In 2016, William Kentridge and Bronwyn Lace founded The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg.

In 2024, The Centre has become a formative space for art projects in South Africa and beyond. In eight years over 500 individual performances, films, and installations have been newly created and shown, and more than 1000 artists of all disciplines have worked on unique projects within the spaces.

The Centre engages communities of artists from South Africa, Africa and more recently across the world. Art audiences and communities are activated through live and streamed performances, workshops, mentorships, as well as educational materials and presentations.

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, created in 1984 by the Maison Cartier, is a private cultural institution whose mission is to reveal artists from all cultural geographies and to promote all fields of contemporary artistic creation to the international public through a program of temporary exhibitions, live performances, and conversations.

The Fondation Cartier’s singular artistic program explores a wide array of creative fields from visual and performing arts to architecture, film, design, fashion, philosophy, and the sciences. For four decades, the Fondation Cartier has been instrumental in revealing the talent of some of the greatest contemporary artists and has established its museum spaces as a platform where artists and scientists can meet and create projects to address major issues of today’s world. As part of its ongoing observation of the relationship between human beings and nature, the Fondation Cartier travels the world, partnering with major art institutions and engaging new audiences to discover the works of contemporary artists and be challenged by their perspectives.

The Office works as a creative producer to develop and support new work by artists whose vision and artistry we are deeply compelled by, such as Carrie Mae Weems, William Kentridge, Theater of War, Rithy Panh, and Angelique Kidjo. We become the engine room for these projects, shepherding them often from the early stages of creative inspiration through developmental workshops, fundraising and commissioning, tour planning, and on to world premieres and beyond. We have brought projects to the stages of major festivals and venues around the world, from the Sydney Opera House to the 2010 Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver; the Dublin International Theatre Festival to the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town; the Tate Modern and the Southbank Centre in London to the Chaktomuk in Phnom Penh; Royce Hall and the Ace Theater in Los Angeles to BAM, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Park Avenue Armory at home in NYC. Our producing work also encompasses large-scale site specific public art projects, like The Mile Long Opera on the Highline in NYC and Triumphs and Laments on the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, and unique festivals like the annual FreshGrass Festival and the 3-week long opening of the Reach at the Kennedy Center. We are delighted and inspired to be partnering with the Centre for the Less Good Idea on international projects.

More about our work can be found here theofficearts.com

Sbusiso Shozi is a Durban-born composer, theater-maker, vocal coach, and performer. Shozi has toured internationally with a number of theater shows including Sarafina, Umshado, Cion, Gregory Maqoma’s Requiem of Ravels’s Bolero, Nhlanhla Mahlangu’s Enyangeni, and William Kentridge’s Waiting for the Sibyl. Since 2019, Shozi has been a teacher at the Market Theatre Laboratory. He has composed music and lyrics for several projects at the Market Lab, and has recently directed music for a Juneteenth project organised by American consulates which was a celebration of the abolishment of slavery in America. Shozi has also produced, directed, and composed for shows such as African Exodus and Uhambo Imizwa NoMsindo! Shozi is primarily interested in exploring sound, text, and the body in motion, embracing collaboration as a means of further developing a set of ideas. Through his practice, he explores the origins and intersections of African sounds and western music.

Nhlanhla Mahlangu is a vocalist, composer, theatre-maker, dancer, and educator. With a career that spans more than 20 years of professional performance and administration in the realms of theatre and dance, Mahlangu’s work been seen all over Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Europe. He has worked with musicians, theatre makers, dancers and choreographers such as Richard Cock, Gregory Vuyani Maqoma, Sylvia Glasser, Vincent Mantsoe, Jay Pather, Des and Dawn Lindberg, Robyn Orlin, James Ngcobo, Victor Ntoni and Hugh Masekela. Through his work, Mahlangu excavates personal and communal histories while also utilising art and performance as tools for healing. He is also well-known for his use of Isicathamiya – a musical performance similar to acapella, but rooted in an isiZulu tradition – in the realm of theatre. Mahlangu has been a frequent collaborator of The Centre for the Less Good Idea, joining its debut Season in 2017. Since then, he has conceptualised, directed and performed in numerous experimental and collaborative works at The Centre.

