By Aphiwe Ngowapi and Selenathi Botha
The Arcade
A six-hour series of experimental body-based live art performances by eleven artists took place at the Monument on 24 March.
The sixth annual Live Art arcade embraced eight durational, nomadic and recurring live art performances on two levels of the Monument in eight different spaces. All experiences happened simultaneously. “This is interesting because this is one of the bigger arcades,” said dramaturgical support director Alan Parker.
This is the longest art arcade since it usually lasts two to three hours. It allows the audience to engage with the performances at their pleasure and shape their journeys as they wish.
The directors of the Live Art Arcade, Gavin Krastin (the curator), Alan Parker (dramaturgical support), and Evaan Ferreira, established the Arcade in 2018 for early-career artists from around the country who work in interdisciplinary live performances with an interest in durational and site-responsive work. The Arcade differs from theatre performances in that it allows you to leave a performance you do not enjoy or relate to, and move to the next one, while forming and creating your own experience.
Directors use a bottom-up approach where artists have the autonomy to choose their theme. “I realise a lot of artists are dealing with health and well-being, mental health, memory, and environment. They are extending the body beyond just themselves and environment,” described Krastin.
The Arcade was free of charge and open to the whole Makhanda community for people aged fifteen and above.
“It was very important that we operate in the basement of this monument, the foundations, this building that hovers above this town on this hill, like a castle, and we are in the basement, those foundations, the structures, trying to destabilise because all of our artists have an unapologetically queer and Black consciousness and that does not exclude anyone, allies are welcome,” emphasised Krastin.
Live Arts perfomances
Entering the Arcade, we were welcomed by Qondiswa James’ performance, I Am Also Here. The show described itself as “a busker, or street vendor, experimenting with the socio-political and economic functions of public art interventions (in a pandemic)”. Through the use of her body, James moves in different spaces. She embarks on a journey of twelve different workers (musicians and other entertainers who work on the streets or any public space for money) who arrive, evoke, and disappear, using their invisibility as a revolutionary tool.
In a different space in the Monument, we were sucked in by the soothing sound of jazz music – Martinique Kotze’s Memorabilia, which explores memory and its association with objects.
“It started with my gran’s loss of memory, so the material hanging here is all her material that she used to sew with, and her sewing machine, and she doesn’t remember that she used to sew. So I have taken over the sewing,” explained Kotze.
Her space also included valuable objects significant to her, like the Bible, sunflowers, toys, photos of family and events, her grandmother’s records, and gifts she has received from people. “It’s like a layered thing of my memory, her memory, of what people will remember of me. So joining fabric together, sewing things that you don’t normally sew together to make this layered thing that will be at the end, whatever it looks like,” Kotze elaborated.
Easy connections were formed between the artists – Obusitswe “Birdking” Seage and Luke Rudman’s performances were focused on the environment and nature. Birdking confronts this toxic environment created by humanity, tackling humankind’s serious problem with trash. Rudeman focuses on binary distinctions between nature, the blur in humanness and queerness, and the borders between artists and artwork.
Looking at the internal, mental environment were Carbon and Axl Forder. Carbon’s ‘Not Yet Dead’ is “poetry, animation and a wheelbarrow filled with rocks, wheeled until exhaustion.” It examined endurance and enduring, how we treat each other, and how the world treated those in the margins. Axl had a high-speed internet connection and a box full of toys and needed to traverse through his algorithmic fugue.
Going forward
The Live Art Arcade is also working on a book project to be released in a couple of months, where past Arcade artists write reflective articles or pieces on the Live Art Arcade. The book will be electronic and freely downloadable, decapitalising and allowing open access. “Often, books about live art are really expensive because they are published overseas and feature African artists, but nobody on the continent can afford to buy the book,” said Parker.
“Our purpose on earth is to support young and emerging artists, just like we were supported”, Krastin Concluded.
