Call to sponsor Take A Child to Art

Following a successful ‘Take a Child to Art' programme in February 2009, The Africa Centre, producers of the Infecting the City public arts festival, is again appealing to the generosity of business to ensure that Cape Town's young people are exposed to and transformed by the performances and installations of Infecting the City 2010.

The majority of school learners have very little opportunity to see exciting, challenging performances, or come into contact with cutting-edge contemporary artworks. Infecting the City's producer's, The Africa Centre, wants these young people to get a sense of the complex relationships between social issues, architecture and the arts through guided visits to the festival.

Innovative productions

The Grade 10 and 11 learners attending Infecting the City will be guided through a series of performances, artistic interventions and innovative productions. With sponsored cameras, they will be able to snap photos for an online archive and through a facilitated workshop, discuss and analyse their experience in terms of the 2010 theme “Human Rite”.

The satirist and theatre personality, Pieter-Dirk Uys, has lent his voice to the project: “To introduce a child to the arts is to open the window of imagination. To expose a young mind to the questions presented by the arts will develop the need to find answers. To share the arts with a young person is often to replace a monochrome blandness with a technicolour dream. We love music, painting, opera, ballet, architecture, films, comedy and drama because when we were young someone bothered to show us the magic in the cave of the arts. Take a Child to Art is an essential investment in the healthy future of our democracy.”

A target of 750

Take a Child to Art brought almost 400 children from Arts and Culture Focus Schools across the Cape Peninsula to attend Infecting the City 2009. The target for 2010 is 750 learners (150 children a day). Each of the five working days during the week of the festival will host two blocks of 75 children. A block costs R13 500, including meals, transport, guides, facilitated workshops, disposable cameras and day packs. A whole day (150 learners) costs R27 000, and the complete week (750 learners), R135 000. Businesses who sponsor one day will become the naming rights partner for that day of the project.

Centred around the theme “Human Rite”, Infecting the City 2010, takes place from 13 to 20 February 2010, and explores how the arts can bring healing, transformation and build social cohesion. The festival is made up of collaborative performance works, art installations, choreographed pieces and public artistic interventions. Each work focuses on an aspect of the theme and is created by top local and international artists. These works will be presented free to the public in the communal spaces of the Cape Town CBD. Audiences will participate in a transformative journey that celebrates our fundamental right to be human.

For further information on how your business can participate, please call Caroline Nenguke at the Africa Centre on +27 (0) 21 422 0468. Deadline for participation is mid December 2009.

For more information:

www.infectingthecity.com
Facebook: Infecting the City Festival
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DqEnUT4pZc&feature=channel