Current projects

The Performing Arts Research Collections (PARC) initiative at the Africa Open Institute has been established to formalise and steward a set of significant archival holdings relating to South Africa’s performing arts. At its core are two major donations: the documentary archive supporting the Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT), and the archive of the Cooper, Gill & Tomkins organ-building firm. PARC further encompasses the music archives of Richard Cock and Joseph Sonnabend, as well as the Africa Open Institute’s own institutional archive. Responding to the often precarious condition of performing arts archives, PARC is committed to their long-term preservation, institutional protection, and accessibility for research. In doing so, it expands and complements Stellenbosch University’s already substantial music archival holdings, fostering a more interdisciplinary approach to the documentation and study of performance histories in South Africa.