THE streets surrounding Hilton College will come alive with art during the Witness Hilton Arts Festival this weekend, for a number of reasons.
One of those is Locomoto, a street theatre piece that will be performed “everywhere… all the time”.
According to the festival programme, Locomoto integrates contemporary dance and a steel sculpture (a 2x2m steel ball) to share a distinct message about desire, dominance and consumption.
Choreographer Shelby Strange, who grew up on the Bluff and now teaches at the eco-school, Eden College, said green issues had always been close to her heart.
“The (steel ball) structure is quite literally our globe, because it’s a sphere. The entire work happens in and around this planet or sphere,” she explained.
“Essentially what we are trying to say is once we’ve utilised all the resources that are in that place and our industrial machine stops driving, there’s nowhere else for us to go.
“So the entire performance takes place on the globe. In the end everyone is flung from the globe, making a statement that if we don’t stop this machine that we’ve created it’s going to stop itself.
“It’s a very high-intensity piece. There’s a lot happening at once and that was also part of the choreographic intention because in this world in which we live there is just too much happening.
“We create so many activities to do and we don’t focus on what is important, for example, sustaining the place in which we live,” she said.
Strange agreed that the mediums of dance and sculpture were very different: “To be honest, it was a bit of a daydream. I pictured these beautiful girls, who I’ve been teaching for two years now and are a very talented group, on this structure rolling down Grahamstown’s streets, because we did this piece for the National Arts Festival. And that’s how it came about,” she said.
The structure was designed by herself and George Holloway and put together by an industrial steel expert.
Locomoto will feature young performers Bridget Crisp, Jade Friedman, Ella Mari, Eden Metzler, Omeka Ntombela, Camilla Pech, Riley Wiggill.
• The Witness Hilton Arts Festival runs from September 18 to 21. For more details on this show and others visit www.hiltonfestival.co.za