Performance: Live Art Weekend UNinhabitable SPACES, December 2024

Wrapping up the year, Working Title is presenting its 4^th Live Art Weekend of the year at the Baxter Masambe in Cape Town from Thursday December 5 to Saturday December 7, 2024. Live Art Weekend is curated by multi-disciplinary artist, Carin Bester, with Creative mentorship by Sjaka S Septembir. The theme for the December : UNinhabitable SPACES. The creative prompt is to invite artists and audiences “to reflect on environments that imperil the survival of fauna, flora and humans. Through performances the artists will examine both physical and psychological limits of all living things.” Read on for more. Info as supplied:

Working Title LIVE ART WEEKENDS at Masambe Theatre presents: UNinhabitable SPACES

UNinhabitable SPACES

This dynamic live art weekend explores the theme of UNinhabitable Spaces, inviting artists and audiences to reflect on environments that imperil the survival of fauna, flora and humans. Through performances the artists will examine both physical and psychological limits of all living things. The event seeks to provoke thought on climate change, urban decay, isolation and domestic disruption, while challenging notions of space, adaptability, and human resilience

The audience will engage with works that evoke discomfort and wonder, emphasizing the fragility of our existence in an increasingly inhospitable world.

Made possible by the National Arts Council and Department of Sport, Arts and Culture

Curated by Carin Bester

Dates: Thursday December 5 to Saturday December 7, 2024

There will be a short Q & A session with the artists after the performances on Thursday 5 December

Venue: The Masambe Theatre at The Baxter Theatre Centre                                       

Time: 19:00 Runs approximately 90min. 

Tickets available at Webtickets: https://www.webtickets.co.za/v2/Event.aspx?itemid=1555635104

R150 Full Price – R100 Student / Pensioner / Group Booking

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

Featuring artists:

Joy Oosthuizen & Lynette du Plessis: Plastic Not So Fantastic

Created by Carin Bester, Creative Mentorship by Sjaka S Septembir

Plastic Not So Fantastic is an interactive live art piece that highlights the damaging impact of plastic pollution. The performance blends physical theatre, mime, sound design, and visual elements to create a visceral commentary on society’s dependence on single-use plastics.

It calls attention to the urgent need for change, urging the audience to reconsider their own habits and the broader societal dependency on plastic.  The piece encourages reflection on individual responsibility and collective action to address plastic pollution.

Joy Oosthuizen (they/them) is a storyteller by nature. As a performing artist and maker, their artistry spans across multiple mediums and takes expression through many forms. Taking inspiration from their background in dance and circus performance, Joy explores the body as a site of re-membering and as a powerful vehicle for the transmutation and translation of information. 

Lynette Du Plessis is a creative experience from George, trained at the Jazzart Dance Theatre’s Three-Year Program in Cape Town (2017). She was a senior member of the Garage Dance Ensemble (2019-22), where her performances earned her nominations for a Woordtrofee and a Kyknet Fiëstas award. Lynette appeared in notable works including “Krummelpap, Afval en Sunlightseepbaddens”,”Maanskyn en Dorings” and “The Woman Who Fed The Dogs.” Lynette is on a journey of discovering her own movement vocabulary by working with diverse artists and differently able bodies. She’s passionate about performance arts projects that provide opportunities for expression, creativity and re-imagination.

Karli Heine: Die Potplant

‘n “Sad”, stowwerige potplant staan alleen in die voorportaal van ‘n kantoor. ‘n Potplant is veronderstel om lewendig en mooi te wees en almal wat daarna kyk, te laat goed voel.  Maar wat as sý juis die een is wat ontvlugting nodig het?

Die plant vind maniere om haar verveeldheid te vul met haar verstrengelde sin vir humor en haar sang. En sy sing – baie. Wie sê ‘n potplant het nie ook groot drome nie?

Karli Heine is a performer and theatre maker from Cape Town. She obtained her BDram in Honors in Cabaret at the University of Stellenbosch in 2013 and has since been working as a freelance artist in the creative industry as actress, voice artist and props master.

Karli has played in many stage productions including cabarets and children’s productions and can be seen in television series including Buurtwag, Die Boekklub, Kelders van Geheime as well as various short films, radio dramas.

She has received several theatre awards, the most recent of which Die Potplant – ‘n tragedie, was awarded a Kanna for best presentation of “Lucky Pakkie” at KKNK 2024.

Mmatumisang Motsisi & Tiffani Kayler Dlamini (Technical Director & Performer):  Above:Below

Artistic Director – Megan Nell

Special thanks to the Turning Into Flowers Project

Above:Below is an exploration of return, restoration, and reconnection through intimacy with Cape Town’s Indigenous plant kin. Moving through physical space and digital projection, the artist will embody the spirits of place, introducing audience members to the flowers that used to occupy the clay slopes and sand flats of what we now know as Cape Town

Mmatumisang Motsisi is a cultural worker and storyteller working at the intersection of theatre-making, education and performance. They are a lecturer at the Stellenbosch University Drama Department and are pursuing a dual-award doctorate in Higher Education at Stellenbosch University and Coventry University, specializing in belonging and identity-making in South African higher education. They have worked extensively as a performance artist, director, applied theatre practitioner and choreographer, with an interest in feminist and queer stories. Across all platforms, they engage with the body as the central tool for discovery, exploration, and expression, guided by a deep commitment to collaboration and co-creation. Recently, they were honoured with a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the 2024 National Arts Festival for a work titled Just a Phase.

Tiffani Kayler Dlamini is a Theatre Maker, with a vast background in theatre technical management and training. She is currently the Adam Small theatre Complex’s Venue Manager and theatre Technician, as well as the US Drama Department’s Production Manager and Front of House Manager. Tiffani is a master’s candidate at the University of Stellenbosch, her research is focussed on “The political is personal” and how ‘Coloured’ culture is developed through storytelling and the silences and gaps that exist, she is also interested in theatre for women by women and education through the arts. She lives by the motto Changing the world one girl at a time.

Mthuthuzeli ‘Blaze’ Zimba: MORITI (Body inTension)

MORITI (Body inTension) is a performance installation that interrogates the body in relation to confined spaces. The project is an adaptation of a project entitled IMIZWA IXABANA NE NGCINDEZELO YOMZIMBA (The dispute/altercation between body tension and feeling as a result of structural violence). The project was created part of Zimba’s master medium project in 2020 under the guidance of Professor Jay Pather at the Institute of Creative Arts at UCT.  The sonic life of the performance is ephemeral and immediate. The performance is about the visceral experience of the imagined moving shack in the CBD with people banging on the zinc metal, trying to build a home on the move, with urgency and self-determination.

Mthuthuzeli ‘Blaze’ Zimba is an Actor, writer, director, researcher, art teacher and an interdisciplinary artist, passionate about storytelling. Zimba believes creating in performances of transgression and disruption as a way of creating dialogue to confront and address unresolved socio-political issues that plague contemporary South Africa. Zimba has recently completed his masters in Theatre and Performance at the University of Cape Town. Having trained as a theatre maker, he has written, directed and produced several theatre plays, and also curated thought provoking live arts projects in various internationally acclaimed performance festivals in Cape Town. Zimba’s work attempts to reimagine black marginalized people out of the bondages of destitution.

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