Every year, The Centre for the Less Good Idea sets the stage for The Fox Street Activation, a public arts festival showing staged theatre, experimental visual art and dance, public conversations and activations in and around Arts on Main. The work on show spans media and brings together independent creatives from diverse practices. The institution just announced its 11th Season, taking place from 25 to 30 November 2025.
For this year’s edition, Impresario for the Less Good Idea, Neo Muyanga, worked alongside The Centre’s core team to shape this year’s programme focused on work made by and in collaboration with Joburg’s many artists, theatremakers, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and thinkers, as well as a host of international talent. Here’s what you need to know.
What you need to know about Season 11
The new programme of works comes rooted in Muyanga’s interest in the collective voice and its power to shape society. Season 11 places shared experience, seeing, and making at its core. Audiences can expect an imaginative blend of theatre, dance, experimental visual art, public conversations, and a range of activations in and around Arts on Main.
“Site, Light, Action | Fox Street Activations,” free public art installations
A key feature this year is Site, Light, Action | Fox Street Activations, a free series of short-form artistic experiments curated by Vienna-based South African artist Marcus Neustetter. These activations invite passers-by to explore Fox Street and the Arts on Main building through playful, light-driven interventions, evening performances, and pop-up moments that animate the neighbourhood.
Taking place each evening from 19h00, the programme is free to the public and aims to energise Maboneng and its audiences. Highlights include a pop-up coffee-shop performance by pianist Jill Richards, atmospheric shop-front shadow dances featuring artists such as Thulisile Binda and Smangaliso Ngwenya, and Ngoana oa Noka ea Kubetu, a new iteration of Sello Pesa and Phala Ookeditse Phala’s acclaimed Nokeng ya Kubetu series, performed in the Arts on Main Atrium.
“These small experimental moments embrace the unknown or hidden, seeking connections and stories that might reveal themselves through artistic languages. Framed by temporary sets and focused by responsive mobile light, these moments function as small public studios of attempted sense-making,” says Neustetter.
What’s on the event programme
The Centre for the Less Good Idea brings a bold and richly textured programme that showcases experimental performance, sound, movement, and visual storytelling. The season opens with Moving the Mark, a two-night series pairing leading visual artists and choreographers—including William Kentridge, Mary Sibande, Vincent Mantsoe, Kitty Phetla and Penny Siopis—in interdisciplinary explorations of movement and mark-making.
Additional programme highlights include Sounding Pictures, which invites audiences to experience silent films reimagined through live, improvisational sound, and On Air: Visual Radio Plays, a collection of original short-form works performed with live foley.
Make sure you don’t miss the powerful guest performances, including Mallika Taneja’s acclaimed feminist work Be Careful, and a double bill from celebrated dancers Vincent Mantsoe and Shanell Winlock-Pailman. New writing takes centre stage in SO | From Script to Stage, while conversations such as Money Miss Road add sharp cultural insight. Closing the programme, The Unexpected City presents sketch theatre inspired by Johannesburg’s people and everyday narratives.
Need to know before you go
Cost: Cost is R150pp, per event. A full season ticket for all events is on offer at R1000pp. Book online
When: Running from 25 to 30 November 2025. Daily at 7pm, and 6:30pm on Thursday, 27 November
Where: Maboneng Society, 264 Fox St, Maboneng, Johannesburg
Website: lessgoodidea.com
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 083 245 1040
Facebook: @lessgoodidea
Instagram: @lessgoodidea
