The Centre for its 2020 online project, #FromTheArchive.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Thusi Vukani

Matthews Phala is a lighting designer and stage manager, and is the Lighting Technician for The Centre for The Less Good Idea.

Phala, who was born in Soweto, Johannesburg, recalls early engagements with the arts by way of the local hostel dwellers, many of whom would gather to play music, sing, and dance over the weekends. This sparked a keen interest in dance and performance for Phala, who would attend performances at The Market Theatre as often as he could during his school years. Still, a career in the arts was not something he believed to be possible for himself and following his high schooling, Phala joined a one battalion military training school in Bloemfontein.

It was upon returning to Soweto that he met up with old friends who had started a performing arts group, and subsequently took part in various concerts and festivals at The Market Theatre and nationally as an actor and dancer. It was shortly after this that Phala made the leap from acting into technical training which has since seen him working as a lighting technician, designer, and stage manager for performing arts productions and companies across the globe, including the National Arts Festival, the Dance Umbrella, and more.

Having worked with fellow lighting technician and designer Wesley France, as well as founder of The Centre for the Less Good Idea William Kentridge over the years, Phala began working as a lighting technician for Kentridge’s own studio before being brought on with France as a lighting technician for The Centre.

For Phala, the opportunity to work in a non-commercial space such as The Centre affords him a great deal of freedom with his craft, and allows him to foster his own creative processes alongside its many collaborators. He is interested in the ways in which lighting can help to set the time, pace, and mood of a staged performance, and views his practice as an intuitive one, constantly in dialogue with the artist on stage in order to convince, engage, and enthral the audience member.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Wesley France is a lighting designer, technical production and company manager and works as the Lighting Designer for The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

France’s first engagements with theatre were in the late 70s in Cape Town, first helping out backstage, and later working as a stage manager before moving up to Johannesburg in the 80s to work as a freelance stage manager and set constructor. During this time, France also worked on a handful of school productions, learning how to both set up and light timeous, professional productions in non-conventional theatre spaces.

He would later start work as a stage manager and shortly after became production manager for The Market Theatre , touring internationally with many of the theatre’s productions, and learning new skills. In the 90s, there came an opportunity to work on a project with William Kentridge and the Handspring Puppet Company. This started France’s working relationships with both Handspring and Kentridge which still continue today.

France has worked with The Centre since its inception, and currently works alongside fellow lighting designer Matthews Phala to take care of any and all lighting requirements for The Centre’s Seasons of work as well as its smaller public performances and events throughout the year. France also works closely with the invited artists and collaborators of each Season to assist with any technical requirements needed for performances, and lend insights and expertise to best lighting and technical practices for these performances.

For France, The Centre is a space that allows his practice a greater deal of experimentation. The process of facilitating and shaping stories through lighting design, as well as helping young artists understand how lighting can influence and enhance their own storytelling process, is a central part of his work at The Centre.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi