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Entertainment Special Events GIPCA Ends the Year with a Beautiful Project

GIPCA Ends the Year with a Beautiful Project

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The Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) brings the year to a close with the Beautiful Project, to be held at the Cape Town City Hall and on the Hiddingh Campus on 9-10 December.

The Institute continues to push creative and intellectual boundaries through its various interdisciplinary negotiations, with this year-end celebration calling into question our definitions of beauty and ugliness, with specific reference to the African continent. Leading cultural commentator and critic, Sarah Nutall; co-editor of the prize-winning book Ugly/Beautiful: African and Diaspora Aesthetics; will give the keynote address from which the event takes its thematic inspiration.

Nutall is recognised locally and internationally as a prominent voice in the ongoing debates on cultural theory, and particularly for her fresh perspective on the contemporary South African context. Here, she takes a closer look at exoticism in the context of women and race, particularly through the work of Harlem Renaissance performer Josephine Baker, and Johannesburg-based artist Mary Sibande. Further explorations of notions of �aesthetic� will take place in various forms over the two days. These include performances by dancer-choreographer Nelisiwe Xaba; acclaimed musician Neo Muyanga; fashion, visual and performance artist Athi-Patra Ruga; physical comedian Gaetan Schmid and the UCT Choir.

Theatre director and chef Peter Hayes will be cooking up �The Beautiful Feast� � an eight-course Processional Dinner through the reception rooms of Cape Town�s magnificent City Hall. In putting together what may just be Cape Town�s most talked about event this December, this previous creative director of the Mother City Queer Project predicts �it will be the kind of night you dream about� beyond your wildest dreams��. This �rare� experience promises a menu of whimsy and surprise, fun and laughter, levity and weight; a night when food, art, dance and theatre entwine and reflect each other�s eccentricities. So count on being led to a room for the main courses, with an expert on architecture sitting at your table and talking about the �beautiful building� or for dessert being led into one of the rooms blindfolded and fed some dreamy sensation while a choir sings softly into one�s ear and so on.

References to Capote�s (in)famous �Black and White Ball� not unfounded, it is suggested that guests dress in a manner befitting the occasion, as Hayes assures that �from canap�s to cocktails, dessert to dancing, it�ll be a night to remember!� The Beautiful Project takes place at the Cape Town City Hall and UCT�s Hiddingh Campus, on 9-10 December 2011.