A night of enchantment with Design Indaba and Madame Zingara

Design Indaba in association with Absa have booked an evening at Madame Zingara on Wednesday 27 February, 2008, to host our Design Indaba international speakers, guests and sponsors.

Cape Town’s Madame Zingara – the eat-see-gasp-laugh “eatertainment” extravaganza – has evolved into a cult phenomenon, with a following that stretches far beyond its home base. Housed in a historic 1920s-era Spiegelpaleis tent, Madame Zingara’s third season continues to enchant, seduce and inspire.

Design Indaba is offering seats to the design fraternity to join us for this magical evening and share a night of dinner-theatre with leading designers from across the globe. This is a unique opportunity to network and mingle with the top creative professionals headlining Design Indaba 2008.

Tables are available with either six or eight seats, or individual tickets can be booked. All proceeds from the event will go towards the Design Indaba Trust, which offers disadvantaged students the opportunity to follow their design dream.

Only 130 seats are available, please book at Lucinda Johannes. Email: lucinda@interactiveafrica.com or Tel: (021) 465 9966. Tickets are R375 each, excluding drinks.

To the unintiated Madame Zingara might be simply be described as “dinner theatre” – and there’s nothing new or unusual there. “Oh, it’s so much more,” says co-owner Richard Griffin. “We set out to create magic, a place where people can truly escape for a night – a secret world where there aren’t taxes, traffic, diseases or heartache. People seem to connect with Zingara on an emotional level – it’s a way of life, an attitude.”

South Africa’s Sunday Times Lifestyle describes Madame Zingara as a “slickly-choreographed dinner-theatre concept that sees chefs, waitrons, aerial artists, cabaret performers and assorted thrillmeisters sweep, swoon and fly past diners’ heads, hearts and mouths. It’s one-part Cirque du Soleil and one-part Tod Browning’s 1932 film classic, Freaks, mixed with a healthy lashing of good old-fashioned Cape hospitality.”

Madame Zingara’s jaw-dropping acts include: Brazil’s Ivan Silva and Martin Alvez who perform a drooling strong-man act; the ever-popular larger than life divas, The Tons (Dorothy Engelbrecht, Lilian Khumalo, Stella Magaba and Marguerita Freeks); aerial acts; cabaret and comedy.