| In July 2010,
a few days ahead of the World Cup finale, the Goethe-Institute South
Africa will take one of the most productive formats of documentary
theatre to Johannesburg. “X HOMES Johannesburg” takes
story lines out of the darkened theatre by visiting people in places
where they spend a large part of their lives: In the carefully protected
sphere of private spaces, out of the public’s view. Interested parties will get an opportunity to go on a three-hour walkabout which will take them to seven different homes. In each of these homes, the visitors will watch a production. Its material comes from the individual and collective stories that the people attach to their parts of town and the homes they live in. The confines of what we consider to be reality are joyfully blurred within the conflicting demands of combining a documentary with fiction. |
Since its inception eight years ago, “X HOMES”, a project by Matthias
Lilienthal, the artistic director of Berliner Theaterkombinat HAU, has developed
into an effective instrument for the aesthetic and ethnographic exploration
of urban spaces. In a city like Johannesburg, the project turns into a discourse
with history and architecture shaped by the politics of racial segregation,
which – more than 15 years after the end of apartheid – still impinge
on political and arts events in South Africa.
The audience can choose between two routes. In Pimville and Kliptown, two of
the oldest townships in the south of Soweto, the theatre makers, choreographers
and performing arts artists Jérôme Bel, Nelisiwe Xaba, Harun Farocki & Antje
Ehmann, Tracey Rose, Manuel Orjuela Cortés and Simone Aughterlony take
the audience on a walkabout starting at a golf course for the Black middle
class and - via a public memorial to the resistance against apartheid -ending
in an informal settlement.
In Hillbrow, an area of high-rise buildings in the centre of Johannesburg,
Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, Gesine Danckwart, Athi-Patra Ruga, Angela Bulloch,
Kemang wa-Lehulere, Xoli Norman and Bruce LaBruce are dealing with a transit
area for working migrants from all over Africa – a suburb with a formerly
flamboyant night life, which its white residents fled after the end of apartheid
and which is today seen as a synonym for an inner-city no-go area.
In South Africa, in particular, the message of “X HOMES” is to
change the perception of urban spaces, which many inhabitants of Johannesburg
know only from rumours in the media, and to produce images beyond the projection
of violence and fear ever present in this country.
The curator of this production of “X HOMES” is Christoph Gurk.
A coproduction of Goethe-Institut Südafrika and Hebbel am Ufer Berlin
Participating artists:
- Simone Aughterlony
- Jérôme Bel
- Angela Bulloch
- Gesine Danckwart
- Harun Farocki & Antje Ehmann
- Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom
- Bruce LaBruce
- Kemang wa Lehulere & Lonwabo Kilani
- Xoli Norman
- Manuel Orjuela Cortés
- Tracey Rose
- Athi-Patra Ruga
- Nelisiwe Xaba and others
Time period: 7-10 July, 12 – 2:30 PM
tours start every 10 minutes
Please contact Ben Bergner at pr@johannesburg.goethe.org or 011 442 3232 for more information
and to arrange interviews with the curator or artists, for images, biographies and to participate
as media-representative in the tour of x homes.
The curator, the production manager as well as most of the artists are available for interviews in Johannesburg.