Steyn Du Toit
ALL things weird and wonderful are currently being shipped off to the Eastern Cape for the start of the 41st National Arts Festival(NAF) in Grahamstown. And, as usual, some of the 10-day event’s most outrageous treasures can be found by shifting through its physical theatre and performance art scratch patch.
Created by Athi-Patra Ruga, this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist (SBYA) for Performance Art, mark The Elder of Azania high on your festival to-do list. Originally commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), expect liquid-filled balloons, brightly-coloured stockings and high heels.
Described as an “immersive, chaotic and difficult experience”, there won’t be much for audiences to hold onto in Gavin Krastin’s On Seeing Red and Other Fantasies. As the fascinating, weird mind behind previous festival assaults such as #omnomnom and Rough Musick, know that buying a ticket to one of his performances requires a willingness on the part of the viewer to engage in an active and involved spectatorship.
“ On Seeing Red is an immersive work where the audience gets included in the world of the performance,” explains the piece’s co-performer, Alan Parker, in the absence of Krastin, who was away attending the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ) at the time of the interview.
As implied by the title, On Seeing Red takes the experience and expression of blind rage as its starting point. Rage, according to Parker, is different from anger because it is so often absurd; a short, tumultuous and often ridiculous explosion of emotion.
“Connected to this, the work is also inspired by the anniversaries of two moments in art history where ‘rage’ against the world and society was expressed. Firstly, the 100-year anniversary of Dada, a pre-modernist ‘tantrum’ beginning in 1915/1916, as well as the 50-year anniversary of Yvonne Rainer’s infamous 1965 No Manifesto.
“In it she rejected everything there was to reject about dance and performance in general. Both of these artistic ‘outbursts’ were highly critical of art and theatre that was escapist, and purely for ‘entertainment’ or aesthetic beauty.
“Thematically this work explores the appeal/seduction of fantasy as a means to escape the harsh realities of the world, and the futility of attempting to escape in a world where only rage beckons.”
In addition to co-performing in On Seeing Red, Parker will also debut his latest solo piece, Detritus for One, as part of the NAF Fringe programme.
“Live performance is unlike any other art form, because it is impossible to keep it in any other place other than in the viewer’s own memory. People can buy and own paintings or sculptures or music compositions or literature, but performances can’t be owned.
“ Detritus for One is a personal sharing of performances that I have seen in the past, that have stayed with me and have resulted in significant moments for me. In the work I try to recapture these fleeting moments and to share with the audience in the present a sublime experience of performance, locked in the past.”
As the work is largely concerned with memory, Parker reveals, it does not present the audience with a narrative or a story.
“Memories, by their nature, are elusive, unreliable and fragmented, and, in a way, the work itself takes on these characteristics of memories. I would advise audience members to be open to the images, sounds and physical sensations they experience while watching the performance, and to allow their analytical brains to relax for a bit.
“I’d like them to be open to how the performance makes them feel rather than only focussing on ‘what it means’. When we listen to music we don’t overly concern ourselves with what it means, but listen and feel instead. I think it is the same with some kinds of performance.”
Following a first-rate performance at last year’s Cape Town Fringe Festival of his one-man physical theatre joyride Being Norm, Richard Antrobus will be bringing this show, along with appearances in three other places, to help warm up the chilly streets of ‘G-town’ this year.
Punted as “a performative response to the current socio-political cube in which the whiteface clown finds himself”, look out for Antrobus as a mine trapped in a (real!) glass box in Suggestion Box #JustSaying. Inspired by Dr. Samantha Vice’s controversial paper, How do I live in this Strange Place?(2010), there you’ll be able to engage with him through the writing of comments and ideas.
In addition, Antrobus will also be appearing in Dreams alongside Estelle Terblanche, as well as in Man on the Line, a short film written and directed by brothers Kyle and Matthew Robinson.
While Brazilian playwright Roberto Athayde’s M iss Margarida’s Way might not strictly fall within the realm of physical theatre, its director, Pieter Bosch Botha, reckons Patricia Boyer’s title character gets “pretty physical” in it nonetheless.
“Miss Margarida is a savage, yet intensely likeable teacher who rules her classroom with an iron fist,” Botha warns. “She’s an authoritarian who will stop at nothing to maintain her grip on power. We see this in how she uses her body to communicate with and/or demonstrate things to her pupils.”
It’s one thing use one’s voice to teach, Botha adds, but Miss Margarida takes teaching to a whole new level with techniques that use the body in ways “one wouldn’t expect to see” in a classroom.
“If I said any more on the matter I’d be giving away the best parts of the play, so audiences will have to come and take a seat in Miss Margarida’s classroom to experience the full assault on their senses.”
l NAF runs from July 2 – 12, www.nationalartsfestival.co.za, www.facebook.com/nationalartsfestival, @artsfestival on Twitter.