The Annual Parade – Hey Hillbrow! Let’s Dlala! – Is Back with “Arise!”, the Cry that Alerts, Gathers, Protects and Transforms
Hey Hillbrow! Let’s Dlala! returns for its seventh iteration, presented by The Windybrow Arts Centre and Shade in collaboration with organisations and artists from Johannesburg and beyond. This year’s procession happens on 8 August 2026, on the eve of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the August 9, 1956 Women’s March.
The 2026 Hey Hillbrow! Let’s Dlala! iteration is themed ARISE, taking to the skies to make a declaration against the cage and in celebration of freedom. “Just as birds migrate across lands and share messages from afar, we are taking up the airspace,” states Shade’s Tamzyn Botha, curator of the parade. “This year’s theme, ARISE, looks to the seasonal journeys of birds as a provocation for freedom, communication and collective movement.”
Working with more than 350 children and young people from Hillbrow and beyond, Hey Hillbrow! Let’s Dlala! gathers handmade bird costumes, bird dances, birdsongs and street-scale imagination into a living flock. These birds are border-crossers, message-carriers, mischief-makers and freedom-dreamers. They migrate across walls, neighbours, languages, histories and streets.
According to Gerard Bester, The Market Theatre Foundation’s Head of The Windybrow Arts Centre, the Grey Go-away-bird known as the Lourie, whose sharp call warns the bushveld when danger is near, will inspire the 2026 public procession—transforming alarm into art, warning into wonder and rebellion into play. “Hey Hillbrow! Let’s Dlala! honours the power of collective voice: the cry that alerts, gathers, protects and transforms. In Hillbrow, the call becomes a chorus. The street becomes a sky. The children become birds of warning, beauty, defiance and joy.”
As hundreds of participants from local youth organisations – Dlala Nje, Shade, Dlamini Foundation, Johannesburg Society for the Blind, Innovation of Excellence, Lefika La Phodiso, Fight with Insight, MES and The Windybrow Arts Centre – flock to the streets of inner-city Jo’burg in birdlike freedom, they’ll also be paying tribute to the unbeatable spirit of the women of 1956, who marched against pass laws as cages to reclaim their freedom of movement.
In celebrating the music of freedom, the parade will end with the mighty Kebra Ethiopian Sound System.
In the lead up to the parade, The Windybrow Arts Centre has turned into a creative makerspace for all the participants. This two week multi-disciplinary, artist residency/holiday programme ranges from Textile Design with Imbali Visual Literacy, Choral Works with Sbusiso Shozi and Muzi Radebe, Physical Theatre with Philani Tenso Mahlanga and Muzi Trust, Street Art with Rivaldo Nelson, Site Specific Theatre with Gcebile Dlamini and Parade Direction with Johannesburg Mask and Movement. The sonic library made in collaboration with the participants, will inform the soundscapes curated by Jarred Parenzee and Muhammed Dawjee.
The programme also invites youth and children to shadow these artists and production teams, to co-design the works and foster intergenerational collaboration.
Come glide, fly and flutter as we celebrate in the streets and in the skies. Join the seventh iteration of Joburg’s most anticipated parade on 8 August 2026, starting from 10am at The Windybrow Arts Centre.
Hey Hillbrow! Let’s Dlala! launched in 2017 in celebration of the possibilities that public performance brings to public space; to share energy, laughter, surprise and play. This day was inspired by the life of Joburg public art super-heroine Lesley Perkes who died in 2015 and who had dreams for this place that others have continued to manifest.
The parade would not be possible without the generous support from Ekhaya CID, Badboys Security, Hillbrow Police, Assitej South Africa, Joburg Photowalkers, Craig Maarschalk, City of Johannesburg, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, BirdLife South Africa and our media partner, Johannesburg in Your Pocket.
ENDS
The Windybrow Arts Centre is a division of The Market Theatre Foundation, an agency of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.
For enquiries, please contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at the Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@marketheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.
