Celebrating its 10th year – and the 30th anniversary of the Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC) – My Body My Space: Public Arts Festival (MBMS) 2025 invites art-loving and day-tripping audiences to experience an extraordinary celebration of public art, featuring a selection of installations, site-specific performances, workshops and training programmes across Emakhazeni, Mpumalanga.
From 10 to 15 March 2025, this one-of-a-kind free festival will transform rural Emakhazeni into a public art space accessible to all, curated to foreground local dancers, choreographers and traditional/indigenous dance forms, as well as to emphasise human rights, the power of democracy and creative excellence, with a strong focus on the climate and environment.
Says PJ Sabbagha, festival co-curator, “Like any act of creation, the MBMS is filled with surprises and explodes with the unexpected. As we create the festival and the festival creates itself anew each year as artists create their work, so too do we hope audiences of all ages and backgrounds will experience it. We invite everyone to enter this shared and co-created journey with open hearts and minds, to witness, engage and reflect, and see and experience your world in new unexpected ways.
“Locally, MBMS is known as a rainmaker: As we prepare for the festival, the rain has arrived – and we are deeply thankful for the blessing of rain and its much-needed nourishment of the land. The festival this year, as always, is deeply connected to place, soil, land and communities. We do not get to shield ourselves from the reality of the environment that holds us. With that in mind, come rain or sun, MBMS will go on, so we urge you to bring your umbrellas, good comfortable walking shoes and your water bottles.”
Programme highlights
The fringe Arteries Programme from 10 to 14 March includes performances, activations and workshops for and by children and youth in the towns of Machadodorp/Emthonjeni/Siyathuthuka and Dullstroom/Sakhelwe. This programme is a collaboration between FATC’s Local Education in Arts Programme participants and Wits: Drama for Life.
13 March will see the inaugural A: Practice Mini Conference hosted at Chazon Tekna School. “A-Practice” is a term created by FATC to represent its intersecting practices of Arts, Administration, Agriculture, Activism and the Areas in between. It is a way of seeing and responding to the currently unfolding realities in society and our environments which, as a model, supports cultural institutions in locating themselves in an ecological world, in assuming ‘respons-ability’ for the survival of all beings and inspiring people to act in the same way in all areas of their activities. “A-Practice” is a way to solve complex problems to make communities more resilient.
The main Central Nervous System Programme will host a selection of commissioned works at various sites from 14 to 15 March, featuring national and international independent artists and dance companies from the United Kingdom, Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Eastern and Western Cape. Its opening programme at FATC’s Ebhudlweni Arts Centre on 14 March will feature performances by Lulu Mlangeni, Obusitswe “Birdking” Seage, Oupa Sibeko, Smangaliso Ngwenya, Songezo Mcilizeli and Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe.
Starting at Feya’s Palace on the morning of 15 March, audience members will follow a set route through the streets and various sites of Machadodorp, and experience performances and installations from established and community-based artists including Songezo Mcilizeli and FATC dance interns, Vuyani Dance Theatre, Moving Into Dance, Drama for Life and Perzani Dance Theatre. In the afternoon, international artists Louiseanne Pui Chi Wong and Huge Sillytoe will entertain the audience, alongside Sibikwa Arts Centre and Buhle Bapumalanga at Chazon Tekna School.
Closing the programme on the evening of 15 March, on the breathtaking grounds of Kloppenheim Country Estate, will be a series of performances from Thulisile Binda, Fana Tshabalala, Uvile Ximba and Toby Ngomane, Thapelo Kotlolo and Vuyani Dance Theatre.
Note: This programme is subject to change – check the website for the latest updates.