Developing theatre partnerships
The premise for the establishment of the POPArt Theatre and Performing Arts Centre is the creation of a space for emerging performers to create work and hone their skills.
By offering an alternative to what is staged in the big Johannesburg theatres, POPArt showcases cutting-edge and experimental work by new voices to ensure a richness of South African theatre. It has now grown to incorporate work from established performers, creating a thriving artistic synergy.
POPArt in 2017 partnered with spaces like The Centre for the Less Good Idea, University of Johannesburg Arts and Culture and the Market Theatre Laboratory on artistic work with the aim of creating access.
For co-founder Hayleigh Evans, 2018 is all about strengthening those partnerships. “We realised there are so many spaces in Johannesburg that aren’t being used and programmed and need that kind of work,” she says. “So we’re excited to have taken the first steps in doing that and that’s something we’ll continue to pursue this year.
“We’re hoping to have a stronger conversation and partnership — for example, with the Olive Tree Theatre in Alexander — to create a more sustainable and nice ecosystem for travelling work within Johannesburg. This is so it doesn’t cost performers money. It’s also about taking shows to people instead of getting them all to one space.”
POPArt moved its regular show, The Box Comedy, to University of Johannesburg Arts and Culture to engage the student market. Other programmes that will be rotated around the city include signature shows like the Open Improv Class, where people are invited to watch improv in training; Serurubele, the storytelling show; and J Bobs Live, a mash-up of theatre, improv, sketch and game show compiled to offer insight into South African realities by talented writer-directorperformer Jefferson Tshabalala.
The plan is to grow and extend the regular programming and to create a footprint outside their space to grow the POPArt brand.
The venture with the Market Theatre Lab is a business of theatre course that teaches second- and final-year students valuable skills to produce and market a sustainable theatre show. The outcome is the staging of two productions at the POPArt theatre with professional directors. Productions with directors Monageng Vice Motshabi and Nondumiso Msimanga will run from April 12-15 and 19-22.
“This year we are excited about our first residency. The Market Theatre Lab just launched a new drama company for alumni in collaboration with the Windybrow Arts Centre. We will be partnering with them with an international residency in April,” says Evans.
“The Lab is giving us the company to work with. We’re bringing in an international artist and the current winner of the Julie Taymor World Theatre fellowship, Christopher Betts, to work with the Lab students for a month and create a piece that will be staged at POPArt.”
Evans and her business partner, Orly Shapiro, won a trip to New York as part of their Executive Directors Award at the Naledi Theatre Awards in 2017. They are hoping to start conversations about ideas that could help POPArt and their network establish a global presence and collaboration.
An alliance of resources with The Centre for the Less Good Idea was inevitable due to POPArt’s proximity to the centre in the Maboneng Precinct. With their skills of running a performance space, POPArt did front-of-house and administration for the centre’s two seasons and one-off programmes. They also produced Not I with performer Patricia Boyer as part of the Centre’s Samuel Beckett series.
“This resulted in us picking up some of the incredible work that has been developed through the centre for full runs,” says Evans. “The one that is coming up that I’m extremely excited about is Nhlanhla Mahlangu’s Chant, which forms part of the Dance Umbrella programme, running at POPArt from March 15–18.
“We have created conversations between us and Dance Umbrella and between Dance Umbrella and the Centre for the Less Good Idea to get out of our bubbles of live performance. To make sure that everything that is live is all talking to one another to create a hype about live performance.
“It takes women to do it. All these conversations have come out of strong female partnerships and talks where we are ready to collaborate.”
In addition to creating a platform for fresh performers, another one of POPArt’s principal objectives is to create a performing arts centre for professional performers. “We started seeding the idea last year with a workshop a month and it did very well.
“The idea is to create a space for learning, growing, practice and conversation within the industry. It is pitched at a professional level to up the quality of work that is seen and to upskill,” says Evans.
“There will be a series of workshops and masterclasses that will cover training, discipline and administration, allowing people to create sustainable careers through art, allowing them to practise their craft, which makes it easier to get jobs, and doing this at a reasonable rate.”
First up is a funding workshop titled Funding – A Bifocal Look by Market Theatre CEO and former artistic director of the National Arts Festival Ismail Mahomed, who has decades of experience in applying for funding.
The workshop on February 17 will focus on the basics of funding proposals through the eyes of the funder and applicant.