kagablog

Hi facebook friends, fellow artists, poets, writers and art lovers.

This is a personal invitation to all of you who are based in Cape Town (or know someone in Cape Town) who would like to come to my solo exhibition “Eyrie”, which will open on the 9th of August at 19:00pm at Wessel Snyman Creative gallery, 17 Bree Street.

I’m sending out the invites in advance due to being far too busy this week taking down the same body of work currently showing at the White River Gallery, Mpumalanga, and freighting the work to Cape Town. All of you interested in attending, please make a note of the date… I would simply love to see you there.

The exhibition consists out of a selection of mixed media works, mostly on paper, based on Dutch poet Joop Bersee’s 2009 publication “Eyrie”. In the current gallery’s guestbook the work has been described as ‘powerful’, ‘baconesque’ ‘idiosyncratic’ and ‘upsetting’. A small catalogue containing a few images and writing by myself, Joop Bersee and Anton Krueger will be on sale alongside Bersee’s poetry book. Looking forward to seeing you there.

what am i to say? i said.

be yourself, they said, say yourself.
myself? i said. what are you insinuating?

samuel beckett (from ohio manuscripts)

fernando pessoa courted her with ten years of words,
but finally, indignant, she tells him he’s a personne…
no-body...>
he was in love with words and not the flesh,
his love extinguished him –

a juggler with his two dogs walks across the plaza
in front of the national theatre shouting “love”, “love”, “love”…

in my hotel room i’m watching pornography as
louise runs a bath…

the tram runs down the hill past a poster saying
“do something positive – sleep.”

stately buildings
slowly sinking in
to an emptying centre.

the monastery, the church,
the palace, the crypt have
ceased to fulfil their functions,
can they open their doors
to the masses, representing
what they no longer are…

our guide has told the stories so many times before,
he tells them now entirely w/out passion –

so the tales of a cardinal’s affairs with a whole convent of nuns;
of families of nobility butchered by the marquis de pombal;
of bishops thrown from the parapets, their bodies dragged
around the masonic streets by a madman for a week

are all explained & clarified & consumed & digested
in a way that makes them sound quite ordinary…

two suits recognise each other instinctively,
and gravitate towards each other’s orbit
in the mottled population of the carriage…

folks from the smaller countries
– lithuania, portugal, mayotte –
have a slightly deferential
slowness i find attractive:
they know they’re no
world power…

i keep thinking i’ll see somebody i recognise;
but of course i don’t – i only see everybody
i recognise as those others also operating
within the realm of the gods, moving smoothly
through the clean world, boarding planes,
coasting on the shifting light, afloat in dineros…

these are the last days of the travellers,
fifty years ago air travel was
exotic & difficult & expensive & in
fifty years the resources will be done…

they’ll be marvelling at how easy it was
for us to skip around…by then ppl will
be escaping the noxious atmosphere by
staying safely at home…

the future will be in awe at our
waiting here at the airport,
sipping espressos, waiting for
a delayed flight to barcelona
on a sunday night…

the last able to traverse the earth
with such impeccable glibness…

you have to be dead to be a genius…it’s an overall, permanent condition, you can’t still be in flux…i.e. you can’t go from being a genius to not being a genius anymore, nothing must be allowed to tamper with the genius state of being…and that’s not living, coz life is up and down and sideways; not like the genius, who’s complete…

anton krueger

weird business this football thing…one wonders what its virtues are…i mean, not the point, we know it’s basically pointless, but the virtues, like, i guess: excitement, unity; fellow feeling against another group building fellow feeling against our group…

hmm, i suppose physical health is seen as a plus, in that it idealizes the healthy body…but this really only works out to be of benefit to a very few, and for the most part the whole fandangle actively encourages binge drinking and eating party food…well, there’s friendship and community, i guess, which is what i suddenly missed when i realised it was ten minutes to kick off and i hadn’t made any plans…

the homeless world cup is another business, so strange…of course one immediately wonders why they’re not using the money sponsored for flights and everything to help pay for their rent…another thing is that if a player or team excels, they’ll always be known for their stigma, they’ll become famous for it…their success involves the qualification of their having been homeless…but maybe it’s about breaking down the stigma, in being able to say – hey, that homeless guy and his friends are just like us, shouting and drinking and carrying on…

Written by Anton Krueger & Pravasan Pillay
Directed by Roshnee Guptar
Featuring Zanne Solomon & Tristan Jacobs
Stage Womanager: Amy Wilson
Make-up & Costume: Michelle du Plessis
Poster & Flyer Design: Jenny Kellerman Pillay
All photos by Krista Arriëns

DRILL HALL, GRAHAMSTOWN, NATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL FRINGE

20 June 21:00 21 June 11:00
22 June 22:30 23 June 13:00
25 June 13:30 26 June 20:00
27 June 12:00

Tickets: R50 Students: R42 Friends: R42
1st Performance: R40 Duration: 55mins Ages: PG (L)

FOR MORE INFO CONTACT ANTON – 082 3243048 mnrkrueger@gmail.com

Shaggy…

At last – They’re Here!

Tired of tired humour? Sick of sick jokes? Had enough of desperately-trying-to – be – relevant – politically – motivated – physical – slapstick – lowest – common denominator type comedy? Then step right up for six carefully crafted monologues expertly delivered to amuse and delight. Get ready for a show that will strike you like a mint scented sledgehammer – sharp and sweet and strangely appealing…

These comic shaggy dog stories cast an irreverent, ironic eye on some of the mad machinations of contemporary South African society. The show parodies some of the more absurd situations in South Africa’s contemporary scenario in pieces dealing with subjects like conceptual art, alternative education, and the fandangle at the SABC.

