The LeGrand Brand has been hosting the Legrand Balls all over Johannesburg for the queer community and its allies for many years. The LeGrand Queer Arts Experience will be a multi-sensory experience.
We will be answering the question: 'What is African Queer Sovereignty?' through VR and AR story experience, music, fashion, and movement as well as Kraal Talks (panel discussions) and a queer market. This year’s theme of African Queer Sovereignty will shine through the streets of Johannebsurg as we celebrate queerness through African cosmology.
“As a diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and access storytelling agency, we have been planning for years to create a platform with the LQBTQIA+ community that infused African cosmology. Our goal is to debunk the very dangerous myth that being queer is 'unAfrican' and to decolonise the queer space,” says Chule Gobodo, founder at Brainbow.
Legrand Arts Festival offers a platform for both audience and performer, to indulge in queer, black excellence, and the celebration thereof. We want to pioneer an annual cultural festival, for us, by us and open it to the public. To create a property that is both entertainment, educational, and caters to the whole family is one of the goals of the festival. We will be hosting kids queer games during the day, infusing tech and age appropriate (5–15 years) LGBTQIA+ edutainment.
Brainbow Conscious Creatives will be hosting a specially curated AR story experience with their partner International museum touring app STQRY.
Using the African principle of sankofa (go back into the past, take what is of value to create a new future) we will be exploring and unpacking pre-colonial gender diversity in Africa and de-exceptionalising and humanising the African queer experience,” says Kutlwano Mabusela, co-founder at Brainbow.
The festival will happen at Tshimologong Precinct in Braamfontein on 4 March 2023. The one day hybrid event will see a culmination of art, VR and AR story experiences, talks, movement and dance experiences as well as a concert featuring South Africa’s most avant-garde queer artists.
We are launching an annual themed performance arts festival, and to kick off, we are going in with a powerful statement for this year:
The Truth about LGBTQI+ in Africa:
'What began with denial (the myth created by Europeans) has ended in a near taboo on the subject of African homosexualities – a taboo nonetheless based on European, not African, morality. The colonialists did not introduce homosexuality to Africa. Instead, the Europeans introduced intolerance of homosexuality. Only when native people began to forget that same-sex patterns were ever a part of their culture did homosexuality become truly stigmatised.' – Excerpt from Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities.
It's time we decolonise the perceptions about LGBTQI+ and take back our sovereignty.
Date: 4 March 2023
Venue: Tshimologong Precinct, 41 Juta street, Braamfontein
Tickets: Click here to buy tickets.
Brainbow Conscious Creatives uses afro-futuristic storytelling technology and actionable diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and access (DEIBA) insights to lovingly empower people around the world.
We turn your DEIBA aspirations into lived experiences for your stakeholders and customers through the power of strategy and storytelling.
The storytelling specialists was founded in 2017 in Johannesburg, South Africa by two award-winning filmmakers, Chule Gododo and Kutlwano Mabusela. They have done internationally recognised work for iconic global brands and non-profits.
Brainbow Conscious Creatives Kutlwano Mabusela and Chule Gobodo both grew up under apartheid in South Africa, which inspired them to build a business that intentionally creates a more inclusive world using the principles of ubuntu.
Johannesburg, South Africa, where Brainbow is headquartered, is the most ancient inhabited and bio-diverse places on earth known as the 'cradle of humankind'. The traditional spiritual teachings of many of its people also term South Africans as the 'star people' who have remarkable spiritual links to the cosmos. Brainbow Conscious Creatives artfully fuses this wealth of tradition, arts and African cosmology in their trans-media storytelling. Their award-winning work lovingly bring to life fresh new stories and technology that contribute to global unity by sharing the new wave of technology and arts from South Africa.
