P.O.P. Art

🌟 Get ready, Poppers! Our Zulu opera "Ngivelelwa Yini" is hitting the stage at the Yes Lets Festival! 🎶 Join us on September 14th at 11am for a musical journey you won't forget!
Get your tickets- https://buff.ly/3zlrn27

Hey Poppers!

Our friends have something cooking this coming Friday!!!

On Friday 6 September, SO | The Academy for the Less Good Idea presents THE OPEN MOMENT: Thinking in Instant Composition.

⚡️Following a three-day mentorship led by movement artist, performer and teacher, Lucia Walker, this Open Moment focuses on the notions of ensemble sensitivity, curious presence and more.

🎭Led by Walker, the 13 participants of the mentorship will show their recent explorations into making collective, compositional decisions in relation to one’s immediate environments, relationships, and spaces, through visual, performance, and text-based mediums.

👤The 13 participants of the Thinking in Instant Composition mentorship are Aalliyah Zama Matintela, Dimakatso Motholo, Jaden Mmokwa Oratile Mosadi, Joziah Wheeler, Lillian Malulyck, Mkutaji wa Njia, Sami Maseko, Sinenhlanhla Mgeyi, Sthe Khali, Uvile Ximba, Thulani Chauke, Toby Ngomane & Zwelethu Ndlovu.

DATE | 6 SEPTEMBER 2024
TIME | 19H00
VENUE | THE OTHER SPACE, THE CENTRE FOR THE LESS GOOD IDEA, ARTS ON MAIN, 264 FOX STREET, MABONENG
DURATION | 90 MINUTES
TICKETS | This is a FREE event, but booking is ESSENTIAL.
BOOKINGS, visit for ticket link!

Photo by Christo Doherty

Happy Spring day🥂
Yesterday, was the last day of Women’s month and with that being said, let’s take a moment to celebrate the 3 female founding members of POPArt : Hayleigh Evans, Shoki Mokgapa and Orly Shapiro.

These are the 3 who brought the initial dream of POPArt into reality with energy, determination and love all the way back in 2011!

The spirit in which they started POPArt continues in all our projects. Let’s celebrate their incredible contribution.

Let’s have a glorious month!! From now on it’s all about mber🥂🥳🫶🏾

Hey Poppers!

Step into the rhythm this month of August! Join us for THE OPEN MOMENT: SHADOWS, STEPS & SONGS at the Featuring the dynamic talents of , , , and .africa ! Don’t miss this night of pure artistry!

When:
🗓️ Date: 30 August 2024
🕒 Time: 19:00
📍 Venue: 264 Fox Street, Maboneng
🎟️ Tickets: R150 (https://lessgoodidea.com/)

Photos by Stella Olivier & Step Afrika!

“Immense gratitude to for hosting ‘TEXT ME WHEN YOU ARRIVE’ from the 6th to the 10th of August. Your platform gave voice to an essential story. Special thanks to for capturing every impactful moment. We came, we saw, we played. 📸👏 ”

🎉 Last Wednesday was an absolute blast! Our very own and headed to the Gompo Arts Centre in Duncan Village, Eastern Cape for an arts admin workshop as part of the 3rd Space Project.
We worked with 30 incredible creatives from diverse artistic fields—writers, poets, dancers, actors, bead workers, and potters. We explored unique strategies for promoting their brands and running successful freelance art businesses.
The energy was amazing, and the feedback was even better! Everyone left with their own IMMEDIATE BUSINESS CARD in hand, ready to take on the world! 🌟

Heyyy Poppers!!!

On Saturday 3rd of August the Centre for the Less Good Idea hosts Notebook of a Long Day’s Journey into a Hillbrow Night.

A production by the in collaboration with The Centre, the performance emerges in
response to a central question: What would Aimé Césaire’s
classic anti-colonial long poem ‘Notebook of a Return to
the Native Land’ sound like if it were written today, by
teenagers living in Hillbrow?

First performed at The Centre in April 2024 as part of
our COLLATIONS programme, a reworked version of the
performance will now be staged at The Centre with the
support of the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS/


There will be two performances
- one at 12H00 and one
at 15H00
- with a post-show Q&A following the midday
show. There will also be a process-based exhibition by
writer and Head of Creative Writing at Wits University,
Stacy Hardy, that speaks to the collaborative journey of the
project.

“The new work explores the power of voice and breath
while delving into collective authorship and translation
politics,” says Hardy. “It seeks to create a space where the
ghosts of our shared colonial past can address the
present, blending homage with heresy.”

DATE | 3 AUGUST 2024
TIMES| 12H00 & 15H00
VENUE | THE CENTRE SPACE, THE CENTRE FOR THE
LESS GOOD IDEA, ARTS ON MAIN, 264 FOX STREET,
MABONENG
DURATION| 45 MINUTES
TICKETS | R150
BOOKINGS | Link in BIO

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi

Hey Poppers!!!🤗

“Text Me When You Arrive” kicked off their tour this year with NAF and next month it will be on at

Share the poster, spread the word!!!
Ticket link in BIO🎟

AT THE CENTRE | THE OPEN MOMENT

On Friday 26 July, SO | The Academy for the Less Good Idea presents an OPEN MOMENT in three parts.