William Kentridge is a draughtsman, performer, filmmaker, and is the founder of The Centre for the Less Good Idea. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Kentridge is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theater, and opera productions. Embracing collaboration and cross-pollination of various media and genres, including performance, film, literature, and more, his work frequently responds to the legacies of colonialism and apartheid, within the context of South Africa’s socio-political landscape. Erasure, play, uncertainty, and a process-led methodology are also central to his practice. A background in theater, as well as his early experimentations with stop-motion animation continue to inform and characterise much of the work he produces today, be it for the stage, the gallery, in the studio or the lecture hall.

Bronwyn Lace is a visual artist who has collaborated with William Kentridge on the founding and establishment of The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

For Botswana-born Lace, who currently works between Austria and South Africa, her artistic practice is concerned with the relationship between art and other fields such as physics, literature, philosophy, museum practice, education, and more. Site-specificity, responsiveness, and performativity are also central to her practice, and have informed a great deal of her early work. Similarly, a balance between an isolated, introspective studio process and a collaborative, communal process sees Lace embracing incidental discoveries underpinned by an informed pursuit of new ideas. At present, Lace’s position between South Africa and Austria also sees her working to establish relationships between The Centre and other collaborative, experimental arts spaces and institutions across the globe, under the banner of The Centre Outside The Centre.

Neo Muyanga is a composer and installation artist, and The Centre’s Impresario for the Less Good Idea. His work traverses new opera, improv, and African idiomatic song. At The Centre, Muyanga works to develop and implement a unique performative programme within our spaces. This programme runs alongside and intersects with SO | The Academy for the Less Good Idea, as well as The Centre Outside The Centre. Together with The Centre team, Muyanga devises new incubation and development strategies, curates unique programming, and draws new artists and thinkers towards The Centre.

Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a professor in the departments of French and of Philosophy at Columbia University. His areas of research and publication include History of Philosophy, History of Logic and Mathematics, Islamic Philosophy, African Philosophy, and Literature.

His latest publications in English include: Open to Reason. Muslim philosophers in conversation with Western tradition, New York, Columbia University Press, 2018; Postcolonial Bergson, Fordham University Press, New York, 2019; In Search of Africa(s). Universalism and Decolonial Thought, (Dialogue with Jean-Loup Amselle), Polity Press, 2020; African art as philosophy. Senghor, Bergson, and the idea of Negritude, The Other Press, 2023

Professor Diagne is a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Eastern Cape-born Xolisile Bongwana is an accomplished dancer who is also well-versed in singing, composing, directing, acting, and choreography. Bongwana has had an impressive career as an artist over the past decade and a half. His involvement in the performing artsy industry has seen him work with award-winning choreographers and directors such as Robyn Orlin, Luyanda Sidiya, Gregory Maqoma, Angus Gibson, James Ngcobo, William Kentridge, Makhoala Ndebele, and Nhlanhla Mahlangu. Bongwana is a frequent collaborator of The Centre for The Less Good Idea, having collaborated on many of its Seasons as well as on the Gregory Maqoma-conceptualised Cion, first incubated at The Centre in Season 1. He has toured Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Angola, France, USA, UK, Spain, Canada, Australia, Italy, Holland, Romania, Finland, and Luxembourg.

Thabo Gwadiso is a Johannesburg-born actor and vocalist who is well-known for his work across television and stage. As a vocalist, Gwadiso has worked for various South African artists including Kwela Tebza, Don Laka, Tebs David, and Solly Mahlangu. His stage career includes performing on London’s West End and in Ireland and Switzerland for Disney’s The Lion King as well as in France for Sarafina the Musical. Recent stage performances include The Color Purple, performed at Johannesburg Theatre. Gwadiso’s film and television work includes The Pride of a Lioness, No Hiding Here, Isibaya, and House of Zwide. A life-long learner, Gwadiso embraces collaboration, play, and interdisciplinary experimentation in his work.

Micca Manganye is a Johannesburg-based musician and performer specialising in percussion and live performance. Hailing from Tembisa, Manganye is deeply inspired by the inherent musicality of the body, the world and one’s own community. His journey into performance began in 2002 with the Township Mirror Theatre Group through which he participated in a number of performances and came to work with acclaimed performers, musicians, composers, and theater-makers including Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Jerry Mofokeng, and Sonia Radebe. Manganye began working collaboratively with William Kentridge and The Centre for the Less Good Idea in 2019 through The Centre’s 6th Season. It was here that he conceptualised and performed in his first solo work Untshini Wena, as well as performing in the works Vuka Kleva and the Wall of Tools Ensemble. He has since become a frequent collaborator of The Centre.

