Infecting The City took place in the Cape Town Central Business District in February 2009. Curated by Brett Bailey, approximately half of the productions on the programme were presented free to the public in communal city spaces during the day, allowing audiences to embark on a historical and creative tour of Cape Town and the spaces in between. The rest of the programme played out at various non-theatre venues during the day and in the evening.
The broad theme that underlined the 2009 festival was Home Affairs, which investigated issues of immigrant vs. citizen, insider vs. outsider, inclusion and exclusion. Unavoidable reference was made to the xenophobic tensions that simmer in southern Africa. As in 2008, an innovative component of Infecting the City 2009 was the creation of collaborative works by teams of artists from Europe, South Africa, a number of SADC countries and Australia. The rest of the festival programme also reflected international performance works, where one particular visual highlight was Tuning the Void – an aerial performance by French company Retouramont.