Spirit with The Happening
The community for some much-needed free fun. Story by
such beautiful tunes. I loved watching him play freely, expressing himself! Later, after the storm, he improvised over a DJ set at our Fractal Chill Lounge. I love spontaneous art and music. And I loved that he just came and participated. This is exactly what we want people to do at our events. It is raw, unexpected and such a beautiful part of humanity. I also loved the band on the roof at Nxt Lvl. Something completely different and out of the ordinary!”
The band playing from the balcony of Nxt Lvl were a teen punk group, giving it their all, grinning and bouncing along to their own delighted anarchy.
The spirit of gifting
The Happening was modelled on Afrikaburn’s philosophy. “Over years of attending the Afrikaburn festival, we have learnt from its culture and we are in love with the life-changing experience that one can have there. So we wanted to share this experience as far as possible with communities outside of the Burn event,” Böhmer said.
“We believe that there is something beautiful and potentially life-changing in doing events differently. Core to this ethos is decommodification and participation.
“People are encouraged to gift their time, their craft or any other gift they feel would contribute to the community/event. Artists that perform or showcase their work at the event are also gifting in that they are not compensated for their performances at the event.
“We do, however, recognise that people have to make a living in the city, and therefore we had market stalls at The Happening where artists could sell their craft as well as their art. We curated the stalls carefully to ensure that we did not have corporate stands, but rather hand-crafted homemade goods/art as far as possible.
“We are delighted and inspired by how beautifully all of this came together the weekend of 2 March in Melville – and how the community stood up and fixed and sorted and decorated the street, not only for [the event] but for years to come. We’re so grateful and humbled by everyone who joined us in our vision and we look forward to similar events in the future.”