INFECTING THE CITY
Cape Town’s favourite public arts festival set to make a strong return
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he Institute for Creative Arts and curator, Jay Pather, have once again teamed up to transform Cape Town’s public spaces into open-air galleries, theatres and performance venues for the popular public arts festival, Infecting the City (ITC). For seven days, from 18 to 24 November, a series of day-time and night-time programmes will see audiences traverse city blocks following 50 acts, from giant puppets and vertical dancers to traditional cleansing and burial ceremonies. Included in this year’s diverse programme are award-winning and young and upcoming artists from across the country and as far as Namibia, Zimbabwe, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland. City parks, shopping and transport hubs, from the Station to St George’s Mall, to the Cathedral and various city museums will be activated with live performance, installations and artistic interventions. “An emerging theme from this year’s proposals is work based in classical African tradition. Works that explore how classical African performance and rituals work inside of the urban space. This is also to create atmospheres of cleansing and interiority within these commercially driven, materialistic spaces,” says Jay Pather. Joining Pather as a curatorial fellows for the festival are internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer of African Indigenous and cross-cultural dance, Elvis Sibeko, who brings extensive experience with traditional African productions and young up and coming curator, Amogelang Maledu. “Working alongside emerging voices in public art curation is critical to developing the vision and reach of Infecting the City”, says Pather. “ Where were you, Photo by Oscar O' Ryan
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