Today, 24 October 2025, we celebrate 30 years of making, fighting many good fights, and holding space. Born from a commitment to creative rigour and social imagination,
The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC) marks three decades of arts practice rooted in urban Johannesburg and rural Mpumalanga —
practice that has always been as much about people and place as it is about performance.
For thirty years, we have practised arts activism: making work that asks difficult questions, centres dignity, and insists on the human face of justice in a complicated democracy. Our choreography, festivals, training and community programmes have sought to strengthen citizens, open conversations, and create routes for voices too often pushed to the margins. That commitment remains our north star.
We have weathered storms — economic uncertainty, the pressures that confront NGOs and non-profit organisations in South Africa, and the everyday labour of holding a creative community together across distance and difficulty. That we are still here, together, is a triumph born of stubborn love, stubborn practice, and stubborn partnership. We celebrate this resilience not as an endpoint, but as living proof
that collective care and cultural work matter.
We give our deepest thanks to the artists, elders, students, neighbours, funders, partners and audiences who have journeyed with us. You have sustained us with your labour, your trust, your criticism, and your applause. To every collaborator who has shared a stage, a studio, a story, a meal or a tent with us — thank you. You are the village that raised us.
We are honoured that our work has been recognised locally and nationally — acknowledgements such as the Adelaide Tambo Award for Human Rights in the Arts, among others, have helped to amplify the social justice thread that runs through our practice. These recognitions are not trophies but reminders of the responsibility we carry forward.
As we mark 30 years, we also look to the future with appetite and care: new productions, cross-border collaborations, deepened training, expanded community programmes, and festivals that continue to open up rural arts ecologies. We relish the potential of what lies ahead — of making more work that heals, agitates, celebrates and connects.
We have created a series of FATC 30 videos — short conversations and recollections where alumni, collaborators and friends join us to look back, laugh, and dream forward. We invite you to watch, share, and create your own video that celebrates what FATC has meant for you in your artistic journey.
The My Body My Space Public Arts Festival is on and getting ready to transform public spaces across Emakhazeni
into sites of encounter, creativity, and exchange. The festival brings together artists, communities,
young people, and cultural leaders through performance, participation, and dialogue.
The 2026 festival unfolds across three interconnected programme streams:
The Arteries Programme (7–10 March) focuses on young people of school-going age, delivering performances and
creative workshops within schools and community spaces across Emakhazeni. This strand prioritises arts access,
participation, and early engagement, placing creativity at the centre of everyday learning environments
From 12–14 March, the festival hosts the Community Arts Centre (CAC) Expo, delivered by
The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC) as the implementing agency of the 2025/26 Community Arts Support
and Development Programme on behalf of DSAC and DCSR. The Expo celebrates five years of CAC impact in Mpumalanga,
featuring performances, pitching sessions, and case studies while bringing together government representatives,
funders, cultural partners, and media. The Expo aims to strengthen networks, profile success stories, and inform
the future of community arts investment in the province.
The festival culminates in the Central Nervous System (CNS) Programme (13–14 March), a curated series of
site-specific performances presented in public spaces across Emakhazeni. Featuring local, national, and
international artists, CNS invites audiences to move through the town, encountering work that responds to social,
political, and spatial contexts.
We hope you’ll be joining us in celebration of public spaces as platforms for connection and possibility!
The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC), #FATC30, announce the return of (In)Visible,
a powerful choreographic work by Mozambican artist Janeth Mulapha, which begins a cross-border tour in October 2025.
The work first premiered at the National Arts Festival in 2024 as part of its acclaimed 3rd Space programme and after
further development, returns to the opening on 4 October 2025 at 18:30 at FATC’s home base, Ebhudlweni Arts Centre in
Emakhazeni, Mpumalanga.
4TH OCT - FATC
8TH & 9TH OCT - MAITISONG FEST GABORONE
11TH OCT - POPART JOBURG
24TH-29TH NOV - KINANI FEST MAPUTO
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative is an independent dance company based at the
Ebhudlweni Arts Centre in Emakhazeni, Mpumalanga. Dancers from the company, Phumeza Damane,
Kaldi Makutike, Promise Mosoma, and Promise Magopa, have worked with Mozambican choreographer
Janet Mulapha and South African Jenni-Lee Crew to create the new dance work “In(Visible)”.
From Mozambique, Mulapha has an international profile as well as a long relationship with the
Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative, while South African scenographer Jenni-Lee Crewe, is
currently a senior lecturer in scenography at the Centre for Theatre, Dance, and Performance
Studies at the University of Cape Town.
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