Not all performances unfold beneath the spotlight. Some emerge in the pauses between movement, in rehearsed practice, quiet rituals, and the sustained commitment that makes performance possible. Sequins/Sequence is a long-term photographic project exploring the social and cultural life of Latin and Ballroom dance in the Western Cape.

While centred on the dance floor, the work looks beyond performance as spectacle, attending instead to the connections and expressions through which dance is lived and experienced. Here, competition, discipline, celebration, and community converge, revealing dance as both a performative and deeply social practice.

Returning to rehearsals, social dances, and competitions, these photographs linger between intuition and precision: the weight of sequins in motion, the shimmer of costumes, the exchange of glances, and the quiet concentration that accompanies each performance. The photographic series unfolds as both an archive and an ongoing relationship with the community from which it emerges.

Presented as a sequence, the exhibition invites viewers to look beyond the spectacle of dance towards the connections, expressions, and shared experiences that sustain it. In doing so, Sequins/Sequence considers photography not simply as a record of performance, but as a means of revealing the social life that unfolds through movement.

Fuzznights and friends are back again with another First Thursdays Surfa takeover.

This time bringing back the wax with a mix of both vinyl and digital DJs.

9pm - 11pm Midnight Gospel & Electric Eel

11pm - 1am Waxgarden

1am - 3am Fuzznights and friends

Hedonic Adaptation: Structures of Survival and Repair brings Edoardo Villa's steel sculptures from the 1990s into dialogue with works by contemporary South African artist Tshepo Sizwe Phokojoe. The sculptures are drawn from the holdings of Friedland Art, the last gallery to represent Villa in his lifetime.

Taking its title from the psychological concept of hedonic adaptation, the exhibition explores how individuals and societies become habituated to discomfort, instability and harm. Within HEAT 2026's theme, Ctrl + Z, it asks whether art can interrupt this normalisation through slow looking, material attention and acts of repair.

Villa's sculptures speak through weight, balance, compression and modernist construction, while Phokojoe's work introduces stitching, vulnerability, memory, re-use, identity and placeless-ness. Together, they stage a dialogue between monument and shelter, steel and textile, inherited structure and lived repair.

The exhibition considers survival as something structured - physically, socially, psychologically and historically. It asks how art can reveal the forms we have learned to live within, and how attention, repair and re-looking might begin to unsettle them.

The Western Cape Blood Service is offering free blood group testing as part of First Thursdays, from 4pm to 6pm, with a view to hosting blood donation clinics in the following months as part of the programme.

Wine in hand, wander through the latest jewels, new piercing stock and fresh Zapping charms in the heart of the city's monthly art and culture walk.

On the night:

Sip - Labanzi wines poured throughout the evening
Shine - browse our latest jewels, new piercing stock and Zapping charms
Stud - live piercing available on the night (booking recommended, walk-ins welcome as space allows)
Zap - get a Zapping bracelet fitted and add a charm to your collection

No ticket required, just follow the crowd down Hout Street..

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EBONY/CURATED presents A Very Loop Street Winter, the inaugural edition of a seasonal group exhibition celebrating the depth and diversity of contemporary artistic practice. Bringing together a selection of established and emerging artists, the exhibition reflects the contemplative atmosphere of the winter season through a rich range of perspectives, materials and visual languages.

Spanning painting, ceramics and mixed media, A Very Loop Street Winter offers an engaging cross-section of the gallery's programme, presenting acquisitions alongside significant works by represented artists. The exhibition invites visitors to consider the varied ways in which contemporary artists respond to place, memory, identity and materiality, while highlighting practices that continue to contribute to artistic discourse both in South Africa and internationally.

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Ina van Zyl, living and working in Amsterdam for the past 30 years, recently held a retrospective exhibition in the Netherlands. She brings a selection of her paintings and work on paper to Cape Town this Spring.

WORLDART is pleased to present In Order of Appearance, a solo exhibition by Sotiris Moldovanos.

In his latest solo exhibition, he explores identity and urban culture through the fluid dynamics of human connection. This body of work captures a range of bonds, from fleeting everyday encounters to lifelong friendships, and serves as a visual anthology of the figures who enter, exit and shape our personal narratives.

His paintings feature figurative works that are carefully constructed, then deliberately broken down into bold colour fields, geometric patterns and simplified silhouettes. The figures remain grounded in anatomy but are pushed towards abstraction until they feel as if they are constantly shifting between recognition and illusion. At the same time, facial features are intentionally removed and replaced with thick strokes of impasto paint that strips away personal identity from the subjects.

Textura Animae - Texture of the Soul, a solo exhibition by Stephen Symons, hosted at 33BREE in collaboration with The Artists Gallery. The exhibition runs from 4 to 26 September 2026.

