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Things to do in the Mother City: April

The days are getting cooler and the rain is coming. At last the night outlasts the day. Time to get off the beach and into the theatre, music hall, pool bar, dive bar, etc. Also, we can wear boots and jackets in comfort again. Yessah!

Theatre

There’s a warning as you enter the Baxter’s Flipside theatre to watch iKrele leChiza…the sermon, which says you may experience a heightened spiritual state. In other words, you could flip out and need someone to waft some calming imphepho smoke across your face. Mandla Mbothwe’s mesmerising, ritualised magic realism is certainly entrancing, and about as immersive as you can get from a production staged in a traditional theatre. The genius of it is the presentation of African tragedy within a European construct, placing it on equal footing with the ancient Greek mythology, with all the life and death and heroes and shades that resides within this continent. It is magnificent. Go see it while it plays until 8 April. Evening shows are 7.30pm with Saturday matinees at 3pm. Full price tickets cost R160, book through baxter.co.za

There’s some serious chops behind Die Moedeer (The Mother) coming to the Baxter from 12 to 29 April. We’re talking Sandra Prinsloo on stage with Dawid Minnaar, Ludwig Binge, Ashley de Lange, and Charl Fölscher, directed by Christiaan Olwagen. Anna’s nest has emptied out and her days are full of extra hours within which madness lurks. A compelling portrait of a woman adrift in middle age. It looks hectic, in a good way. Afrikaans with English subtitles, it scooped up a bunch of awards at Woordfees. Tickets cost between R180 and R250. Playing at 7.30 in the evenings with matinees at 3.30 on Saturdays. Book through baxter.co.za. Geniet dit.

A play about a young woman visiting her estranged grandmother who is dying in an insular Christian community as she awaits her reckoning, which she believes will commence tonight, is on at Theatre Arts at the church at the corner of Wesley and Milton Streets in Observatory from 3 to 5 April. Titled Before the Second Advent, it features Margot Wood with Ydalie Turk, who wrote it. On at 6.45pm on 3 and 4 April, and 8.30pm on 5 April. Book through theatrearts.co.za

Tweet Tweet Bang Bang at Theatre Arts from 14 to 16 April looks like the antidote we need to the African tragedy and death in theatres this month. It’s a Mzansi interpretation of seven methods of killing kylie jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones, a story in which the line between internet personas and IRL relationships blur as one young Black woman takes on Twitter. Dara Beth directs, Nandipha Tavares Calburn and Stembiso Sibanda perform. Stage lights come on at like a different time each night so check theatrearts.co.za for times and tickets.

Music

If you’re missing the mosh pit or just want to release a lot of pent up energy, Peasant, Black Math, and Yndian Mynah are playing at District on Harrington Street tomorrow (31 March). It’s a Suncamino jol so rum cocktails at Surfer Rosa downstairs from 6pm but be warned, while Yndian Mynah are relatively mellow with their post-rock post-punk dreamy psychedelic instrumentalism, Peasant and Black Math are all the metal punk noise hardcore etc, with it becoming harder as the night gets darker. Tickets from R150 via Quicket.

Karel Bester end Die Kraaines Band are at The Armchair Theatre in Obs on Saturday night, 1 April. These are the kind of ous who gooi in Afrikaans (obs) and give you horns while sticking their tongue out. Also at the gig will be Willim Welsyn, Die Bergies & Ivan Kruger. Sounds like a jol.

Film

Sound on Screen is a film festival for music lovers (which is pretty much all of us, right?). It’s got movies and documentaries from all around the wold, covering every conceivable music genre, apparently. There are 53 new flicks, 20 of them feature length. We’re talking movies about musicians and musical figures, instruments, radio stations, music’s inner-working and our connection to it, venues, record companies and music culture movements, with themes also including music-linked fiction, biopics, animation, experimental audio-visual trips, performances, dance, music videos and even a documentary executive produced by Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave. It runs from 31 March to 9 April, closing with a special pre-release cinema screening of Spinning Gold. Streaming tickets are only R25 a movie, with a full pass at just R175. You can get them via Quicket.

Festivals

It’s long past that the fans of anime with encyclopeadic knowledge of particular graphic novel series and an obsession with the backstories of obscure superheroes, who are prone to marathan D&D sessions and may own a gaming machine that requires super cooling, were infra dig. Everyone wants in on the action and the annual gathering of professionals, amateurs, and wannabes takes place at Comic Con, the Cape Town leg of which is showing off at the CTICC from 27 to 30 April. It’s an invitation to live out your fantasy, including how much you’d desire to spend on your costume. General access day tickets are R160. Go to comicconafrica.co.za

Alongside Comic Con it is the Cape Town International Animation Festival (makes sense), where courses include a master class in physical theatre by comic genius (currently best known as Namaste Bae) Rob van Vuuren, or creating a story board, and of course lots of stuff to do with various animation software. Also at the CTICC (obvs), tickets for workshops are R300.

Check your carbon footprint. Actually, don’t bother. I can tell you you’re over drawn, and anyway, the concept of an individual carbon footprint was conjured in the marketing divisions of multi-national oil and mining companies to make you feel like you are responsible for turning Earth’s atmosphere into a heat trap. It’s true, we are, infintisimally on an individual level, but that gives us no excuse to behave like trolls. Firstly, the multi-national oil, gas, and mining companies (and increasingly, tech companies) are not about to solve the problem they’ve caused. That’s up to us, also because we’re all individually complicit. The best way to mop up the carbon is to give our energy to the natural processes that already do it, like photosynthesis and micro-organism growth. So planting trees is on the very high priority list for all of us. And equally, planting the right trees in the right places, in the right way. And you can do that, with other people who want to enjoy being outdoors and using their body to do things like dig and carry and dance. Have fun and restore a natural forest. You can do it at GreenPop. Taking place over Easter weekend (7 – 10 April), at the Bodhi Khaya Nature Retreat between Stanford and Gansbaai, it’s got the live music and the electro and workshops and art and delicious food and silent disco and kid friendly and there’s tree planting. Early bird tickets are gone but you can get ones for R775 still. You’ll have to bring your own tent and camping, but you got that. If you don’t, go with someone who does.

iKrele le Chiza at the Baxter this month. Highly recommended.
iKrele le Chiza at the Baxter this month. Highly recommended.
iKrele le Chiza at the Baxter this month. Highly recommended.
iKrele le Chiza at the Baxter this month. Highly recommended.