Emerging Modernities, a weekend-long series of conversations, performances and panel discussions, has been termed an important reflective moment in the arts and humanities in South Africa, and has also been given the endorsement by the country’s leading arts critics.

Achille Mbembe will now be delivering the keynote address on the opening of Emerging Modernities on Friday 18 February. Due to unforeseen circumstances Simon Njami will not be able to travel to South Africa from France. Mbembe is a co-convener of The Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (JWTC) and the author of many books, including On the Postcolony (2001), for which he won the Bill Venter/Altron Award. His latest book, Sortir de la grande nuit, was published in Paris in 2010. Mbembe teaches in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, University of Stellenbosch. He has written extensively on African history and politics and his work has been translated in various languages.

Clive Kellner (previous director of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, co-curator for Africa Remix and current curator for the Gordon Schachat collection) joins Gabi Ngcobo and Rael Salley as respondents for Panel 3, Re-presenting the other; artistic collaboration; identity construction as process in the visual arts.

A unique element of Emerging Modernities is the site-specific performances that accompany the reflective panel discussions. Transport to the various site-specific venues will be provided for conference delegates.

Brett Bailey, curator and heavy-weight in the field of site-specific performances, will talk about his work and the programming decisions behind the upcoming Infecting the City festival, of which he is the curator. He will share a panel with Maxwell Rani (UCT School of Dance) and cultural theorist Jane Taylor. Mwenya Kabwe will present her translocation of Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro.

The conference also hosts the première of Peter van Heerden and Anne Historical’s installation work Monument on Friday evening.

Another site specific performance will be In House by Ntsoana Contemporary Dance Theatre, featuring Gauteng based Sello Pesa, Humphrey Maleka and Brian Mtembu. The In House Project frees contemporary dance from its traditional venues and takes it to the heart of where people live: their suburbs, their living spaces. The project reveals the spaces between communities as well as between communities and art, and seeks to address outdated images, perceptions and ideas, be it of homes and spaces, or dance and art.

Magnet Theatre’s Die Vreemdeling, an award-winning production directed by Mark Fleishman, is also on the programme. The event includes an exhibition walkabout of In Context at the South African National Gallery, led by curator Liza Essers, director of the Goodman Gallery.

Emerging Modernities concludes with Sunday grooves by master DJ Ntone Edjabe.

Other panelists include academics and cultural theorists Crain Soudien (Deputy Vice Chancellor, UCT), Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi (Africa Institute of South Africa) Deborah Posel (Director: Institute for Humanities in Africa, UCT), Neo Muyanga and Ntone Edjabe (Pan African Space Station), Gerard Samuel, Colin Richards, Bettina Malcomess, Rael Salley, Gabi Ngcobo, Mark Fleishman, composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen, past contemporary art curator at the National Museum of Zimbabwe, Heeten Bhagat and Mokena Makeka, member of the World Economic Forum: Global Agenda Council on Design.

Costs:

Public: R350 - includes all sessions and performances, lunches and teas, the opening cocktail function and transport to the various installation performances throughout the city.
Public: R150 - excludes lunches
UCT staff discount: R200 - all inclusive All students: R70 - excludes lunches

Bookings through Computicket (www.computicket.com). (See www.computicket.com/web/event/gipca_emerging_modernities). The full programme is available from www.gipca.uct.ac.za. Please contact Adrienne van Eeden-Wharton on 021 480 7156 or [email protected] for further