Stephen Symons’ extraordinary digital portraits bring history into the present, reimagining iconic figures through his distinctive, richly layered visual language.

Built from more than a hundred digital layers, his works combine the grandeur of classical portraiture with a striking contemporary aesthetic.

For this new body of work, Symons turns his focus towards Africa, exploring remarkable figures and stories connected to the continent.

The result is a powerful dialogue between history, identity and contemporary African culture.

Discover a limited-edition tasting of The Macallan at Bascule Bar, Cape Grace’s intimate waterfront whisky bar. This curated flight brings together four distinctive expressions, offering guests an opportunity to explore the craftsmanship, character and heritage of one of Scotland’s most celebrated whisky houses.

The flight includes The Macallan Sherry Oak 12 Years Old, Harmony Phoenix Honey Orchid Tea, Classic Cut 2022 Release and Rare Cask 2023 Release.

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As winter begins to make way for spring, the evenings stretch a little longer, the city finds its rhythm and before long we'll be easing into another summer season.

First Thursdays at Bo-Vine are the perfect way to welcome it.

Whether you're catching up with friends over dinner or making a night of it, our in-house DJ brings just enough energy to lift the atmosphere without turning dinner into a shouting match. Expect great food, good wine and a restaurant that feels alive in all the right ways.

Join Bo-Vine in the City this First Thursdays.

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Taking as it’s starting point the evolving legacy of photography in Southern Africa, Metaphorical Biography places a new generation of photographers alongside a small section of works by Santu Mofokeng, one of the seminal figures in the history of South African art. Drawing from Mofokeng’s concept of the metaphoric biography, the exhibition includes practices which have a close emphasis of biography, personal experience and history – especially within the context of a post-democratic South Africa.

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Join Addis in Cape this First Thursdays and enjoy a celebration of Ethiopian Flavours for only R225 per person.

A Grand Platter of 6 traditional Ethiopian dishes accompanied by 3 delicious sides, served on a traditional platter with injera.

Available in Mixed and Vegan

The Cape Town Photography Festival is excited to present two outstanding exhibitions at Alliance Française du Cap this September, bringing bold photographic perspectives and fresh creative voices to the city.

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The 1895 Gallery presents works by artist Solomon Omogboye, alongside featured artists, across both galleries at 52 Burg Street and 54 Church Street, Cape Town.

“To be alive is to be a living soul.  An animal – and we are all animals – is an embodied soul (psyche).”  

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Quotation from J.M. Coetzee’s metafictional novella exploring animal rights and human morality through the lectures of Elizabeth Costello, Coetzee’s fictional alter ego. Published by Princeton University Press in 1999, this fable was presented as a Tanner Lecture sponsored by the University Centre for human values at Princeton University.

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Make a night of it with a juicy burger, cocktails and good First Thursdays energy at the SIBA Deli.

Meet and mingle with creatives, tech entrepreneurs, founders and Innovation City members over brews and beats as we head into the spring season.

Start your day with great coffee, groovy beats and good people at Innovation City.

This is a request-to-join event with limited capacity. Register to reserve your spot.

Thursday, 3 September 2026
7am - 8.30am
Innovation City

Brews by: Smak Coffee Co.
Beats by: Kurt April

Hosted by Plan.net Creative Nest South Africa, Smak Coffee Co. and Innovation City.

RSVP: https://www.radi.co.za/events/coffee-rave-innovation-city

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An evening at CHIMI Cape Town with drinks and DJ sets.,

69 Shortmarket Street
6pm - 9pm

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A relaxed evening of live music, drinks and an opportunity to browse the String Theory works by MRS & MR LUKE.

Enjoy a complimentary glass of Seven Sisters Sparkling White Wine on arrival, accompanied by a selection of chef’s-choice light snacks and canapés. Settle in and enjoy live entertainment from a talented duet while soaking up the easy-going social atmosphere.

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POSTPONED!

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Three-Part Play features the work of artists Xanthe Scout Lardner-Burke, Pia Truscott & Daniel Tucker, who have met and maintained a regular crit group over the last three years. Through this framework, this exhibition speaks to distinct practices that exist in conversation with one another. Three-Part Play asks how sustained dialogue can act as a material, process, and an artefact in artistic practice.

Join Ongetem this First Thursdays for a wine tasting that will change the way you taste wine.

This series of documentary photographs tracks the story of years of treatment and the psychological transformation, as well as the emotional and physical high and lows following a breast cancer diagnosis. the work is playful, humorous, tragic and head-on; deliberately moving beyond the medicalised, objectified body. Instead, the images focus on Karen's lived experience. While the subject matter is serious, the work engages the healing process the creativity and positivity; adding empowering imagery to cancer narrative.

