A symposium to discuss live performance art and launch of website focusing on live art in Africa pencilled for Cape Town in February 2023
By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor
A symposium that will see African thinkers, writers and artists converge and engage in critical issues affecting live art on the continent as well as witness the launch of a website dedicated to content about peformance art will take place in February 2023 in Cape Town.
The organisers at the University of Cape Town are therefore calling on those interested to attend the event to register with a view to participating at this important event for live art on the African continent.
“Live art (sometimes known as performance art) is an ephemeral art form. Works rarely live beyond the moment of their performance — this is the magic, the risk and the allure of this transient, non-commercial art form.
As a consequence though, artists have difficulty sustaining careers in live art precisely because it is momentary and unsellable. Despite the fact that live art (as performance, as ritual, as activism) has existed for centuries on the African continent, in the absence of infrastructure on the continent to support its growth and sustainability, the form is fragile.
In 2018 a group of practitioners, producers and writers met to address this fragility and allay the loss. The Live Art Network Africa (LANA) was established to create a platform for live art practitioners to connect with one another and the world — a resource for producers, production houses, writers, and curators as well as for artists. View the 2018 Symposium programme here.
At the LANA Gathering in February 2023, a website specifically designed for LANA will be launched — a resource and platform for amplifying live art on the continent and in the diaspora. It will by no means be complete, but constitutes a momentous first step,” the organisers said in a statement released this week.
The launch of the website will be accompanied by live art performances and film screenings from Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Algeria, Mozambique, South Africa and Nigeria amongst others. A symposium will engage critical themes around the development and sustainability of live art in Africa, the organisers revealed.
.Registration will open with the full programme announcement in January 2023. Sign up for the LANA mailing list and follow on Instagram for updates.