Performance: de Constructing Gender at Live Art Weekend, March 2025, Masambe

Last year, Working Title presented exhilaratingly immersive Like Art Weekend at the Baxter in the Masambe Theatre and precinct. The exiting news is that the year is kicking off with (de)Constructing Gender in the Masambe, March 13-15, 2025 (Thursday to Sunday). Live Art Weekends are curated by Carin Bester, Read on for more. Info as supplied:

Working Title LIVE ART WEEKENDS at Masambe Theatre presents:

(de)Constructing Gender

A dynamic Live Art weekend that delves into the complex layers of gender, identity, and societal norms. Through a bold mix of performances, installation, and interdisciplinary art, this event interrogates how gender ideologies shape and constrain our lived experiences, exploring their profound impact on individuals and communities.

In a country grappling with high rates of gender-based violence and deeply ingrained patriarchal norms, this event offers a space to critique, reflect, and reimagine. By addressing the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals, the pressures placed on men to suppress vulnerability, and the pervasive inequalities faced by women, (de)Constructing Gender shines a light on the urgent need for dialogue and change.

This weekend is an invitation to unlearn, to question, and to co-create a world where gender is a spectrum, not a constraint. Whether you’re an artist, activist, or curious observer, this is a space to engage, explore, and transform

Curated by Carin Bester

Dates: Thursday – Saturday, March 13-15 2025

There will be a short Q & A session with the artists after the performances on Thursday March 13.

Venue: The Masambe Theatre at the Baxter Theatre Centre                                        

Time: 19:00 Runs approximately 90min. 

Tickets available at Webtickets

R160 Full Price – R100 Student / Pensioner / Group Booking

Please be aware that some of the performances will taking place outside.

Featuring artists:

Aimee Pullon  – Aequitas (Pissing Contest) / Visual Art

The term Aequitas refers to the Latin concept of justice, equality, conformity, symmetry, and fairness. It is the origin of the English word – equity. The colloquial term pissing contest, refers to any competitive engagement or rivalry where the main concern of the parties involves the conspicuous demonstration of superiority – a futile,  purposeless, and ego-driven battling.

In the work, a disembodied figure stands facing a metal urinal mounted on a scuffed, aging and dirt -ridden wall. It is covered in inane, and offensive remarks echoing the unsafe and vulnerable experience of being alone in a public bathroom while attempting to relieve oneself. The figure, assumed to be female from the tall black stilettos on the floor, attempts this act in a facility designed exclusively for the use of men.

Andi Colombo – Seep

This is a story about water.

This is a story about water flowing, down and along, through and between, rocks and cracks and lifetimes.

This is a story about water.

In Seep, Colombo examines the mythology of the washerwoman, borrowed from Celtic legend, and devises a re-interpretation, retelling and recontextualisation of this story. A continuation of a piece that premiered at Lucky Pakkie in 2024, earning a nomination for a Kanna, Seep examines the gendered washing line, and how it strings together the past and present, through time, space, and soapsuds.

Grace Storm Barnes – Un-becoming

A provocative performance art piece that confronts societal perceptions of women’s bodies and gendered acts. Through an interplay of physicality and interaction, the performance explores the cyclical nature of “becoming” and “un-becoming” a woman.

Blurring the line between performance and reality, it invites audiences to witness the fragile interplay between self-perception and societal expectation.

The performance unravels the question: “What truly makes me a woman?” as it interrogates the acts we perform, the roles we inhabit, and the ways in which our bodies become sites of both compliance and rebellion. As the layers of “becoming” are stripped away, the performance interrogates the gaze of society, revealing how women are often compelled to adjust their sense of self to meet external expectations.

Un-becoming is an invitation to reflect—not only on how we see others but how we are seen, and how those perceptions mould our identities. It challenges us to confront the invisible scripts that govern gender and to imagine a space beyond them—a place where the performance of self can truly begin anew.

Mamello Makhetha – Ore Phelele

Live for Us. Breathe for Us. Never Stop Living.

 Ore Phelele, is a personal process that sits in conversation with the public crisis of femicide and GBV in South Africa. This digital short film is a response to the personal and public sexual trauma we hold within ourselves and our nation. My body weaves deeply intimate meditations, with the public horrors faced across our country. Our collective memory continues to be etched with stories of death and murder, to the point where it feels like it has become part of the fabric of this nation. Ore Phelele is a moment of , process, regress, re-pain, release, and ultimately honouring freedom and life. The film serves to honour, it serves as a remembrance for the lives and losses of victims we have forgotten, that fade into the receding memory of our nation. It asks survivors, myself included, to never stop living, ‘ore phelele’.  The film was made as a part of my 2020/21 ICA fellowship, it then went on to come in 2nd place in long form for UKZN’s online contemporary dance festival Jomba: Open Horizons (2021). This led to a feature in The People United by Hannah Ma: A Performing Arts Festival on Paper (2021). It was made in collaboration with other filmmakers.

Roland du Preez – Haireditary

During Haireditary, the artist seeks to feminise themselves at any cost. Goals for the performance include ‘passing’ as a woman, being seen as sexy, and crossing the finish line of femininity. The artist works towards these goals by shaving away, painting over, and binding their body parts.

The artist is surrounded with beauty tools and products armed and ready.

As the artist works, the audience hears a recorded conversation between the artist (28, assigned-male-at-birth non-binary) and their mother (60, cisgender woman) relating their contrasting relationships with attaining and maintaining femininity. While the artist celebrates and challenges femininity through a queer lens, their mother discusses the shift in her ties to femininity as a post-menopausal woman.

❇ Sponsored content. Poster supplied.