Top down in the city – Picasso in Africa
We almost forgot to tell you about one of the highlights of our year so far… no not the Picasso In Africa event, but the shuttle bus-ride back to the parking lot!
Let me fill you in, we were invited to the Picasso in Africa exhibition at the Drill hall in the city… well on the border of Hillbrow. First of all, what an incredible venue… right next to Noord taxi rank, beau…
tifully restored, spacious and gorgeous. The Drill hall is surrounded by city dwellers living in their high-rise apartments… it’s alive and buzzing!
The event was ok…. a great turn out full of French accents and arty types…we weren’t really sure what we were there for but we drifted around merrily taking it all in and seeing lots of familiar faces. Unfortunately the weakness was the bar which was way too small, understaffed (by very friendly guys! Merci) and badly positioned which meant a 15 – 20 minute wait for a drink… one of those awful experiences where you find yourself jostling and elbowing just to keep your place. But we can forgive that oversight.
In terms of the art and the interpretation by various artists of Picasso, while not that original our favourite was definitely Themba and Kris the graffitti artists who created a mural while the event was ongoing… some awesome eye-candy. We also loved the dresses (see pic) from Annah Getanah…. wow… with the city flats as a backdrop her dresses were truly to die for!
While live poetry has got a little boring and overdone, the short punchy and emotive poem from Thokozani Mthiyane was great too. We weren’t that impressed with the other live performance which had a crusty and unrehearsed feel to it. Crusty meaning hippy and “trying too hard” to be deep. Yeah man.
BUT – as mentioned, the highlight of the night was our trip atop an open double decker bus through the city streeets back to the Market Theatre where we had parked our car. As my friend so succinctly put it: EUPHORIC. Clearly everyone on the top deck may have sipped on a few wines before leaving (that’s if they got to the bar) but as we drove off, a sudden elation, excitement and euphoria took over, with everyone standing up, arms wide, looking up to the city skies and waving at all the people we passed. And wow did they wave back… I remember a surreal moment driving past some homeless people snuggled up in their blankets on a pavement whose eyes lit up as we past and whose hands waved hello.
Not that’s what we call live performance! Merci beaucoup and well done to the organisers for the thrilling joyride and night out in the city.
