The category is… Ballroom! Fashion, drama, family, VOGUE. The ballroom scene has taken the world by storm, infiltrating pop culture and laying the foundation for the mainstream. Originating in New York City, ballroom emerged within African American and Latino communities with the intention of creating a celebratory space for LGBTQ+ individuals who had been ostracised…
South Africa has a vibrant and diverse music scene, and one band that is to leave an indelible mark on the country’s cultural and sonic landscape is Iphupho L’ka Biko. They aim to do this with the release of their debut EP titled Azania which explores a blend of sounds that are true to African…
If millions of personal hours are poured into circulating a cultural phenomenon, how do we trace its authorship and — perhaps more importantly — its transformation? When is something appropriation versus translation, interpretation or simply scamming? In a roundtable printed by Artforum in the summer of 2017, scholar Homi Bhabha gestures at a slight but…
In the words of Olivia Laing, “The future does not announce its arrival”. It merely takes its course. Tina Campt, of course, speaks of futurity realised in the present entwined with the notion of a “tense”— “a tense relationship to an idea of possibility that is neither innocent nor naïve. [That] is devious and exacting……
The first in a series of performances by artist and choreographer Clara Delorme is called L’albâtre (Alabaster). Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving and is processed for plaster powder. In L’albâtre, the choreographer explores monochrome and invites us to examine the nature of the strange being she embodies,…
The Waiting Room is an extremely significant venue in the CPT nightlife space for me, as I have always seen it as a space for BIPOC to have carefree nights. It was a place where I had some of the best nights of my life when I started clubbing and I’m happy to be providing…
Reaching the milestone of 20 years as a dancer this year, performance artist Llewellyn ‘LuluBelle’ Mnguni takes to the stage alongside photographic artist Travys Owen to exhibit Resilience, a “true and complicated story of Mnguni as a South African born and raised man who dealt with the Setswana cultural dealings and restrictions in a fast-growing…
Siyabonga Mtshali is a name that needs no introduction to keen followers of the fashion industry in South Africa. The young designer’s flamboyant personal style and uncompromising take on what fashion should be in a modern world have garnered him some well-deserved attention. Like many other creatives, however, Siyabonga cast his creative net wide while…
Presented as a part of the Ecofutures Festival, Deep Trash is a bi-annual, one night only event consisting of unrestricted and defiant performances, installations, artworks and video works. Deep Trash can be described as East London’s exhibition-cum-performance club night. The night by Eco Trash investigates current ecological anti-utopia in order to reveal future imaginaries for…
Themes around identity and gender emerge in Tracey Rose’s work as she examines, probes and dismembers social history. Rose’s artistic practice includes video installations and photography, but she is mostly known for her performance art. The term performance art gained momentum in the 1970s. It represented a departure from the “traditional materials of canvas, brush…
When considering points in a lifecycle of Goldendean there are many beginnings, but I imagine they exist in potentia on the mine-dumps of Joburg, eGoli – the city of gold. – Goldendean Artist Goldendean’s narrative powers itself from the same set of key methodologies that has become inseparable from themselves as a humxn being as well…
When a beautiful, innocent baby is born we hail; ‘it’s a boy’ or ‘it’s a girl’. The performance begins —You will wear pink and not blue, you will play with dolls, you will seek perfection and beauty but not bravery —what American philosopher and gender theorist, Judith Butler, dubs gender performativity; the stylised repetition of…
