German institute’s cultural highlights
PARKWOOD - German cultural centre, the Goethe-Institut has two unmissable events coming up in June.
The New South African Voices series will consider writers’ responses to 20 years of democracy, and Afflecktion will offer lovers of live performance a fantastical black comedy.
Institute spokesperson, Benjamin Keuffel said renowned local authors Fred Khumalo and Imraan Coovadia would be the guest speakers at the New South African Voices event on 24 June.
“In 2012, [we] launched [this] series of literary talks and readings, each time presenting established South African authors together with new literary voices,” he said.
“The idea is to discover new topics and compare different literary approaches.”
Khumalo, a freelance journalist, wrote The Lighter Side of Robben Island, Bitches Brew and Seven Steps to Heaven, among others.
Coovadia lectures in the English department at the University of Cape Town, and is a writer and director of the university’s creative writing programme.
His 2010 novel High Low Inbetween won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the University of Johannesburg Prize.
20 Years of Democracy — How do writers respond? will take place at the institute’s library at 7pm.
Afflecktion, a play about re-making oneself and loving the familiar face of a celebrity, will run from 22 until 28 June at GoetheOnMain, the insitute’s project space in Maboneng Precinct.
“Award-winners Daniel Buckland, Briony Horwitz and Nkosinathi Joachim Gaar come together to deliver a fantastical black comedy that is at once haunting and majestic,” said Keuffel.
“Afflecktion is a mixed-media production featuring puppetry and mask work. It conjures a world of side-show freaks, travelling carnivals and 1950s showmanship.”
He added that the production also invoked mainstream American romantic comedies and thrillers.
“Through the close proximity of these mediums, the characters relate to distant celebrities as pseudo-familiars and spurn intimate realities as abhorrent,” he said.
“Each of them somehow seeks to become bigger than the commonplace they are surrounded by. The resulting world is a kaleidoscope where the grotesque is made heroic [and] where ruthlessness is mandatory for true achievement…”
A special opening performance will take place on 22 June.
Details: 011 442 3232; www.goethe.de/johannesburg
