Africa Centre

The Encounters Documentary Festival will take place!! The Encounters team are pleased to announce that the Festival will go ahead as planned, despite the shortfall in funding, from 2 – 19 July at the Nu Metro cinemas, V&A Waterfront. The programme of 40 films includes 15 World Premières, 14 multiple international-award winning films, Q&A sessions with 21 guests and 3 Panel Discussions. In addition there will be two Master Classes.

Encounters made a public plea for support when it was announced that the SABC would withdraw its support – and many individuals and organisations have since pledged both money and in-kind donations.

The festival’s new financial supporters include Pro Helvetia and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Jan Vrijman Fund / IDFA, the Africa Centre and many individuals who have joined the ‘Friends of the Festival’ programme including Carrol Boyes, Mfundi Vundla, William Kentridge and others.

“We are grateful for the support shown by the industry, funders and the press. It has added relevance to what we do”, said Festival Director, Mandisa Zitha.

Encounters is making a last appeal for members of the public to join the Friends of the Festival club. To join Encounters requests a donation of R 1000 or more by 18 June 2009.

In return Encounters will offer Friends Opening Night tickets to the screening of Rewind, directed by Liza Key. The film is about the creation of Philip Miller’s acclaimed cantata - Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony. Both Key and Miller will attend the screening. In addition Encounters will issue Friends 10 complimentary tickets for Festival screenings. Friends will be acknowledged on the Encounters website, unless they wish to remain anonymous. Please contact Encounters if you wish to lend your support.

INFECTING THE CITY (the Spier performing arts festival) is a theme-orientated festival that presents free site-specific and public performance works in inner city Cape Town, South Africa. Entering its 3rd year in this form, the dates for INFECTING THE CITY (ITC) 2010 are Saturday 13 Feb to Saturday 20 Feb.

The broad aims of the festival are:
•    To present boundary-breaking, cutting edge, socially-engaged performance works to people from all walks of life.
•    To provide a platform for artists to collaborate with others from different backgrounds and disciplines in making provocative, thought-provoking, non-commercial performance works; and to find platforms in other regional and international centres to present these works.
•    To stimulate a rich culture of site-specific performance in Cape Town, South Africa and the region.

•    To bring outstanding artists and performance – particularly from Africa and the Diaspora – to Cape Town.

•    To turn the city into a giant performance happening for a week: to literally infect the city with performance.

In 2009 ITC carried the theme ‘Home Affairs’ in response to the xenophobia that grips South Africa (see our website: www.infectingthecity.com).

2010 theme : “HUMAN RITES”

Here in South Africa – and in many countries in the region – we straddle an angry moment. A moment of festering feelings and inflamed issues: betrayal, violence, hatred, powerlessness, inequality, greed, corruption, poverty, intolerance and desperation. Many African countries are grappling with the issue of social healing. Human Rights have been ruthlessly violated.

Ritual – in various forms – has been used for millennia, across the world, to restore social rupture. Some schools of thought have it that the roots of theatre lie in ritual. Is there a place for ritual in our society? How can the arts today make use of ritual to effect social transformation?
What are the wounds that need attention in our society? Can we make performance art works that are themselves rituals for the healing of these wounds?  What shape can rituals take in the communal spaces of the 21st Century Global Village?

With the theme ‘HUMAN RITES’, ITC will address these questions in 2010, and will make and present several works that refigure the public spaces of the inner city as arenas in which we confront our demons and attempt to put them to rest.

The term ‘rite’ need not imply the exotic, the religious or the pre-literate. Secularised it can refer to a process by which communities or individuals are brought together or healed, where community values are reiterated and restored, where respect is shown to individuals as part of a whole.

What are the various alternatives for implementing this healing (traditional healing / western healing / personal healing / community healing / shared pain and shared healing)? What does healing mean to different people? How can artists work with healers, therapists and sociologists to create public platforms for healing?

Are there locations in the city that hold painful memories that need to be exorcised? Can we work towards healing the scarred landscape of the city? Can we open up new city spaces in a spirit of light?
The search for participants

Once again, ITC has several components that revolve around the year’s theme:
1.    New Collaborative Works
2.    Commissioned Works
3.    Invited Works

I would like to invite you to apply to participate in the New Collaborative Works and/or with a Commissioned Work.

NEW COLLABORATIVE WORKS

This project brings artists together in Cape Town from different parts of the world and from a wide range of disciplines. I am looking for artists who are established, outstanding, cutting-edge performance makers/conceptual artists/designers/ritual practitioners with strong interests in both collaboration and in outdoor site-specific work. I am particularly, though not exclusively, interested in artists with a ‘non-western’ orientation, and those from African countries. Artists need to be fluent in English.

