Dance and flash mob festival for Ekurhuleni
My Body My Space is a new festival of public arts happenings co-ordinated by The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC) in the City of Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg between February 2 and 7.
ALBERTON – The festival will play out as a series of ‘guerrilla style’ art interventions, installations and live public performances, erupting on the streets and pavements of the City of Ekurhuleni, in hubs of city life, under-served communities and at the intersection of its diverse citizenry.
Featuring a range of works by Johannesburg’s top contemporary choreographers and dance companies, community-based artists and crafts.
It celebrates 20 years of democracy as it explores issues relating to gender violence and the impact of HIV/Aids; and aims to re-stitch communities and spaces that have previously been separated, to shine a light on the role of women, children and other vulnerable members of society and find a shared voice and experience around critical, personal and social issues.
Since antiquity, philosophers and architects have imagined cities as bodies, with arteries and veins through which pedestrians and traffic stream; My Body My Space seeks to make the connection between the individual and the city patent. With the City as a metaphor for the human body FATC envisages the festival and events unfolding along the city’s numerous critical routes and arteries, which serve as major transport routes but are also significant in their linking of historically, politically, socially and economically separated communities.
“As we celebrate 20 years of democracy and political freedom, the festival is a call to artists, both the public and private sector and the citizens of Ekurhuleni to actively engage in a process of personal and social transformation and healing in addressing critical issues that are our current stumbling blocks to true emancipation,” says PJ Sabbagha, the festival’s mastermind and founder of FATC.
The MMC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture (City of Ekurhuleni) Zeni Tshongweni says – “I wholeheartedly support the My Body My Space initiative. It will turn the city around and open up its citizens to the magic of dance.”
For more information on the installations and when they will take place please go to www.albertonrecord.co.za
