The Playgroup Stages IN MY DREAMS I AM OK at The Bindery Lab from 26 November

The Playgroup, the maverick collective that took audiences to WHATEVERLAND, returns to Cape Town stages with a new spectable this November, IN MY DREAMS I AM OK.

Elaborating on their method of creative collage, The Playgroup weaves drama, design, music and poetry together to produce pieces that have been variously described as 'tone poems', 'visual music' and 'theatrical mood-boards.' A Playgroup event is impossible to describe in only words; in fact that is its creative drive: to grasp at the intangible, the ephemeral, and ideas and feelings too complex and too simple to express.

In IN MY DREAMS I AM OK, Francesco Nassimbeni directs a cast of nine, with costumes by long-time collaborator Richard De Jager, and décor elements created by Heath Nash. The performers include Jason Potgieter, Rosa-Karoo Loewe, Andi Colombo, Zac Fleishman, Sesane Sealy, Tsatsi Rugege, Edward Berridge, Chloe Cattin and Olivia Fischer.

Nassimbeni, who also handles the writing and composition of the musical score for the event, comments:

I'm inspired by an emerging internet aesthetic of appropriation and juxtaposition. The humble meme is a great source of inspiration! Found images overlaid with text - there is something subversive about this play with meaning, and the way it has been adopted as 'public artform' has informed my method. Similarly, many artists, particularly online, are distorting found images; collaging them, splicing them with other imagery. In this way, post-modernism has found a new audience, and I suppose my performance pieces have a place in that 'world'.

The costume and décor aesthetic is devised and improvisational. All visual elements start off as proposals which are either discarded, or developed. What has helped me with this is a departure from planning - with no 'ideal' aesthetic presupposed, my collaborators are able to create using intuition. I've been a die-hard fan of both Richard De Jager and Heath Nash for years, and hold them both in high esteem as artists and thinkers. Both are instrumental in achieving the departure from the real I seek to communicate.

IN MY DREAMS I AM OK runs from 26 - 30 November at 8pm nightly at The Bindery Lab on the University of Cape Town's Hiddingh Campus in Orange Street, Cape Town. No late-comers will be admitted. Tickets cost R50 and can be booked by emailing Playgroup or by phone with Nabeelah on 021 480 7129. Join the IN MY DREAMS I AM OK event on Facebook for further infomration about this performance and keep up to date with all things Playgroup through the collective's Facebook and Twitter accounts.

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