Check Out the National Arts Festival in South Africa

Last year you could get yourself kidnapped by the army (it was performance art, I swear), cover a lamppost in knitting, or hang out with craftsmen from as far afield as Ethiopia and Senegal down in the market district. Or move beyond the daily hijinks to watch much darker performances and installations by the country’s best and brightest before heading over to the jazz arena to catch legend Sibongile Khumalo live.

Many of the performances arrive at the arts festival as polished, huge-budget productions. Others, like the festival’s 2011 closing act, Machitún (below), simply blew in from Argentina and polished up psychedelically on arrival.

So if you’ll be in South Africa near the end of June, the lions and elephant will wait. The artists probably won’t.