Infecting The City (ITC) is a vibrant and innovative public arts festival that takes place every year in the City of Cape Town. The Festival strives to bring exceptional, socially engaged performance and visual art out of theatres and galleries and into the communal spaces of Cape Town’s Central Business District – transforming the city centre into an outdoor venue, where art is free and accessible to everyone.
ABOVE: Photograph from Infecting the City 2014. Photgraph copyright Sydelle Willow Smith.
A team has curated infecting The City 2015 with diverse ideas about how art engages audiences and functions in public space, and the Festival has strong and defined Programmes, which will provide audiences with a variety of different types of experiences.
There are several key things to know about the Festival:
Routes On and Off
There are daytime and evening performances, and much of the Festival is designed as ‘routes.’ This year, some of the routes are planned around hubs of activity – central spaces that are activated for the whole day with various installations, participatory artworks and performances. Beyond the scheduled performances, there are artworks that run throughout the Festival, as well as artworks that are mobile, without time or place, and that can only be experienced if stumbled upon.
Performance Times
The Programme indicates the locations and order in which works will be presented on the respective routes, as well as the timeframes for these presentations.
Dinner Time
The evening Programmes have been structured to include a dinner break, where audiences will be treated to a broad range of food and drink delicacies thanks to one of ITC’s key donors, Spier.
Youth Development
In previous versions of Infecting The City, youth attended workshops and were brought in largely as spectators. This year, they actively participate in the Programme throughout the week as well.
Public Art Symposium
The Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) will host Remaking Place from 8-14 March 2015. Members of the public are welcome, and admission is free.
Whether you are an active participant or more detached observer, whether you participate in a route as a planned activity or come across a moment of performance in your everyday use of the City, ITC hopes to engage with the spaces of Cape Town in ways that will be transformed through the experience of public art.
This transformation will be taking place from next week Monday (9 March 2015), and will continue throughout the week with a number of interventions scheduled. For the full programme, have a look here.
