Cape Town Under: The Third Voice

Cape Town Under is a live art performance collaboration between myself and Pauline Theart, who uses her voice as artistic medium, created for a public art festival themed around ‘land’. We manifested three site-specific durational performances underground in the tunnels that run under the city of Cape Town - now heritage spaces - first built by the Dutch colonisers as canals and then covered into tunnels by the British and ultimately built over by the contemporary city. Our first site was an open trap door off Strand Street that opened underground into what is now the military barracks of the Castle, our second site was a manhole entry point on the Grand Parade - Cape Town’s largest public space, and our third site was another manhole entry point on the lawns outside the Castle. Theart delivered a one-hour lullaby - devoid of words, using only the rhythms - to co-create with the echoing chambers beneath the city a musical composition that reverberated in the tunnels and leaked out through the perforated manhole covers nearby, surprising passersby with a lyrical disruption of the surrounds. Busy adult commuters and schoolchildren alike gathered at the tunnel opening to hear the voice from below, most realising for the first time that tunnels ran below their feet and swapping stories about who could be under there and why. This live art project formed part of GIPCA’a art festival and was made possible with its support, plus the crucial logistical collaboration of Matt Wiese and Gresham Chibwaz.
Photographs by Margie Townley-Johnson.