REDCAT Presents The International Debut Of William Kentridge's HOUSEBOY
Performances run Nov. 17-20, 2022.
From Nov. 17 through 20, 2022, Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), CalArts' center for contemporary arts in downtown Los Angeles, and The Broad Museum present the international debut of artist William Kentridge's durational performance, Houseboy by Ferdinand OYONO, developed at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The performance is presented in conjunction with the exhibition, William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows, on view at The Broad Nov. 12, 2022 to Apr. 9, 2023.
Based on the 1956 novel Une Vie de Boy by Cameroonian diplomat Ferdinand Oyono, the 120-minute-long performance is directed by Kentridge and explores themes of historical participation, archival memory, and post-colonial identity. Upending accounts of colonial history told by colonizers, Houseboy looks at the same period through the vantage-point of the colonized, specifically through the eyes of Toundi Ondoua who is forced to serve a colonial household. Oyono's novel is told through Toundi's diary and is unflinching in its account of an era full of contradictions, false promises, and crimes inflicted on the people of Cameroon.
South African performers are featured and a large charcoal drawing by Kentridge serves as the theatrical backdrop. Accompanied by live music and percussion, The Centre for the Less Good Idea's staged interpretation of Oyono's novel creates an immersive multimedia experience that muses on agency and trauma and directly folds into the artist's multidisciplinary practice on view at The Broad.
Houseboy also explores and contextualizes the work of Kentridge and The Centre for The Less Good Idea. Founded by Kentridge in 2016, The Centre is an incubator for performance where musicians, actors, dancers, and other artists come together in a workshop spirit, with a belief that "an ensemble sees the world differently to how one individual does."
Generous support provided by Brenda R. Potter and Marian Goodman Gallery.
About the Artist
For decades, William Kentridge (born 1955) has anchored his studio practice in charcoal drawing, moving from an associative and improvisational handling of images on paper into film, sculpture, opera and theater performances, printmaking, and many other mediums. Kentridge grew up in Apartheid-era Johannesburg, and has continued to live there throughout his life. His art has sought to explore the edges, cracks, and uncertain spaces of a South Africa in transition from an oppressive, racially segregated society to an uncertain and challenging democracy.
The work of William Kentridge has been seen in museums and galleries around the world since the 1990s, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Musée du Louvre in Paris, Whitechapel Gallery in London, Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, the Kunstmuseum in Basel, and Zeitz MOCAA and the Norval Foundation in Cape Town. Opera productions include Mozart's The Magic Flute, Shostakovich's The Nose, and Alban Berg's operas Lulu and Wozzeck
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