The Centre for the Less Good Idea wishes you a warm and productive start to the new year. 

2026 is another big year for The Centre, both at home and abroad. This January and February, we will be performing an experimental chamber opera in Berlin, debuting a new format for our monthly SO Academy programmes in Johannesburg, and workshopping towards our latest Collations programme. 

An early iteration of Selemo at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in 2025.
Photographer | Zivanai Matangi

This month, we travel to Berlin ahead of the debut of Selemo at Neuköllner Oper.

A co-production with The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Komische Oper, Berlin and Neuköllner Oper, Selemo is a new chamber opera conceptualised by South African composers and performers Sbusiso Shozi and Nhlanhla Mahlangu.

Together with soloists and orchestral musicians from the Komische Oper Berlin, they engage in a musical conversation about returning to a deeply rooted understanding of nature, where African rites of passage encounter Antonio Vivaldi’s violin concerto The Four Seasons. 

Selemo runs from 12 February to 1 March 2026. Find out more about the experimental chamber opera and get your tickets here. 

Vincent Mantsoe leads a PRACTICE | Movement session at The Centre.
Photographer | Bash Hops

After two years of successful PRACTICE and TÊTE-À-TÊTE sessions, we are happy to announce that we will be expanding both of these programmes in 2026, offering more regular and focused sessions. 

PRACTICE, our series of free, open training sessions for professional artists looking to refine their practice, as well as develop new skills, will expand into weekly Voice and Movement sessions. Two facilitators – one movement artist and one voice artist – will each lead four consecutive weekly sessions at The Centre. Bookings for these free sessions will go live at the start of each month. 

Bronwyn Lace facilitates a TÊTE-À-TÊTE session at The Centre.
Photographer | Bash Hops.

TÊTE-À-TÊTE, our series of one-on-one creative consultations aimed at practising artists across the disciplines of visual art, performance, literature and more, expands into a year-long programme for a cohort of artists.

Building on TÊTE-À-TÊTE’s premise of drawing on the expertise of industry professionals and placing them in conversation with artists, offering advice and guidance, this new format is a dedicated programme for a cohort of professional artists looking to produce, further develop, or identify platforms for existing work.

Curated by Momenteur of the SO Academy, Athena Mazarakis, the programme will focus on, among other things, how to represent and package one’s work, network and forge relationships with individuals, festivals, and institutions, and how to form working collectives and alternative models as a way of giving a work a life. 

A call for applications for this programme will go out this week.  

Neo Muyanga will curate the next Collation programme: Yes, but is it Opera?
Photographer | Zivanai Matangi

Closing off 2025 was our monumental 11th Season, a five-day, international festival of experimental theatre, film, live music, conversations, guest performances, and a programme of site-specific performances and installations. 

This year, we return to our Collations series, starting with an exciting new inquiry into contemporary African Opera. Provisionally titled Collation 4 | Yes, but is it Opera?, this series of performances will take place at The Centre in April 2026.   

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