The French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) continues its longstanding partnership with the Windybrow Arts Centre through A Season in Hell / Hillbrow – Rimbaud Rewritten, a new performance created by the Windybrow Arts Centre’s youth ensemble.
Premiering on 29 July at the 2026 Towards Critical Apartheid Studies Conference at the University of the Witwatersrand, the production reimagines Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell through contemporary South African voices, histories and experiences. Developed through a series of workshops since February 2026, the work invites young performers to reinterpret the French literary classic through the realities of their own lives, creating a dialogue between nineteenth-century poetry and present-day South Africa.
The project builds on a long-standing collaboration between IFAS and the Windybrow Arts Centre, which dates back to 2016 and includes support for KWASHA! Theatre Company’s adaptation of The Little Prince. More recently, in 2024, the partnership produced a critically acclaimed reinterpretation of Aimé Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, combining poetic research with performance.
By placing classical French literature in conversation with African histories and contemporary youth perspectives, A Season in Hell / Hillbrow – Rimbaud Rewritten continues this shared commitment to artistic experimentation, cultural dialogue and creative expression. The production also marks the 50th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, reflecting on themes of resistance, identity and social change through theatre, poetry and performance.
For more information, visit the Windybrow Arts Centre’s Facebook page.
Photo: Poet Lesego Rampolokeng working with the Windybrow teens in a poetry workshop exploring revolutions and uprisings and the small rebellions of the everyday.
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