British Council Connect ZA

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#LitWednesday - Art Week Cape Town

Now in its sixth year, ART WEEK CAPE TOWN will be taking place between Wednesday 6th February – Sunday 17th February 2019!

ART WEEK CAPE TOWN 2019 will have a strong focus on practitioners within the contemporary arts, with the aim of instigating conversations between the public and the artists themselves. Positioned to create a platform for artists, including those who are not affiliated with galleries and institutions, the upcoming edition of ART WEEK CAPE TOWN will generate a keen interest in artist-run initiatives.

See the Art Week Cape Town 2019 Programme here

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#ColabNowNow in the spotlight

To highlight the incredible works made during last year’s #ColabNowNow residency, we’ve put the spotlight on the 9 participants on our Instagram page this week. 

The 9 digital creatives from sub-Saharan Africa and the UK spent a week collaborating with each other at Maputo Fast Forward in October 2018.

Check out our feed to find out more 

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Connecting Creative Communities: Bringing together digital artists from Sub-Saharan Africa and the UK.

In October 2018, nine selected digital artists met in Maputo, Mozambique.

This was part of ColabNowNow, a partnership between Maputo Fast Forward & British Council, connecting the creative communities of Sub-Saharan Africa and the UK.

The project inspired collaboration between artists from East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, and the UK.

Over ten days, the nine artists brought their work - representing the best in African and UK digital practice today - to Maputo where they collaborated to create the projects.

Click here to see the exhibition

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#LitWednesday - Babylon Festival

Curated by Tobi Kyeremateng BABYLON Festival is a celebration of Black and Brown cultural innovators transforms the Bush Theatre with a series of takeovers under three strands:

LOUD - music gigs including electronic musician Nabihah Iqbal, alternative soul-led collective Touching Bass’ ShyOne and Wu-Lu and House of Pharaoh’s rapper Sam Wise.

SPEAKS – live podcast shows from The Receipts Podcast and The N-Erd Council, panel discussions from gal-dem and Female Muslim Creatives and an in-house live radio broadcast show from Reprezent Radio.

RESIDENTS – Theatre takeovers from collectives including Skin Deep’s Sonic Transmissions – a part interview, part music gig with award-winning drummer, composer and producer Moses Boyd –and Cocoa Butter Club – a cabaret collective celebrating performers of colour.

Presented by Bush Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre in partnership with Artistic Directors of the Future.

Watch the trailer

Read more

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#MusicMonday - Page through Sakhile Moleshe’s diary

‘With the release of his debut solo project, “The Final Call“, the vocalist and composer Sakhile Moleshe invites listeners to tap into the conversations taking place in his head. Describing it as diary-style, Sakhile says that “if someone adjusts their listening to feel like [they’re] paging through someone’s diary with or without permission, that’s what the album should feel like.”

Growing up in the home town of Fort Hare University, Alice in the Eastern Cape, Sakhile’s first introduction to music was through the church choir. This would develop further in high school where he picked up DJing and performed in rock and jazz bands. With a background in movement theatre, Sakhile was inspired by Standard Bank Young Artist winner Acty Tang to study music. “I was into movement theatre before I did music. So, I just found that his dancing and the way that he expressed himself through movement was always taken to another level by his choice of music. I thought I really want to create music for movement. Create music for theatre and so on, so I thought let me study music and come back to theatre at a later stage. So that’s when I started studying Jazz at UCT.”

It was while studying that Sakhile connected with Goldfish and recorded “Fort Knox” and “Cruising Through”, which would see him performing with the group around the world for five years. “They were kind of stealing me from lectures, flying me to Bloemfontein, Joburg, Durban to sold-out shows. Both songs did very well for them on their Pacha release. Pacha is one of the oldest clubs in Ibiza so they gave Goldfish a record deal and they took me to Ibiza with them, we toured worldwide, New York, Paris, London, all the major cities, as well as playing local shows, which were always packed. So that was the most amazing experience after university where you’re kind of dreaming up so many things and that was a great manifestation of all my dreams from university.” Read more via Bubblegum Club

Photography by Fleur Beemster

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This #FilmFriday, catch Matwetwe at your local cinema!

“It’s New Year’s Eve in Atteridgeville and Lefa’s life is on the cusp of major change. Accepted into university to study botany, he’s about to leave the ghetto township that has been his home behind if only his deadbeat father will come through with his school fees. Though he may not need his father’s help at all, not with his horticultural skills and the criminal mind of his albino would-be gangster best friend, Papi. No, the easy life is on the horizon if only they can find a way to navigate the very definitely NOT easy life lying much closer to them.”

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#Opportunities - Call for Applications: Live Art Workshops

The Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) in collaboration with Pro Helvetia will host a comprehensive interdisciplinary Live Art Workshop, under the direction of Jay Pather, in March and April 2019, creating an informed and enhanced space for the development of new work. The Workshop will be free of charge but successful applicants will be required to commit to the entire series. This Workshop is aimed at all creative artists, thinkers and practitioners in a range of fields – including sociology, political science, anthropology, psychology, urbanism, literature, digital technology etc. – who are interested in experimental practice and performance. The ICA therefore invites artists and practitioners from a diverse array of fields to apply.

Deadline: 18 February 2019

Read more

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#MusicMonday - Refentse ‘Genesis’

Ease into the week with this gem jam by Cape Town-based singer-songwriter Refentše Solo.  

Listen here

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2019 Project - Shy One SA Tour

Dates

19-27 January 2019, South Africa. London based producer and DJ Shy One tours South Africa and presents workshops.

