The Centre for the Less Good Idea

Since 2016

‘If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor.’

Tswana Proverb

Founded by William Kentridge in 2016 the Centre aims to find the less good idea by creating and supporting experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts projects.

The Centre for the Less Good Idea is a physical and immaterial incubator space to pursue incidental discoveries made in the process of producing work. Often, you start with a good idea. It might seem crystal clear at first, but when you take it off the proverbial drawing board, cracks and fissures emerge on its surface, and they cannot be ignored. It is in following the secondary ideas, those less good ideas coined to address the first idea’s cracks, that the Centre nurtures, arguing that in the act of playing with an idea, you can recognise those things you didn’t know in advance but knew somewhere inside of you.

Founder & Co-Director of the Board
William Kentridge

Founding Animateur & Co-Director of the Board
Bronwyn Lace

Animateur for the Centre
Phala Ookeditse Phala

Creative Advisor to Seasons
Nhlanhla Mahlangu

Administrator & Stage Manager
Dimakatso Motholo

Editor & Director of Photography
Noah Cohen

Cinematographers
Kutlwano Makgalemele, Duško Marović SASC & Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khosa

Editors
Janus Fouché & Žana Marović

Photographers
Zivanai Matangi, Thusi Vukani & Stella Olivier

Lighting designers & Operators
Wesley France & Matthews Phala

Sound Engineers
Zain Vally, Kyle Leist, Ruby Friedman, Izak Johannes Schoombie & Gavan Eckhart of SoulFire Studio (Pty) Ltd

Writer
David Mann

Production Manager
Shruthi Nair

Front of House
Hayleigh Evans & Orly Shapiro of POPArt Productions

Publicists
Bonnie Meslane & Ziyanda Rala of Azania Public

Housekeeping & Space Manager
Gracious Dube

Special thanks to: Linda Leibowitz, Natalie Dembo, Anne McIlleron, Anne Blom, Joy Lowdon, Chris Waldo, Jacques van Staden and Joey Netshiombo of the Kentridge Studio

The Centre is a space to follow impulses, connections and revelations. It’s a physical space for artists to come together over two seasons every year and for curators to bring together combinations of text, performance, image and dance. The Centre believes an ensemble sees the world differently to how one individual does. It is a safe space for failure, for projects to be tried and discarded because they do not work. It’s a space for short form work which doesn’t have a natural home in a theatre or gallery.

The Centre creates two, six-month seasons a year. Core-curators from South Africa and from varying artistic disciplines are invited, the curators then engage practitioners with whom they would like to collaborate, and with that the seasons grow. Alongside the seasons, the Centre has a monthly programme in which new work is incubated and shown for one-night only. In 2020 we have launched SO, the Academy for the Less Good Idea.

The Centre’s visual and conceptual identity are drawn from William Kentridge’s practice and in particular his methodological approach to generating new large scale performance work. Visually the identity is based on his Blue Rubrics, a series Kentridge began after receiving a gift of pure lapis lazuli gouache from Afghanistan. In his words, ‘They are called Blue Rubrics, but a rubric really should be red – a rubric was the printed or illuminated red text in a liturgical manuscript, in which the black ink would have been the text of the liturgy and the red would have been instructions on how to pray. So they are footnotes to a thought, the edges of the thought. In my case they are unsolved riddles, phrases which hover at the edge of making sense…WHO NEEDS WORDS (the whispering in the leaves)…. these are fragments of sentences which sit in a drawer of phrases used in other work over the years, which get taken out and sorted through on occasions.’

More projects

Credits: The Centre for the Less Good Idea

Founder & Co-Director of the Board
William Kentridge

Founding Animateur & Co-Director of the Board
Bronwyn Lace

Animateur for the Centre
Phala Ookeditse Phala

Creative Advisor to Seasons
Nhlanhla Mahlangu

Administrator & Stage Manager
Dimakatso Motholo

Editor & Director of Photography
Noah Cohen

Cinematographers
Kutlwano Makgalemele, Duško Marović SASC & Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khosa

Editors
Janus Fouché & Žana Marović

Photographers
Zivanai Matangi, Thusi Vukani & Stella Olivier

Lighting designers & Operators
Wesley France & Matthews Phala

Sound Engineers
Zain Vally, Kyle Leist, Ruby Friedman, Izak Johannes Schoombie & Gavan Eckhart of SoulFire Studio (Pty) Ltd

Writer
David Mann

Production Manager
Shruthi Nair

Front of House
Hayleigh Evans & Orly Shapiro of POPArt Productions

Publicists
Bonnie Meslane & Ziyanda Rala of Azania Public

Housekeeping & Space Manager
Gracious Dube

Special thanks to: Linda Leibowitz, Natalie Dembo, Anne McIlleron, Anne Blom, Joy Lowdon, Chris Waldo, Jacques van Staden and Joey Netshiombo of the Kentridge Studio