From 10 to 16 March, the My Body My Space: Public Arts Festival (MBMS) returns to Mpumalanga, celebrating its 10th year and the 30th anniversary of the Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC). The festival features performances and exhibitions that challenge conventions around bodies, environments, and human rights. Artists and audiences will embrace dialogue and celebrate diversity in this transformative week of art and activism.

Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative
To honor this milestone, FATC emphasises the need to support vulnerable groups and marginalised communities through art. MBMS25, running during Human Rights Month, evolves into a movement highlighting human rights, democracy, women’s empowerment, and creative excellence. The festival will feature local dancers, choreographers, and traditional and indigenous dance forms, while also focusing on human rights and environmental issues.

Since its inception in 2015, this annual festival has grown a unique rural identity within Emakhazeni communities, emphasising local art over urban trends. MBMS promotes social cohesion in an area struggling with socio-political and economic integration, uniting the diverse residents of Emakhazeni. The festival engages children, youth, and people with disabilities in Machadodorp/Emthonjeni, Belfast/Siyathuthuka, Dullstroom/Sakhelwe, and Waterval-Boven/Emgwenya.
This cutting-edge program attracts local and international artists, visitors, and promoters to the area’s beautiful villages. The festival showcases art’s power as a driver for social and economic development, boosting local tourism and cultivating audiences at local, national, and international levels.
MBMS festival
The MBMS festival’s strong commitment to the local Emakhazeni economy, growing job creation opportunities, and developing a vibrant arts and culture tourism sector in the region, sees a unique rural public arts festival experience, showcasing the highest standard of work to create a vibrant arts experience destination.

The festival’s programme includes:
- The Arteries Programme (10-14 March)
- The Central Nervous System (CNS) Programme (14-15 March)
- A Workshop Training/Development Programme
Festival co-curator PJ Sabbagha says “FATC in her 30th year is profoundly excited to see this incredible festival and its unique voice continue into its 10th year as we work to inspire and engage audiences, bringing a diverse range of rural artists (and South African artists at large) to work across disciplines; re-stitching communities and spaces that have been geographically, politically, economically and socially separated. We celebrate vulnerable members of communities and bring them into the mainstream, and our programme – which is curated this year to focus on human rights, climate change and the environment – delivers on art’s purpose in constantly questioning the status quo and demanding a higher standard of accountability and care for everyone.”
About the programme
The Arteries Programme is the Fringe programme promoting cultural engagement and shaped by community activations and performances in Machadodorp/Emthonjeni, Belfast/Siyathuthuka, Dullstroom/Sakhelwe and Waterval-Boven/Emgwenya. Tailored for children, youth, and people with disabilities, the Arteries Programme collaborates with FATC’s LEAP (Local Education in Arts Programme) participants and also partners with Wits: Drama for Life, which has been essential in MBMS reaching over 2000 learners in schools and centres across the Emakhazeni Local Municipality each year.
The CNS Programme
The CNS Programme takes place in Machadodorp and surrounds. This Main programme comprises a selection of commissioned performances of diverse dance forms in line with the festival’s curatorial focus, and encourages new works and collaborations presenting traditional/indigenous and contemporary dance, audience participation activations, and public workshops. Priority is given to new works by young and emerging artists, while FATC mobilises its national and international partner network to bring on board works from more established artists. Side-by-side in an act of democratisation, local and provincial community-based artists present mostly traditional and street performances alongside works of established, national and international artists. The meeting of artists from diverse backgrounds and locations during the CNS programme creates a generative community in which new collaborations and future projects are imagined and ideated.
Curated works are selected based on their resonance with the festival’s thematic drive of socio-political activism, as well as a focus on works that allow for the sites and places of the towns, rural communities and natural and cultural heritage sites of Emakhazeni to be re-imagined.
During the CNS programme, the audience (of largely rural children and youth, as well as national and international visitors), are bussed into activated Emakhazeni festival sites for participation in the festival activities. The audience is guided on foot and by combi through an array of happenings, performances, installations and exhibitions that are held in various public sites such as school playgrounds, community halls, street corners and abandoned buildings.
The Workshop/Training and Residency Programme
This programme includes skills exchange workshops, arts processes and mini-training programmes offered by visiting dancers, choreographers, facilitators and technicians. It promotes collaborations between local and visiting artists, enhancing the skills of young people, women, and people with disabilities. It accesses FATC’s extensive and ongoing Emakhazeni Local Municipality LEAP partner network of local schools and centres, and brings together local artists and visiting artists in new short-term, small-scale collaborations, with outcomes subsequently presented as part of MBMS’s CNS Programme. Annually, a group of young people interested in advancing their skills, knowledge and experience in theatre technology are appointed as technical trainees who undergo intensive technical training and work as festival technicians under the mentorship and guidance of appointed senior technicians.
Participants include:
- FATC
- WITS: DRAMA FOR LIFE
- MOVEMENT STORY TECHNOLOGY NPC
- BODY ABILITY
- CIE – VINCENT SEKWATI MANTSOE
- ISIFISO SAKA GOGO
- MANDYLIN PRODUCTIONS
- SIBIKWA ARTS CENTRE
- MOVING INTO DANCE
- PERZANI DANCE THEATRE
- VUYANI DANCE THEATRE
- ASANDA RUDA
- BODY SOUL COLLAB / DAMO
- CRYING OUT LOUD
- FANA TSHABALALA
- HUGE SILLYTOE
- KWANELE FINCH THUSI
- LULU MLANGENI
- OBUSITSWE “OBI” SEAGE
- OUPA SIBEKO
- QUEENETH MHLANGA
- BODY MOVES and THAPELO KOTLO
- SONGEZO MCILIZELI
- TWICE EUPHORIC
- LOCAL GROUPS

My Body My Space Festival
The My Body My Space Festival stands as a shining example of community and collaboration within the arts. With the backing of prominent organisations such as the National Lotteries Council of South Africa and the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, this festival plays a crucial role in promoting human rights and democratic values. The support of local partners like the Emakhazeni Local Municipality and various accommodation providers further emphasises its commitment to cultivating a vibrant cultural landscape. As we anticipate this inspiring week of events, it is evident that MBMS is much more than a celebration of creativity; it is a dynamic movement that unites people in the pursuit of dignity, inclusivity, and empowerment for all. Make sure to join this transformative experience in Mpumalanga.

For more details visit FATC | My Body My Space