5 minutes with Performance artist Mamela Nyamza

Nyamza, 38, is a performance artist from Gugulethu. Her collaboration 19-Born-76-Rebels with actor Faniswa Yisa, pictured below left, is part of Infecting The City 2014. The public art programme includes 40 artworks which unfold across Cape Town's CBD this week.

What is your new work about?

The 19-Born-76-Rebels is informed by the events of 1976. The concept is portrayed politically, but the performance is totally different from the works that have already dramatised those fateful events. It focuses on two aspects: the children born during this year and the type of education they got; and the mothers who bore children during this year 1976.

What is it like performing on a public street?

Infecting the City is "infecting" city spaces as the public go about their business. They are suddenly "confronted" with a performance without planning to see it, nor budgeting to pay for it. This impromptu audience helps the art to grow and also helps artists because these audiences will give an honest response to the work.

Have you been heckled?

This will be my fourth stint at Infecting the City and I have not yet experienced heckles or jeers. If I am heckled, I will take that in my stride and use it to improve. Besides, some artists get too ahead of their times, and then they don't get understood in time. I was heckled performing my piece Isingqala, but two years later this piece was invited to Europe.

Why did you choose your body as your medium to express your art?

As a dancer, and formally trained in ballet, my body inevitably becomes a tool for both my trade and expression.

What artwork has changed your life?

Life-changing experiences influenced me - the birth of my son, Amkele, and the death of my mother, who was a victim of violent domestic abuse, raped and strangled to death.

Whose work are you watching?

John Kani's Missing and Thando Doni's Passage , and a Zabalaza Theatre Festival all at Baxter Theatre now .

• See '19-Born-76-Rebels' cnr St George's Mall and Waterkant Street, Cape Town, today at 1.40pm. See www.infectingthecity.com