Workshops: 21& 22 January 2019, Durban / 25 January 2019, Cape Town  / JHB 27 & 28 January 2019, Johannesburg 

Pussy Parties

20 January, Curiocity (Durban)

24 January, Raptor Room (Cape Town) 

26 January, The Cosmopolitan (Johannesburg) 

About the project

Pussy Party exists to create a regular platform for female DJs and artists to practice, incubate, exchange, and expose. With support from British Council and Red Bull Music South Africa, Pussy Party brings London based DJ/Producer Shy One to South Africa for a series of workshops and shows in Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg. 

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#LitWednesday - Emmanuel Iduma in conversation with Lidudumalingani for the JRB

The JRB: The book is anchored by photographs, and images have a particular way of arranging and evoking memories. You also employ dreams to stretch, I felt, the extent to which memories can be unreliable and also what we think of genre. Can you tell me first how you decided on the images in the book and their arrangement, and then about the role dreams play in the book?

Emmanuel Iduma: My hope was to work within dream as genre, which has a long literary history—think of Michel Leiris’s Nights as Day, Days as Night. The real intent, however, was to make a mash-up of dreams and photography, to see if what is evoked in photography is similar to what happens in dreams. If I could do this, I imagined, I could achieve a destabilisation of memory; I could trouble the concept of indexicality. It is not just that occurrences in dreams aren’t linear, but what happens in them seems utterly believable, despite their absurdity.

Read more

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British Council and Attitude Is Everything launch the #DIYAccessGuide campaign

The British Council has been working in partnership with UK live music accessibility charity, Attitude is Everything, to translate three simple guides that aim to make music events around the world more accessible for Deaf and disabled audiences. 

With our support, these free guides are now available in over 12 languages and are aimed at music venues, promoters, bands, festivals and performers with practical, easy to follow advice to make gigs and concerts more accessible so that music can reach and include the widest possible audience. Please take a look here and help us spread the world with the #DIYAccessGuide campaign.

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#Opportunities - Pussy Party x Shy One DJ and production workshops

Pussy Party Workshops level up with free electronic music production workshops in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town from 20-28 January 2019.  Following the success of the 2017 DJ workshop tour with Ikonika honeys are invited to upgrade their skills with London-based DJ and producer, Shy One (BBZ). 

Workshops are open to fem and queer DJs of any skill level. To apply, email [email protected] with the subject SHY ONE WORKSHOPS. Include a short bio and links to your mixes if available. 

Applications close 15 January 2019. 

Workshop dates: DBN 21& 22 Jan / CPT 25 Jan / JHB 27 & 28 Jan 

Supported by the British Council, Connect ZA, Red Bull Music and South Store 031.  

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#MusicMonday - Improving access to live music for disabled audiences

How can access to live music be improved for disabled audiences?  

Two contrasting organisations, Glastonbury Festival, the world's largest greenfield festival, and Band on the Wall, a 340-capacity venue in Manchester, outline two approaches and suggest ways any live music organisation can become more accessible. 

Both organisations have attained the 'Gold Standard' on Attitude is Everything's Charter of Best Practice. Attitude is Everything is a charity which works with venues and festivals to improve access provision across the industry.  

Read more 

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#Opportunities - Go Global Africa 2019

The UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is launching a new International Tech Hub Network 2019, in partnership with the British High Commission in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

Kicking off 2019, the global Tech Hub would like to invite start-ups with post MVP solutions in fintech, healthtech and agritech to join a 2 week program in London, in March 2019, designed as an immersive experiential learning opportunity for any founders interested in future expansion beyond South Africa.

The program includes meet-ups with UK start-ups and various workshops.

What’s involved?

Successful applicants will be sponsored to join a delegation of ambitious African start-ups to the UK for a 2-week immersive programme in March 2019.

The programme will help companies to improve their business skills and capability, build links with the UK’s thriving tech sector and work with UK expertise to take their business to the next level.

Application dates & deadlines

To apply, please read the guidance, and submit your one minute video pitch in this form by 30 January 2019.

Application deadline: 30 January 2019 (12 pm)

Judging panels: 7 – 14 February 2019

Travel dates to the UK: 23 March – 4 April 2019

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Catch our #tbt on #Insta of KOEK SISTA’s (Ulungile Magubane) ‘eMBIZENI’ presented in the #UK @YorkMediale a new international media art festival in York  

See the trio of posts on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connect_za/

Insta Story / Soundcloud

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#UK #Opportunity - Research Grants

Photo by Georgina Johnson at Africa Nouveau Festival, Nairobi Kenya

The British Council is aiming to increase connections between the UK creative sectors and young creative professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As well as building connections, we aim to expand knowledge of contemporary African art in the UK with a view to increase work from Sub-Saharan Africa being seen and experienced by UK audiences.

With this in mind we are seeking expressions of interest from UK based arts organisations / curators / programmers working in any of the following art forms - Visual Arts, Literature, Music, Theatre, Dance, Architecture, Design, Fashion and Film to travel to Sub-Saharan Africa to connect with the local contemporary art sectors, and undertake their own professional research to be shared with a wider UK sector in their chosen field. The trips should take place between April 2019 and March 2020.

Read more and find out how to apply HERE

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#LitWednesday - On M.I.A. by Momtaza Mehri

“Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. poignantly captures these household rhythms. Home videos depicting daily life are interspersed with graphic newsreel footage of civil war. We witness the interplay of domesticity and violence that underpins refugee life. Missing in Acton vs Missing in Action. Yet, the scenes I found the most achingly familiar were often the least bombastic. The precocious banter between M.I.A. and her siblings. The nihilistic humour. The deep reservoirs of imagination one has to accrue, like precious grains of selfhood, to make up for cramped conditions and material deprivation. They lived small but dreamt big. Amid a cacophony of voices and influences, I recognized the youthful inventiveness required to construct a rich inner life with little resources and even less hope of transcending the one you were born into.” - Momtaza Mehri

Read more