PROGRAMME D: EXORCISING THE GHOSTS
Curated by: FARZANAH BADSHA
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY EVENING 18:00 – 21:30
Nicole Seiler’s Living Room Dancers runs parallel to the other works on Programme D from 19:00. You will need to choose one or the other.
Download Programme D Map (PDF)
Performing in the Company’s Garden, a contested space with ghosts and spirits from the earliest time that people lived here to the present, provides opportunities to exorcise and challenge them. The Company’s Garden holds a unique space in the public sphere as a place where people have encountered each other: sometimes in conflict, shared leisure or labour.
A place established to feed and provide water to colonial travellers and those who established permanent settlements here. A place where slaves worked and were lodged. A place where the Parliaments of successive political regimes were and will be housed. A place of study and the construction of memory. A place of marches, where political protesters were tear-gassed. A place where lovers recline on lawns and homeless people try and find shelter.
It seems appropriate that the performers of Infecting The City are telling the stories of their lives and identities, as well as representing the stories of others – adding new spirits and residues in this contested, yet beautiful, urban public space which could, and should be, a rich refuge for all people in a harsh city.