PERFORMANCE

Discharge (2012)

It’s 2012 and the predictions are correct: it is the apocalypse. Everything we know, or think we know, is ending and the isolated historic settler town of Grahamstown has been designated as the last outpost of human refuge and safety. Discharge is an immersive site-specific performance inhabiting, and in collaboration with, the First City Regiment Military Base Grahamstown, that discovers non-linear narratives of human destruction, nihilism, coexistence and reconstitution. Or, as Elias Canetti muses, “A tormenting thought: as of a certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality; everything happening since then was supposedly not true; but we supposedly didn’t notice. Our task would now be to find that point, and as long as we didn’t have it, we would be forced to abide in our present destruction.”

Discharge was performed at the National Arts Festival 2012 (Grahamstown, South Africa) and in collaboration with the First Physical Theatre Company.

Created by Gavin Krastin, Alan Parker and Rat Western.

Choreography by Gavin Krastin and Alan Parker.

Scenography by Gavin Krastin and Rat Western.

Digital art and sound design by Rat Western.

Lighting design by Wesley Deintje.

Performed by Andrew Buckland, Luke Calder, Maxwell Farouk, Juanita Finestone-Praeg, Lauren Fletcher, Candace Gawler, Christopher Johnson, Gavin Krastin, Siyabulela Mbambaza, Kimberly Mkhushulwa, Nomcebisi Moyikwa, Pumelela Nqelenga, Alan Parker, Lulama Live Qongqo, Karabo Ramalibana, Inga Sibiya, Peter-John Urban, Sandy Vlandir, Frederick Michael von Bardeleben, Josh Martin and Rat Western.

Live music by Cameron Cordell and Tim Abel.

Sculptural installation by Simone Heymans and Samantha Munro.

Vinyl text artwork by Simone Heymans.

Print and digital imagery by Luke Calder, Dun Lorenco, Samantha Munro, Ivy Chemutal Ng’ok, Paige Mila Rybko and Jamie Waddington.

Sculpture by Francois Knoetze