anthea moys

To celebrate the re-opening of the newly renovated heritage house, the Windybrow Arts Centre in 2017, I worked with The Coloured Cube as their 'Activations Director' in connecting the building with the local community. Over the course of a few months we developed a number of projects with the community at the Windybrow Arts Centre to serve the core mission and vision that the Market Theatre Foundation has for developing the Windybrow Arts Centre as a premier hub for Pan-African narratives, cultural expressions, celebrations and excellence.

 

For this, we organised several events. For the opening on June the 16th as part of Alliance Francais annual music event Fete de la Musique I worked with choreographer Teresa Phuti and her dancers from the Market Theatre Lab as well as several young movers from Hillbrow area and boxers from George Khosi’s boxing club in creating a ‘Breathless Tour’ of the Windybrow house. The performance was performed three times to audiences of over 20 people. The audience followed the dancers as they moved through the house, breathing new life into this old heritage house. Thank you to Mark Straw for the photos! 

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On June 18th I worked with local theatre practitioners in directing several yellow clad performers as 'story collectors' for the launch of the Exclusive Books Pan African Reading Room. The performers listened to people who attended the event, writing down their stories on pieces of card and then tying them with golden thread to the trees. 

 

There were two shipping containers on the site that we reused and repurposed for mini-artist in residency projects, puppet shows and even a demonstration of a robot that could paint. In the courtyard you could also learn how to box with George and his champions from George Khosi's boxing club in the area. 

 

We also installed a tin can telephone from a flat on the fourth floor of the building across the road where singers sang down to audience members below through the tin can. And it actually worked! The idea was initiated as a symbolic performance of how the WAC would like to connect with its surrounding residents through the arts.