In this ground-breaking collection of critical essays, 15 writers explore the experimental, interdisciplinary and radically transgressive field of contemporary live art in South Africa. The text was a project of the ICA.
Jay Pather writes; ‘In South Africa, live art is born of extremity. Its syncretic form has evolved in response to rapidly changing social climates, colonial imposition, cultural fragmentation and political upheaval; its affective tenor of excess and irrationality embodies the unpredictability of crisis’ (Pather and Boulle, 2019).
About Jay Pather and Catherine Boulle
Professor Jay Pather is Director of the Institute for Creative Arts ICA, Director of the Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, a committee member for the National Arts Festival, Artistic Director of the Afrovibes Festival and Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town’s Drama Department.
Catherine Boulle is an audio producer, researcher and writer based in Cape Town, whose work focuses on memory and violence in South Africa. Most recently, Catherine and co-producer Bongani Kona won the inaugural Podcast Pitch at the 2023 Sheffield DocFest for their story ‘Time, Paper, Bone’ about South Africa’s Missing Persons Task Team and the search for the remains of apartheid’s disappeared