Dikeledi Modubu, better known as Nkele, is a Soweto-born actor and vocalist who is well-known for her work on stage and television. Nkele’s early performances include Mfowethu and The Call, written and directed by the late Gibson Kente, as well as in Thabang Ramaila’s award-winning production Ndlovukazi. Nkele has also worked with Constanza Macras from Germany in the production The Offside Rules which was performed at the Market Theatre and Hamburg Kampnagel Festival. In 2013 she released a gospel album with Bham Ntabeni titled Entabeni Kancwane. She is currently working with Abafazi Bengoma as a singer, drummer, and marimba player and as an actor on the Black Brain Pictures-produced telenovela Black Door.

Volley Nchabeleng is a multidisciplinary performer and percussionist who hails from the village of Masemola (Thabampshe) in South Africa’s Limpopo Province. Nchabeleng is known for his skill with indigenous musical instruments, his penchant for teaching and his versatile mode of performance and composition. A consummate performer, Nchabeleng’s approach to music resonates with his versatile perspective and interests in the influences of music from across the globe. He has performed across Africa, Europe and Asia; and his tours include India, Belgium, Holland, Germany, France and Australia to name a few. Nchabeleng first began working collaboratively with The Centre for the Less Good Idea in 2019 for The Centre’s 7th Season. Here, he collaborated on productions including Panther, Sounds of Limpopo and Houseboy.

Sbusiso Shozi is a Durban-born composer, theater-maker, vocal coach, and performer. Shozi has toured internationally with a number of theater shows including Sarafina, Umshado, Cion, Gregory Maqoma’s Requiem of Ravels’s Bolero, Nhlanhla Mahlangu’s Enyangeni, and William Kentridge’s Waiting for the Sibyl. Since 2019, Shozi has been a teacher at the Market Theatre Laboratory. He has composed music and lyrics for several projects at the Market Lab, and has recently directed music for a Juneteenth project organised by American consulates which was a celebration of the abolishment of slavery in America. Shozi has also produced, directed, and composed for shows such as African Exodus and Uhambo Imizwa NoMsindo! Shozi is primarily interested in exploring sound, text, and the body in motion, embracing collaboration as a means of further developing a set of ideas. Through his practice, he explores the origins and intersections of African sounds and western music.

Simphiwe Sanele Skhakhane is a Durban-born musician, performer, vocal coach, and musical director. Having studied music and drama at the Universal Creative Art Academy in Huddersfield, UK, Skhakhane has gone on to work on a number of renowned theater productions as both a vocal coach and a musical director. Umoja, Marikana the Musical, Isambulo, and Umshado are among the best-known of these productions. Most recently, he worked as the musical director on Shaka Zulu: The Gaping Wound. His work for television includes the well-known shows Durban Gen and Isibaya.

Lindokuhle Thabede is a KwaZulu-Natal-born, Johannesburg-based classical vocalist and performing artist. With a traditional cultural grounding in performance and with years of classical training Thabede has performed on multiple stages across the world. As a result, his approach to performance embraces hybridity and experimental modes of operation. Over the years, Thabede has worked with artists including William Kentridge, Nhlanhla Mahlangu, and Sidumo Jacobs. Thabede’s debut as a theater performer was in 2018 when he was one of the vocalists in Kentridge’s The Head and The Load. In November 2022, Thabede travelled once again with the production on its tour to the USA. In 2020/2021, he was a part of Phillip Miller’s Caluza Project which incorporated indigenous music from the history of South Africa. In 2022, he also performed in Miller’s Glow.

Thulani Zwane is a Tembisa-born vocalist and performing artist. A graduate of Moving into Dance (specialising in Dance Teaching and Performance), Zwane has worked as a teacher of dance and choreography at the National School of the Arts, as the lead singer on the TV programme Imizwilili, and as a performer in the internationally renowned South African musical, African Footprints. Over the years, Zwane has worked with acclaimed directors, performers, and choreographers such as Gregory Maqoma, Robyn Orlin, Sbusiso Shozi, Tue Bien, and Nhlanhla Mahlangu. His recent performances include African Exodus and Dark Noon with which he toured Europe. As part of his work with Hlabelela Ensemble, Zwane has also directed the performance Unmute.