Arts and Creative Industries / Performing Arts / PEPONI brings a vision of paradise to Johannesburg this weekend

PEPONI brings a vision of paradise to Johannesburg this weekend

Arts and Creative Industries
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17 September

Tanzanian dance company House of Wondar brings its first original dance-theatre production, PEPONI, to Johannesburg this September for two performances during its five-country Southern African tour.

The production will be presented at Wits Theatre on Friday, 18 September, followed by a performance at the Leeto Dance Festival at I’trotra in Soweto on Saturday, 19 September.

Meaning “paradise” in Kiswahili, PEPONI brings eight House of Wondar performers together to consider what paradise means to each of them. Through movement and theatre, the work asks whether a sense of paradise can be created within the places people already inhabit.

Developed from March 2026, the production is choreographed by Matthieu Nieto, with dramaturgy by South African poet and theatre-maker Koleka Putuma. Their collaboration brings Tanzanian and South African perspectives into a work shaped through personal reflection and shared creative practice.

The Johannesburg performances form part of a regional tour through Tanzania, South Africa, Eswatini, Botswana and Mozambique. By connecting House of Wondar with audiences, festivals and cultural institutions across five countries, the tour contributes to the circulation of contemporary performance in Southern Africa.

The tour is supported by the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), Institut français in Paris and the Alliance Française network in Southern Africa.

—

Wits Theatre
Friday, 18 September 2026 | 18h30
RSVP via Eventbrite
Entrance is free

Leeto Dance Festival at I’trotra
Saturday, 19 September 2026
More information here

The regional tour concludes on 23 September at Semana da Dança at the Franco-Mozambican Cultural Centre in Maputo.

 

Picture credit: PEPONI at the Little Theatre in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on 29 August 2026: Meshack Martin

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