It is most unusual for activist artists to slap an age restriction on a performance, but that's exactly what a quartet of dance makers are doing for Trucking.
PJ Sabbagha, Gregory Maqoma, Hlengiwe Lushaba and Tracey Human (all former recipients of the Standard Bank Young Artist dance award) have done just that for this work which gets up close and very personal with the Aids pandemic.
No persons under 18 are allowed in to the two performances of Trucking which is being created as part of the fourth edition of the When Life Happens HIV and Aids-focused arts and culture festival in Newtown from tonight.
The age restriction seems rather self-defeating in a society in which 11-year-olds are sexually active.
"I don't think it is a matter of sex or sexuality," retorts Sabbagha.
"It's about the artist's representation, or vision, of sexuality which may be confusing for a young person. The image I want to create for myself is losing my telephone, and then my lover, down the toilet, and ending up sitting naked on the toilet doing this dance which eventually becomes a dance of the body becoming incapacitated."
The choreography has grown out of extended conversations between the four head-strong conceptually minded dancers.
"Small absolutely personal stories started emerging," explains Sabbagha, the festival director and co founder, "that, for me, is the core of the piece."
"We've all had personal experiences with HIV," adds Lushaba. "It may get too intense for kids to see. PJ had the concept about the trucks (in which the long-distance drivers have random unprotected sex). We thought about doing the piece in a truck, or a bus, then it started developing, it's like HIV. You know if you play it like this it's going to lead you to a certain direction. But people still do it, like the truck drivers, who play a dangerous game."
Sabbagha, who is HIV- positive, is also aware of the philosophical and psychological aspect of the virus. "The piece is about the trucking of journeys through our bodies, the highways of our bodies, the veins. Our bodies are maps."
He is also passionately pragmatic about the festival's evolving mission not only to celebrate survival but to examine the stigma.
"The underlying current is that people are having a lot of unprotected sex, giving up knowing what the risks are. People won't speak to an HIV-positive person but they will have unprotected sex. We mustn't forget the tragedy of this. We can, and must celebrate, we need to get over having had condoms and broomsticks and coffins waved at us for the past 10 years, in terms of our education. But we need to take on the fact that we are dying."
A pivotal part of the festival is the Conversations HIV & the Family exhibition, featuring the stories and Giselle Wulfsohn's photographs of 12 SA families. This sequel to Living Openly again features PJ Sabbagha and his HIV-positive partner, Aids activist Keith Markland and his daughter Nathalie.
This year's festival is very compact. "It's focused on trying something Steven Sack (Joburg's Director of Culture) urged us to develop: to have a meaningful and profound impact with one person, so that its not just a community sharing but a deep-seated change in discourse, in dialogue, in thinking with the follow-through into social behaviour, care and support. That is fundamental."
In January PJ Sabbagha is going to the US, courtesy of the US Consulate, as the only South African (and performing arts person) in an international contingent who will connect with US HIV/Aids NGOs and activists.
Meaningful and profound impact goes global.