SITE, LIGHT, ACTION: A SERIES OF SITE-SPECIFIC ACTIVATIONS AT THE CENTRE FOR THE LESS GOOD IDEA

SALM TEAM November 18, 2025

The Centre for the Less Good Idea announces its 11th Season, taking place from 25 to 30 November 2025.

Curated by Impresario for the Less Good Idea, Neo Muyanga, and supported by The Centre’s core team, Season 11 focuses on work made by and in collaboration with Johannesburg’s many artists, theatremakers, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and thinkers, as well as a host of invited international artists.

For Muyanga, whose practice straddles the spheres of performance and scholarship, and whose compositional style is grounded in the South African choral tradition, a key interest is that of the collective voice as a vector that shapes society. Specifically, it’s the act of collective seeing and shaping that runs through Season 11.

ACTIVATING FOX STREET WITH LIGHT, MUSIC, PERFORMANCE, AND POP-UP INSTALLATIONS

Alongside a multifaceted offering of staged theatre, experimental visual art and dance, public conversations and more, is a programme of public activations in and around Arts on Main.

Titled Site, Light, Action | Fox Street Activations, this is a series of free short-form experiments along Fox Street and inside Arts on Main, curated by Vienna-based South African artist Marcus Neustetter.

Designed to be experienced as a programme of experimental engagements with the city, Site, Light, Action encourages audiences to explore the Arts on Main building and the surrounding streets in a free-spirited and incidental way.

Taking place each evening from 19h00 the programme is free to the public, and is designed to activate the city and its audiences. Those commuting along Fox Street, for example, can stop and witness a short theatrical intervention, musical performance, or experimental light show.

A few of the key activations for Site, Light, Action include a pop-up coffee-shop performance with pianist Jill Richards, shop-front shadow dances with artists including Thulisile Binda and Smangaliso Ngwenya, and Sello Pesa and Phala Ookeditse Phala‘s Ngoana oa Noka ea Kubetu, a new iteration of their Nokeng ya Kubetu series, performed in the Arts on Main Atrium.

Neustetter, having lived in Maboneng for more than a decade, has a long history of working in the city, with a strong focus on light projection and social engagement. Additionally, through the Trinity Session, a contemporary art production company he co-founded in 2000, Neustetter has worked on various public installations and site-specific projects, all of which are defined by their relationships and exchanges with the city of Johannesburg.

“These small experimental moments embrace the unknown or hidden, seeking connections and stories that might reveal themselves through artistic languages. Framed by temporary sets and focused by responsive mobile light, these moments function as small public studios of attempted sense-making,” says Neustetter.

Neustetter, in collaboration with photographer Zivanai Matangi also presents a new series of light drawings during the Season, on exhibition in the Arts on Main Atrium.

The full programme for Season 11 is available at www.lessgoodidea.com