This challenging and rewarding residency project is divided into two phases:

i.    During November 2009 the 9 selected artists will attend an intensive 2 week course relating to and unpacking the ITC theme. The course will be delivered and facilitated by local and international academics, practitioners and thinkers in the various fields pertaining to the ‘Human Rites’ theme. At the beginning of week 3 the artists will be divided into teams of 3 collaborators each: one from South Africa, one from another African state, and one from overseas. They will be allocated a budget, a title for their site-specific work and a production manager, and then have a week in which to plan, strategize and audition performers and other artists. Thereafter they will go their separate ways, maintaining dialogue with one another, with the course-coordinator and with the dramaturge via e-mail.

ii.    For 5 weeks from mid-January the three teams will resume their residency in Cape Town where each team will be allocated a studio. The teams have 4 weeks to produce and rehearse their works before ITC 2010 opens on 13 February. Productions will be performed daily until 20 February.

In 2009 ITC hosted 12 artists from South Africa, Africa and Europe. Have a look at the video of their experience on the ITC website (top right hand corner on the homepage).

If this project appeals to you please apply to info@infectingthecity.com with a motivation for your participation, a comprehensive C.V., and a clear photograph of yourself by the end of June.

COMMISSIONED WORKS

We are also calling for proposals for new performance works relating to the ‘Human Rites’ theme. These works will be performed in public spaces, free to the public. We are not looking for ‘plays’. Performance art pieces, performance installations etc. made by interesting collaborative teams will attract our interest.

If this project appeals to you please apply to info@infectingthecity.com with a detailed proposal outlining the form and the content of the piece, the creative team, the type of venue and probable performers. C.V.s and clear photographs of the creative team should be included. Submissions should reach us by the end of June.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Brett Bailey
Curator INFECTING THE CITY

info@infectingthecity.com
www.infectingthecity.com

The Africa Centre is proud to announce the launch of the Spier Contemporary 2010, South Africa’s largest contemporary art competition and exhibition. The inaugural Spier Contemporary in 2007/08 attracted over 2,500 submissions from across South Africa, featured 95 artists and hosted 25,000 people at the exhibition in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Winning the Spier Contemporary “radically changed my life”, said award winner, Andrew Putter. “It gave me the confidence and financial security to make art-making my primary career focus — compressing into a year a process that would have taken at least four or five years”. Winner of the People’s Choice Award, kinetic sculptor Justin Fiske, found the recognition “a big stepping stone for my career. The publicity helps you reach a broader, more robust art economy which is key to developing a career”. And Mwenya Kabwe, who together with Chuma Sopotela and Kemang Wa Lehulere won an award for their performance U nyamo alunampumlo (The foot has no nose), felt validated in her work by the award. “It’s been encouraging on a personal level. I would really encourage performance artists to enter the competition”.

The Spier Contemporary is open to everyone living in South Africa. Artists from any visual or performance practices are welcome to enter.  With no prescribed theme, artists are allowed complete freedom of expression in the works they submit. For Andrew Putter this was vital: “The award is extremely valuable because it is so inclusive, offering so many different kinds of artists from so many parts of South Africa the opportunity to really push themselves.”

For Tanner Methvin, Executive Director of the Africa Centre, this freedom allows an extraordinary opportunity for “new voices and the languages to speak them to emerge”, he said.  “Our aspiration is that this exhibition, because of its reach and diversity of content, will provide a new means to see, hear and feel who and what we are as a nation.”

The primary sponsor for the Spier Contemporary is Spier Holdings, and Andrew Milne, CEO of Spier Holdings explains the mutual value of the relationship: “Spier seeks to support projects that acknowledge our African arts heritage, protect its legacy and contribute to building its future. The Spier Contemporary gives us a unique opportunity to realise this commitment”.

Artists can submit their work online, via post or at one of the 13 selection centres around the country. Around 100 artists will be selected for the exhibition. Each artist selected will receive a fee of R4 000, while  five-six winners will be chosen by a panel of judges, and a People’s Choice Award will round off the winners who will share R800 000 in award monies to advance their artistic careers. This makes the total awards worth up to R1.2 million.

The deadline for artist submissions is 30 October 2009. The exhibition will open in March 2010 in Cape Town and will then travel to Johannesburg and Durban. For further information, visit www.spiercontemporary.co.za or e-mail spiercontemporary@africacentre.net