Friday, September 28, 2012

Dancing in public spaces

So my mission is as follows:

a) To get hold of Joburg City Parks, Sappi or any other body corporate (such as Sappi, who does 'community outreach' by looking after some of the city parks)

b) to get some form of permission/go ahead/yes yes, we know you will be there so we don't get arrested to start playing capoeira in the CBD.

Sigh... permissions... I am tempted not to even bother... But me getting in trouble is one thing; the whole of Case da Capoeira getting in trouble is probably not the best decision to make in my life at the moment.

My target parks are the following:

- Joubert Park
- the park outside Joburg Theatre
- Pieter Roos Park
- the park along Rissik Street

There is already one dormant inner city capoeira project; the kids used to train in the Hillbrow Theatre. Hmmmmm, so the concept of capoeira is not completely foreign to all the city residents. At least I know this for sure, even if I know nothing else at the start of this project.

I will be posting the link to the project website shortly. This will also form part of my MA. I want to see the extent of website and blog interaction throughout an ethnographic study and if it in anyway affects the process.

My core question is this:



~To investigate the use of space in a city block in Johannesburg, with specific reference as to how the use of space influences and is influenced by the inhabitants of the space. This investigation will also look at the role of urban dance in public spaces in creating an identity for this city space and how this further affects the identity of the users of the public and private city space.~

I will be looking specifically for the extent to which dance is or is not visible in the city spaces. I will be running, concurrent to the theoretical research, experimentation into spaces in the city that could be used for public displays of dance. Hmmm, public displays of dance - PDD. PD2. P2D. This could get catchy!

Peace out public dancers of all shapes, ages and forms

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

#44

Arts of Main Rooftop Salsa

Ah my gosh! If I was doing a count down to the number one place to dance in Gauteng, this would most definitely be the top. Well, I am jumping ahead of the other 44 places still to be discovered - so it would be in the top of the top selection at least.

On the roof top, on the top of Johannesburg, in the sun, with a cold beer and the hip swaying rhythms of salsa tunes getting your feet a-jiving.

Every Sunday from 12noon until about 5pm. Before this you can browse through the Arts of Main market from 10am, drinking Ethiopian coffee, eating hard bitter sweet Ecuadorian chocolate and, to line your stomach before the beer arrives, Indian curry, schwarmas or Ethiopian Injera.

Here is a link to one of the videos of the salsa afternoon sessions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpV4ThCgi-g&feature=youtu.be

~Where there is dance, there is life~