Latest Past Events

BOXES

Studio 5 Environmental and Geographical Sciences Building, Upper Campus, Cape Town

BOXES is a social-justice theatre project devised by award-winning theatre makers Neil Coppen and Ameera Conrad, Journalist Daneel Knoetze and performers Quanita Adams and Mark Elderkin. The project draws from a range of research-based, verbatim and documentary theatre methodologies to explore a myriad of perspectives and insights into urban land justice issues occurring across city of Cape Town. The plays central narrative focuses around a young Cape Town couple: Kaye (Quanita Adams) and Lawrence (Mark Elderkin) who have recently moved into the inner-city and find their preparations for a house-warming dinner, derailed when Lawrence announces that he has accepted a job offer to design a state-of-the art residential development in lower Woodstock. When it is discovered that local residents will be evicted from their neighbourhood to make room for the development, Kaye begins to probe the repercussions of her partner’s latest venture. As Kaye and Lawrence battle it out, we learn of Kaye’s interactions with her Aunt Sumaya in the Bo Kaap, who due to rising rates is having to sell up her family home and has been inspired to return to her activist roots. As Kaye and Lawrence attempt to arrive at some sort of a resolve before the arrival of their dinner guests, audiences encounter a myriad of characters including property developers, politicians, residents and whistleblowers whose lives are impacted, for better or worse, by the gentrification trends sweeping across the city and suburbs. Over the course of four short scenes, BOXES probes the legacy of apartheid spatial planning and forced removals, examining notions of ‘development’ and ‘progress’, by interrogating the question: Who is really benefitting from all this so-called progress? BOXES forms part of a wider Open Society Foundation project which connects South African investigative journalists with theatre makers and artists. The Open Society foundation funded the project which sees creatives interpret the work of investigative journalists with the hope that alternative dissemination strategies would enable these narratives to reach wider audiences in the lead up to the 2019 South African elections. The play is produced by Empatheatre, a company founded by Neil Coppen, Mpume Mthombeni and Dylan McGarry. Empatheatre has been responsible for launching several social-justice theatrical projects over the last decade including Soil & Ash (focusing on rural communities facing pressure from coal-mining companies), Ulwembu (street-level Drug addiction and harm reduction advocacy), The Last Country (female migration stories) and Lalela ulwandle (an international theatre project supporting sustainable transformative governance of the oceans). More recently the Empatheatre team has been invited to work internationally in New York, St Louis, Toronto, Fiji, Ghana and Namibia. DATE: 26 April 2019 TIME: 14:00 to 15:00 VENUE: Studio 5, Environmental and Geographical Science Building, Upper Campus, UCT Space is limited. Please RSVP to africancentreforcities.rsvp@gmail.com

Launch of ‘The Walk’

Studio 5 Environmental and Geographical Sciences Building, Upper Campus, Cape Town

African Centre for Cities invites  you to the launch of a new publication entitled The Walk. This publication, which is based on a research study entitled The Prospects for Socio-Spatial Transformation in the Voortrekker Road Corridor by Mercy Brown-Luthango, was supported by the French Development Agency (AFD) and focuses on Maitland, Kensington and Factreton. The main concern of this study was to understand the vision of city officials and politicians, as outlined in major policy documents, and how this compares to the daily lived experiences of those who reside and conduct business in the three study areas. Please join us for a series of panel presentations followed by a facilitated discussion on the prospects and challenges for socio-spatial transformation in the Voortrekker Road Corridor Integration Zone (VRCIZ). DATE: 18 March 2019 TIME: 11:30 to 13:00 (followed by lunch) VENUE: Studio 5, Environmental and Geographical Science Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town PLEASE RSVP to africancentreforcities.rsvp@gmail.com by 16 March 2019 for catering purposes.

Integration & Ideas Festival

Guga S'Thebe Washington Street, Langa, Cape Town

The Integration Syndicate is a three-phase project that started off with a series of nine “episodes” over the course of 2017, which explored the obstacles and solutions to social-spatial integration in the Cape Town metropolitan region. From these episodes, in which a closed group of academics, activists, public and private sector actors participated, five provocations were developed that represent five potential springboard ideas to create and facilitate greater socio-spatial integration. During the first half of 2018 the five provocations were presented to focus groups of stakeholders for critical input to further shape the ideas. Now the next step is to take these five ideas to a broader audience with a public event, the Integration & Ideas Festival. Integration & Ideas Festival programme You are invited to join us for the Integration & Ideas Festival WHEN: 26 July 2018 TIME: 08:00 to 17:30 WHERE: Guga S’thebe, Washington Street, Langa, Cape Town RSVP: Please complete the form here to RSVP for this event. If you have any queries please send an email to integration.syndicate@gmail.com