The first in the series of Shaggy Stories (“The Truth about Kabous”) was published in Alookaway in December 2009, and due to an overwhelming response, the stories have now become a regular feature of the mag; with “The Dishwasher Woman” (April) and “The Conceptual Artist” (July) following close on the heels of Kabous. Since the birth of the Shaggy Stories a steady ripple of laughter has begun to extend from the Hillbrow tower to Devil’s Peak…

Shaggy Bios

ROSHNEE GUPTAR – Director

2008 Short skirts and High Heels (Writer, Director)
2009 Rock Bottom Blues (Writer, Director)
2009 Eish (Director & Manager)
2010 No Fat Jokes (Writer, Director)
2010 Shaggy (Director)

< year: No Fat Jokes>>

ANTON KRUEGER – Co-Writer
Anton Krueger’s published works include plays, poems and academic essays as well as criticism on theatre film and literature. He has won a number of awards for his plays, which have been seen in nine countries. Anton’s short film Tuesday (2009) will be screened at the Durban International Film Festival in July 2010. He teaches Drama at Rhodes University.

Catch the launches of two of Anton’s books at Thinkfest this year, as part of “Conversations with Authors” at the Monument Restaurant:

Experiments in Freedom: Identity in New SA Drama (Friday, 25 June, 17:00)
Sunnyside Sal (a novella) (Monday 28 June, 17:00)

PRAVASAN PILLAY – Co-Writer
Pravasan Pillay has published short stories in a number of books and websites while his poetry has appeared in journals such as New Coin, Carapace, Chimurenga and Green Dragon. In 2009, he released his debut poetry chapbook, Glumlazi. His humour pieces have appeared on a number of websites, including McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. With his wife Jenny Kellerman Pillay, he co-runs and is the editor of the independent press Tearoom Books. Pillay has worked as philosophy lecturer, freelance journalist, project manager and editor. He currently works as a publications officer at the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal).

TRISTAN JACOBS – Performer
Tristan graduated from Rhodes University with his Honours in Drama in 2009, specialising in Acting, Writing and Contemporary Performance. He has already made his mark in festival comedy with shows like Short Skirts and High Heels (2008) and In the Blue Beaker (2009). In 2008 he won the Patrick Mynhardt prize for excellence in acting. He toured with the award-winning production of Die Bannelinge to the KKNK, Volksblad and Aardklop festivals throughout 2009. Tristan has worked on three Indy film sets, behind and in front of the camera. He also performed in a filmed version of Anthony Minghella’s Hang up in 2009 and stars in the short film Tuesday (2009), which will be screened at the Durban International Film Fest in July 2010. Tristan has recently returned to Grahamstown from the Festival of Fame in Johannesburg where he performed in the acclaimed Hats and Stilted.

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ZANNE SOLOMON – Performer
Zanne Solomon recently completed her Masters Degree in Drama at Rhodes University, specialising in Contemporary Performance. In 2008 she created and performed Bleeding Mermaid, an hour-long physical contemporary theatre production. In 2009 she had a lead role in Die Bannelinge, a highly acclaimed production, directed by Heike Gehring, which was created for the KKNK. it subsequently won five out of the six awards offered by the Sanlam SPAT competition. In the 2009 National Arts Festival Zanne also performed in two comedies: Cracks and Rock Bottom Blues.

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FOR MORE INFO CONTACT ANTON – 082 3243048 mnrkrueger@gmail.com

[Deep South Publishing]

Teenhood is a strange place, twilit and melancholy, filled with slow mists of lament, nightmares in the mirror, and the heady whiff of future sex. It is an awkward space in which we begin to invent our future selves. It is also intrinsically mythic, with more than a touch of magic in the air. This, perhaps, is why Pop music is so obsessed with the place, why it haunts literature and above all poetry. It is a space of giant romance and infinite kitsch, cliche’ as big as the sky and every bit as subtle and touching.

Highly respected playwright, musician and all-round man of words, Anton Krueger, has written an ode to a friend, and to a friendship which which took shape in this peculiar, rambling kingdom of teenhood. ‘Sunnyside Sal’ perfectly captures the mystical innocence and arbitrary mythologies, the silly and immensely important codes and secret languages of the best of teenage friendships. Beginning in South Africa’s Eighties, the crude giant of Apartheid approaching its fall, it is also a bazaar of loud cultural clashes – above all that between the sensitively personal and the mass-produced social. Dope and Khaki, bright freedom and obtuse suppression, the disrupting gift which is the discovery of girls. A slim, elegantly written thing, ‘Sunnyside Sal’ is a labour of love honed by fine craftsmanship. It is also, in a more distant way, a study of how relationships and lives ebb, how people sometimes lose themselves in themselves, never to return – roughly two-thirds along, Mr. Krueger becomes more explicit in his gaze, and for a disruptive period seeks to analyse his friend, and uneasily drags brute life into the supplety of his fiction. His reasons for doing so are deserved, and, indeed, his own, but it does detract from an otherwise gracefully woven fiction. Time well spent between pages.

[originally published in Muse magazine]

a knot is a strand going in a lot of different directions at once…the more you pull at any one of the directions, the tighter it sits…the anxiety of the knot lies in its contradictory nature, in that it’s going both forwards and backwards and a hundred other ways at once, looping in on itself, creating its own tension by covering all of the directions…

the only way to release a knot is to stop pulling in any direction at all, to relax…even the right direction will only pull it tighter, only constrict it more…so letting go is key…letting go of direction…letting go of right way and wrong way…

when the tension in the knot has dissolved one can again begin thinking of the right direction; but while the knot exists, it’s difficult to tell what’s the best way to head…