Episode 3
Listen to Episode 3 of The ICA Podcast!
Featuring an in-depth interview with Asanda Chuma Sopotela, and including contributions from academic and practitioner Lieketso Mohoto-wa Thaluki and ICA Director Jay Pather.
Chuma Sopotela is an award-winning actor and director, and the 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist for Performance Art. Her numerous credits include Inkukhu Ibeke Iqanda, performed at the ICA Live Art Festival in 2014, Those Ghels (with Buhlebezwe Siwani) performed at the ICA Live Art Festival in 2017, Untitled performed at the Live Art Network Africa (LANA) Symposium in 2018, and Karoo Moose for which she received the 2007 Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for Best Actress.
In this episode, we accompany Sopotela to the venue where Untitled was first performed, and then to the recording studio to discuss the influences and inspirations of her early career, her introduction to live art in 2007, and her seminal work Inkukhu Ibeke Iqanda.
In conversation with Mohoto-wa Thaluki, Pather, and Sopotela herself, we think through the tension between a cerebral and visceral experience of her performances, and why the failure of language to hold her work might offer productive possibilities.
Chuma Sopotela, Unyawo alunampumlo, 2007. Photo courtesy of the Africa Centre.
About the ICA Podcast
The ICA Podcast extends the work begun by the ICA’s 2019 publication Acts of Transgression: Contemporary Live Art in South Africa – through conversations with the creators and curators of Live Art. Read more about the vision for The ICA Podcast, and the artists featured in Season 1.
Listen and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Podcast Addict, or wherever you find podcasts. You can also listen on our website.
Chuma Sopotela, Inkukhu Ibeke Iqanda, 2014. Photo by Ashley Walters
Looking ahead
Join us for Episode 4, when we'll be speaking to curator Khanyisile Mbongwa who works with public space, interdisciplinary and performative practices, and who recently curated the 2020 Stellenbosch Triennale.