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Karen is dedicated to deepening our understanding of both art and the botanical world. She is a contemporary artist, curator and advocate for botanical art.

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Architecture isn’t static—it’s movement, material, and narrative in motion, brought to life through a student exhibition across five experimental studios: Film Processes (exploring dynamic spatial events), 3D Printed Towers (clay slip-casting and African fractal geometry), Architecture at the Edge (abstract spatial manifestos), Pattern Recognition (site-specific fencing schemes), and Core Motion (full-scale kinetic, responsive structures)

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A post-residency solo exhibition by Pebofatso Mokoena.

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This work grows out of a different relationship to memory than the one that shaped my earlier practice, which was was closely tied to memory, childhood experiences, and my attempts to process the sexual traumas of my past. These new pieces do not leave those histories behind, but they approach them from a different place, one shaped by time, change, and the ongoing work of finding out what is left of me when I look at all the things that make me who I am and choose myself anyway.

In these Zak pieces, fabric and fold become a way of thinking through growth, not as a clear departure from pain, but as a more complicated process of living with what has shaped me while still becoming something outside of it. I am interested in life as a continual convergence and separation of threads or lines. Memories, grief, desire, fear, identity, longing, and self-invention. In my experience, none of these things move in a straight line. They constantly gather, loosen, knot, return, and shift in relation to one another. The folds in the work become a kind of terrain, a landscape of pressure, repetition, and response. They hold the traces of what has been attempted, carried, reshaped, resisted, and released. In that sense, the work I’m creating is not about resolution so much as accumulation. It is in honour of the ways my life has formed through repeated negotiations between what has happened to me, what I long for, and what I am still trying to make possible.

Signature Gallery is an artist-owned and artist-run space, known for its vibrant atmosphere, diverse contemporary African art, good music and even better company. The gallery is now launching a new Art & Music Series — bringing art, sound and community together under one roof.

Step into Club Capri for an evening inspired by Italian summer, good company and the art of doing less, beautifully.

Join Rosey & Vittori for our First Thursdays Summer Launch, where we’ll unveil the new collection with an evening of fashion, music, drinks and a little Capri spirit.

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Kristen McClarty, a Cape Town artist and specialist printmaker, works primarily in woodcut. Her practice involves the methodical building up of information on a surface through the act of removing material from a substrate.

Central to her current practice is a particular place along the South Atlantic Ocean shoreline. McClarty has named it The Yellow Rock Fort. As the sun rises over Slangkop Mountain, the spotlighted Yellow Rock Fort becomes a theatre, a space for McClarty to play with shadows: forms tenuously untethered from the body and altered by the shape and contours of the rocks.

McClarty's practice draws on the idea that lived experience lingers in a place as residual energy, pooling and accumulating like a palimpsest on the environment. Acutely aware of how surfaces translate into print, she attempts to read the marks of this residual energy from the world around her. Some of those marks she translates into woodcut. Her shadow, a temporary celestial creature, appears in relation to those marks at The Yellow Rock Fort and, through the transmutation of its form, brings elements of that "text" to life.

To engage with this materially, McClarty turns to sculpture and installation as an extension of her process. What we encounter in this exhibition are moments from her interaction with The Yellow Rock Fort, translated into a tableau of elements that support an ongoing narrative of play.

Delete Nton’ntoni’ is a group exhibition featuring various artists at House Union Block curated by Tafadzwa Tega.

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First Thursdays Spring Launch to Thursdays New weekly Jam sessions incorporating   live Soul glo Sessions & Jam Sessions and Thriftfest market screen printing sessions with I love screen printing where we will have selection of SouflowSessions merch of shirts and tote bags at an opening first Thursday intro.

SOULGLO SESSIONS

The new weekly residency reshaping Cape Town’s nightlife curated by
Francesca Biancoli.

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Every Thursday, Harringtons Lounge becomes a sonic playground where jazz,
funk, neo-soul, and afro music completely melt together.

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This isn't just a gig, it’s a true gathering of souls with zero gatekeeping.
A curated guest band sets the vibe at 7pm, then the stage opens for top-tier
talents to jam in real-time.

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Pull up to a chic inner-city venue, bring your instrument, and catch the energy.
Doors open 4pm, music at 7pm, free entry before 10pm.

For first Thursday the Band featured will be Kujenga & Francesca Biancoli followed by Jam sessions & DJ Tanner Mason and Evan Froud on saxophone taking the dancefloor to the next stage for the evening along with other resident Djs.

Soul Glo sessions will be running 3rd, 17th, & 24th of September and into the October and November.

Bookings on Dineplan or on Bookings@harringtonstreet.co.za if you want to be sure of a Dinner Seat or alternatively stand at the bar or find a space on the dancefloor in front of the bands.