ICA Live Art Festival

The Mother City’s art enthusiasts are in for four jam-packed days of immersive and provocative culture with the University of Cape Town’s Institute for Creative Arts (ICA)’s prestigious Live Arts Festival (LAF) from 4 to 7 September 2024. The festival will be held at the centrally located UCT Hiddingh Campus in Gardens, Cape Town.

A highlight of Spring this year, this annual festival has uniquely allowed its audiences to experience and participate in a vibrant live art experience in a non-commercial environment since 2012. Historically, the Festival has created access to works by artists who are pushing the boundaries of form, flouting aesthetic conventions, engaging controversy, confronting audiences, and experimenting with perceptions. 2024 will be no different!

The festival is anchored around live art performances by renowned artists like Nigeria’s Jelili Atiku, Mozambican dancer and choreographer Pak Ndjamena, South Africa’s Godfather of performance art John Nankin, the magnificent meta-dance artist Nelisiwe Xaba, Sello Pesa and artist/academic donna Kukama. Making waves as big and spectacular are Chuma Sopotela, Qondiswa Jones, the Sisi Dance theatre from Tanzania, Gavin Krastin’s Arcade 2024, Oupa Sibeko, and Mthuthuzelii Zimba. 

For the 2024 festival, Professor Jay Pather, the Director of the ICA and curator, has focused the programming on a South-South axis with significant emphasis on creating conversations and relationships that galvanize the emergence of a new geo-cultural programme of collaboration, exchange and networking. He is passionate about the programme for this milestone edition of the LAF truly reflecting 2024 as a year of seismic shifts in geopolitical alliances:

Accordingly, a South-South Dialogue in tandem with the ICA’s 2024 Live Art Festival’s programme highlights include:

• Discussions,talks and lectures: Prominent arts academics, producers and curators will be the stars of these events. Audiences will be inspired and motivated by the likes of Andre Lepecki, Antonio Araujo, donna Kukama, N’gone Fall, nora chipaumire, Marlon Barrios Solanoarole, Carole Umulinga Karemera, Dr. Bernard Akoi-Jackson, Quito Tembe, Maria Jose Cifuentes and the like from Brazil, Columbia, Chile, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, Rwanda, Ghana, and South Africa. These events are intended to be the beginning of collaborations that will invigorate the power and creativity shared between countries of the south. 
• Performances: Leading the moving performances will be the impressive and globally renowned artist/activist and performance artist Jelili Atiku. Through his intriguing and often confrontational performances, he engages audiences about politics, climate change, and social justice. Equally breathtakingly talented is Nelisiwe Xaba, South-African choreographer and performer. She’ll be performing vRot, using mold and decay as a metaphor for the levels of corruption in South Africa, and the impact this has had on the country. These are just, but two of the artists featured in a performance art programme that is exciting and subversive.