Deep Night for AIDS

PJ Sabbagha's Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC) has made great strides in advancing HIV and AIDS awareness through the arts by presenting the When Life Happens: HIV and AIDS arts and culture festival for the past six years.

This year, the FATC is focusing on a single work, funded by the National Arts Council. It will be staged at the Dance Factory in Newtown, and has an age restriction of 16.

Sabbagha has conceived and created Deep Night in collaboration with fellow Standard Bank Young Artist winner Dada Masilo, as well as celebrated dancers Lulu Mlangeni, Ivan Teme and Songezo Mcilizeli, all of whom will be performing the work.

The video projections will be devised by Thabo Pule, with costumes by Tracey Human.

Sabbagha's new contemporary dance theatre work employs performance and multimedia elements to draw attention to the presence of HIV and AIDS in everyone's lives, whether they realise it or not.

Struggle theatre

"HIV and AIDS are critical personal and social issues which permeate all levels of our individual and communal existence, whether we know it or not," said Sabbagha, who feels passionately about addressing the presence of this disease in South Africa, and whose FATC is regarded as a leading
voice in the country's new "protest" or "struggle" theatre.

"This tiny, sophisticated virus permeates our minds, bodies and hearts, revealing the bleakest and most beautiful layers of our humanity."

Set against the backdrop of a night club exterior, the images and sequences in Deep Night unravel, revealing mankind's desperate desire to belong and be loved. The work draws its impulse from the "witching time of night", when the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred; that time when we are overwhelmed by our desires and when our bodies are all-consuming.

Sometimes gentle, sometimes irreverent, this challenging and provocative new work draws together bruising physicality and exciting imagery to weave a dreamlike stream-of-consciousness meditation on love, lust, longing and loneliness.

The performances

Deep Night will premiere at the Dance Factory on Thursday, 3 December at 8pm, with further performances on 4 December at 8pm, 5 December at 6pm and 6 December at 2.30pm.

Tickets are available through Computicket or at the door and cost R80, or R50 for students and block bookings.