Centre collaborators Thulisile Binda and Kaldi Makutike will show their individual works, emerging from the 2022/2023 Centre of Somewhere Residency, while a showing of the work done throughout the four-day Ways of Repair workshop will form the third part of The Open Moment.

📌Makutike’s performance is an exploration of the artist’s body as a site of ill-health and infirmity, as well as a reflection on how contestation and spirituality manifest in the body.

📌Binda’s performance makes use of a series of whips and the body in motion in order to achieve a kind of harmony and meditation, and reflects on how one can gain power from pain.

📌Ways of Repair is an incubative and exploratory workshop that seeks to engage the archive of Princess Magogo, the Zulu princess, musician and poet.

DATE | 26 JULY 2024
TIME | 19H00
VENUE | THE CENTRE SPACE & THE OTHER SPACE, THE CENTRE FOR THE LESS GOOD IDEA, ARTS ON MAIN, 264 FOX STREET, MABONENG
DURATION | 120 MINUTES
TICKETS | FREE, BUT BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL
BOOKINGS | BIO🎟

Photographs of Kaldi Makutike & Thulisile Binda by Zivanai Matangi

We’re super proud to have collaborated with IFAS - Institut Français d’Afrique du Sud and The National Arts festival in Project Managing 3 incredible projects!!!

(In)Visible: Bringing together Mozambican choreographer, Janeth Mulapha, South African scenographer, Jenni Lee Crewe, and dancers from the Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative in residence at the Ebhulweni Arts Centre, this performance draws inspiration from Mulapha’s immersive dance practice with individuals who have experienced sudden blindness and delves into themes of neglect, pity, affection, integration, and curiosity.

❗Book your tickets to watch (In)Visible 20 - 21 June: https://tinyurl.com/bdh72w6x

Golden City: Through this work, Mozambican choreographer Panaibra Canda collaborates with fellow country-man, Elton Rafael Davids and dancers from the Gompo Arts Centre in East London, South Africa, to fabricate an imaginary space where narratives kindled by the ‘other’ of our childhood dreams and the current ‘self’ encounter.

❗Book your tickets to see Golden City on the 27th and 28th of June: https://tinyurl.com/4n3um2aa

Bond-Edge: Connecting dancers from the Kubu Collective with Ugandan choreographer, Nabaggala Lilian Maximillian, and Tanzanian scenographer, Arafa Hamadi, in residence at the Market Theatre, Bond-Edge is a dance theatre piece that sheds light on the devastating impact of trauma on mental health in society, through a blend of expressive movements, storytelling, and visual imagery.

❗Book your tickets to watch Bond-Edge on June 29th and 30th: https://tinyurl.com/cvy8pvwd

“TEXT ME WHEN YOU ARRIVE”

Will be on this coming up Thursday and Friday!
The 6th and 7th of June at The Market Square in New Town.

Bring your friends and let’s have a playful time with Aalliyah Zama Matintela, Thuli Nduvane and Sibahle Mangena; director by Sinenhlanhla Mgeyi as they fundraise for Makhanda’s National Arts Festival!

TEXT ME WHEN YOU ARRIVE is going to the National Arts Festival 2024!!🎭🔥🙌🏽. We have 2 fundraiser performances happening *next week* 6th & 7th June at the Market Laboratory. Buy a ticket and help get us to NAF! Let’s fill up the theatre!🚀🙌🏽

Hey Poppers!

Our friends over at the CENTRE OF THE LESS GOOD IDEA,have an exciting IN CONVERSATION 

WITH HARDY, BORZUTZKY & MUYANGA 

About: The Academy for the Less Good Idea will host an IN Conversation between writer, editor, researcher and head of Creative Writing at Wits University, Stacy Hardy, and Chicago- based poet and translator Daniel Borzutzky, moderated by Impresario for thr Less Good Idea, Neo Muyanga. 

The Breathers is a collaborative long poem written by Borzutzky and Hardy. The project is an attempt to experiment with ways to document both the suppression of breath, or, the mere act of breathing as a form of political resistance to those forces that confront our bodies with what  cannot be said, what cannot be seen, and what cannot be done. 

Part Opera,part angry rant, part lullaby, part dream song, part solilouy, The Breathers channels what the politics of breath looks like across languages and borders, and through Africa and the Americas. 

You dont want to miss this ONE!

Date: Friday 31 MAY 2024 

TIME: 19h00

VENUE: THE CENTRE FOR THE LESS GOOD IDEA, ARTS ON MAIN, 264 FOX STREET, MABONENG 

DURATION: 60-90 MIN

COST: R150 

TICKET LINK: https://lessgoodidea.com/bookings

Our shop, just keeps on giving!!!!!!
With payday around the corner, grow your home library and get your sticky fingers on “Between the Pillar and the Post” 🤗

Everything on “Between the Pillar and the Post”

A multi-lingual anthology of contemporary South African monologues and scenes (2019).
This collection features 29 monologues and 11 scenes by contemporary South African writers in multiple languages. Perfect for actors who need audition material or lovers of the multi-lingual arts.

Produced by The Market Theatre Laboratory and Diartskonageng published with the support of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Visit our website popartcentre.co.za for more goodies🌼