Zip Zap’s acrobats fly to a live band in District Six, over Heritage Month
Zip Zap Circus and School of Rock open Full Tilt at the District Six Homecoming Centre on 23 September for seven performances, with the entire score played live, on stage, by the young musicians of School of Rock.
In most circus productions, the music is pre-recorded and fixed, and the performers time themselves to it. In Full Tilt it is played live, so the performers and the band respond to each other as the show unfolds.
The venue is not incidental. The Homecoming Centre is the District Six Museum‘s second building: the old Sacks Futeran warehouse, where the district’s tailors and seamstresses bought their fabric before more than 60 000 people were forcibly removed from District Six from 1966. It sits two blocks from the museum, on the edge of the area nominated as a National Heritage Site, and reopened as the Homecoming Centre in 2022 after Eric Abraham handed the former Fugard Theatre to the museum.
Full Tilt‘s Thursday shows fall on Heritage Day itself.
Zip Zap’s programmes are free to every participant and have been since Brent van Rensburg and Laurence Estève van Rensburg started the institution in 1992 with a trapeze bar in a tree in Langa.
A total of 1 493 young people came through the doors in 2025 and more than 25 000 since inception. Five of the performers in Full Tilt came up through those programmes and are members of the professional troupe that tours internationally and is just back from a month in Reunion Island before they leave for Europe again in November. Ticket sales fund the training.
“When you watch these performers fly, you are watching what happens when a child is trusted, believed in and given room to become everything they can be. Full Tilt is that belief in motion, and I could not be prouder of what our artists and our friends at School of Rock have built together,” says Laurence Estève.
Leigh Spaun, marketing director at School of Rock South Africa, adds: “School of Rock and Zip Zap are united by a shared belief that the performing arts have the power to transform lives. While our disciplines may differ, our purpose is the same: to nurture confident, creative and resilient young people. We are incredibly proud to partner with Zip Zap on a production that showcases what can be achieved when organisations work together to invest in the next generation.”
Full Tilt is supported by the Western Cape Government’s Department of Cultural Affairs & Sport.
Details and booking
- Dates: 23 to 26 September 2026, seven performances
- Times: Wednesday 23 September 18h30 | Thursday 24 September (Heritage Day) 14h30 and 18h30 | Friday 25 September 14h30 and 18h30 | Saturday 26 September 14h30 and 18h30
- Venue: The Homecoming Centre, 15 Buitenkant Street, District Six, Cape Town
- Tickets: R250 Ground Level, R220 Level One, R180 Level Two
- Bookings via Webtickets
- Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Age guidance: Suitable for all ages
- Access: The Homecoming Centre is wheelchair accessible, with a ramped entrance, a wheelchair hoist and a lift between floors
- Parking: On-street parking on and around Buitenkant Street
