The much-anticipated ArtsAbility festival 2018, presented by the Unmute Dance Theatre in association with the Artscape Theatre Centre is celebrating the International Week for Persons Living with Disabilities from 27 November – 2 December at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town.
Unmute ArtsAbility Festival is entering its 4th year of showcasing groundbreaking inclusive multi-disciplinary art works to a South African audience. The festival is an annual integrated arts platform that presents world-class collaborative artistic works by artists with mixed abilities (artists living with and without disabilities).
This festival incorporates dance, live music, poetry, visual arts, film, fashion design, art installations, theatre and site-specific performances as a medium to challenge the public’s misconception on people living with disabilities. These artworks will encourage people to break stereotypes and educate people about living in an integrated and inclusive society.
The productions that are featured this year include Longitude of Silence, a collaboration between a Durban-based dance company FLATFOOT and Unmute Dance Company, One At A Time by Swiss/Italian choreographer Alessandro Schiattarella and the Ability Market that will be presenting Cape Town’s young designers, visual artists, fashion designers and craft makers.
THE PROGRAMME:
- GUESTROOM | 27 NOV |17:30 |OPERA BAR | FREE EVENT – BOOKING ESSENTIAL
- Created by Ute Sengebusch & Jonas Gillmann (Switzerland)
Time to think, time to reflect and time to exchange is limited. The format „Guestroom“ provides an artistic framework, which focusses on the pleasure and the process of thinking. Artistic inputs are the starting point for exchange, talks, discussions or collective actions. The project „Guestroom“ means space and time spent by a random group who thinks collectively and learn by that experience – sensually, socially and creatively. The given framework and rules guarantee security and provide space for discussions with regards to the content.
“Guestroom“ is an analog chatroom for the 21st century. We generate knowledge and skills, triggered by artistic interventions. This knowledge and experience we take home and continue to carry it on. With this format of collective thinking, we sharpen the awareness of thinking processes and dialogue.
Free Event, Booking is essential: RSVP at unmuteproject@gmail.com
- BLIND DATE | 28 NOV | 16:00 | SITE SPECIFIC RENDEZVOUS ARTSCAPE BOX OFFICE |R50 AND R30 STUDENTS AND PENSIONERS
- CURATED by Themba Mbuli in Collaboration with Elvis Sibeko, Nadine Mckenzie and Bamanye Yeko.
This is an Unseen Arts Experience: Exploring art through the experience without sight.
“BLIND DATE” is an inclusive research orientated performance that involve dance, live music, visual arts installations and theatre performances. Audiences will be taken on a journey to experience art works without using their eyes in an inclusive and integrated audience with visually impaired people.
- ONE AT A TIME | 29 NOV | 19:30 | THEATRE | R80 AND R50 STUDENTS AND PENSIONERS
- Choreographed by Alessandro Schiattarella (Italy/Switzerland)
I am here. I am invisible. I am more than you think. I am looking for the right words. I challenge my environment. I am the tattoo on your shoulder. I am tired of the question: “What happened to you?”
ONE AT A TIME… invites you to enter the complex world of disability. Following the physical principle of the chain reaction, the seven performers create group dynamics in which individualities remain present and at the same time merge into a collective body. In the interactions between the performers, the theatre space and the audience, differences emerge and disappear, stand in the limelight and elude each other.
I am here. I stand in the centre. I am the silent moment at the kitchen table. I shift perspectives. I think it depends on me.
- ABILITY DAY | 30 NOV | 12:00 | THEATRE | FREE ENTRY BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL
- Choreographed by Andile Vellem & Mpotseng Shuping with Unmute Dance Company
Ability Day is aimed at encouraging the youth to break barriers and stigmatization that is attached to disability and to make them realise that we are all abled and have our own abilities. This is a Theatre for Young Audiences that is aimed at creating a bridge of integration between main stream and special needs schools.
The is the showcase of works created during Unmute Schools Outreach with Filia School, Dominican School and Astra School; featuring works by Unmute Dance Company, youth organisations and other collaborators/companies. This will be followed by ABILITY TALK.
- UNMUTE AND FRIENDS |1 DEC | 19:30 | THEATRE | R80 AND R50 STUDENTS AND PENSIONERS
Imbizo is a Zulu word that means “Gathering”. This evening gathers 4 internationally acclaimed choreographers to share with Cape Town what inclusive dance means to them.
THE LONGITUDE OF SILENCE
– Choreographed by Lliane Loots & Andile Vellem (RSA)
“THE LONGITUDE OF SILENCE” begins to question how we map identity through shared sound. What happens in the chasm of silence? What happens in stillness? What happened when we can no longer physically and emotionally hear? Do we begin to listen in new ways? What is the personal politics of the still quiet inner voice?
This emotionally charged and beautiful work was created over only 14 rehearsals in 14 days with the dancers of FLATFOOT and UNMUTE. The work was premiered at the JOMBA festival 2018.
ALTROVE
– Choreographed by Alessandro Schiattarella (Italy/Switzerland)
“In 1999 I was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease, that caused a gradual atrophy of the nerves and muscles in my hands, I began to imagine how it would be if it didn’t stop at my hands and expanded throughout my body, if I could no longer feel and move my limbs, touch and perceive, if the condition would lead me to be a prisoner in my own corporeality……entangled in the habitual senses.
This drove me to experiment with alternatives to the movement I was usually accustomed to ‘feel’ and share, exploring beyond the amplitude of a gesture, facing my limits, searching for new ways of sensing my body itself, and my body in the encounter with the surrounding space.
This solo is the result of such explorative research, beyond and elsewhere what a body can do, feel, experience and sense through the compositional power of dance expression.”
HETERONOMOUS MALE
– Choreographed by Michael Turinsky (Austria)
The choreographer investigates what it might mean, especially in regard to kinesthetics, to be a man and at the same time heteronomous through an absence? Playfully shifting between the unique logic and functionality of the disabled body on the one side and the forces of the law of choreography and society on the other, fluctuating between eros and helplessness, between the position of a child and a grown man, oscillating between seriousness and irony, between sensuality and intellectuality, heteronomous male investigates the fundamental, identity-determining axes of the field on which I as a disabled man and dancer move.
- ABILITY MARKET | 2 DEC | 12:00 | ARTSCAPE MARBLE FOYER | FREE EVENT
This is a display of artistic works by artists with mixed-abilities (with and without disabilities) that will include fashion design, live music, dance, drama, visual art and film. Its a day to comemorate International Day for People living with Disabilities, which will include live performances, a fashion show, live exhibitions, installations, site-specific shows and outdoor performances that will take place in and around the Artscape Theatre Centre
The Ability Concert is the finale and a showcase of local talented musicians and poets with mixed abilities.
WORKSHOPS | 28 & 29 NOV | 10:00
Professional artists, people with disabilities, non-artists, academics and dance pupils are invited to take part in an integrated dance workshops facilitated by Michael Turisky, Alessandro Schiattarella and Susanne Schneider from Switzerland.
Tickets for the festival’s productions are available from Computicket or Artscape Dial-A-Seat on 021 421 7695. Discounts are available for students, seniors and block bookings.