In a decade of dancing, I’ve experienced so many magical moments; it leaves me wondering what else I can contribute in my life and career. One of those moments was a surreal juncture in my fledgling dance profession. I stepped onto the stage of one of the most beautiful theaters in the world. I was asked to represent my nation as Holland played host to a meeting of greats. At a tender age of 20, I was center stage.
In 2002, the South African embassy in The Hague hosted the Faranani! concert at the Royal Carre Theatre in Amsterdam, at which the late Nelson Mandela was the guest of honor. Faranani!, meaning togetherness in the Venda language, was a concert promoting peace, reconciliation and unity between South Africa and the Netherlands, a relationship spanning 350 years. I danced for Madiba and the Dutch royal family with a company of acclaimed South African artists. Through the arts, these two nations commemorate the past.
For the royal family and the rest of the Dutch audience I might have been a symbol of the unusual, the unexpected act of an African woman in Europe dancing a Russian classic. In my heart, however, I was dancing for Mandela and South Africa. I felt like a cultural ambassador crossing borders, inviting audiences to journey with me until the last few breaths of The Dying Swan. As a ballerina, this honor represented  my country’s struggle against a colonial past as well as my struggle to beat the odds as a black woman on pointe in a tutu.
It was a high point in my career and the wonderful memories stick with me to this day. A sense of duty stirs inside of me, sparked by the opportunity to dance for a global hero while on a mission to unite.
Today, a world away, I find myself fulfilling this duty at a dusty makeshift primary school in a township I called home. Alexandra, in Johannesburg, sets the stage for another kind of Faranani! concert in schools for thousands of culture-hungry children electrified by ballet performances in their playgrounds. This is part of my journey as I keep working to take my art and craft outside the garlanded stages of glamorous theaters.
As we mourned the passing of the father of South Africa, I felt the weight of history on my shoulders. That service to my country, which began at the age of 20, continues in celebration of Mandela’s legacy. Inspiring children in the townships is a humbling responsibility I take with pride. The future of these children will be determined by the choices they make and the freedom to believe they can achieve whatever they put their heart and mind into. Following your passion and working towards a dream becomes possible when the struggle of the past is broken. I hope that I can help the children realize that the destitution of a township can result in the beauty and grace of a ballerina.
Touring the world and dancing for dignitaries has its allure, but the shows in Johannesburg are the ones that are most fulfilling. Ballet helps to develop the image of South Africa, a country once segregated from the rest of the world, and entices an international flair to Johannesburg.
Making history is dancing on home soil as the only South African ballerina in galas with the New York City Ballet. Forging peace and unity is dancing on a stage with friends from Kiev and Moscow amid the recent unrest between Ukraine and Russia. Coming home is my affirmation of a passion for a nation that can use ballet to create Faranani!.

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From A Township To A Tutu

The sky is the limit for Anne Kansiime. The Ugandan comedienne, known as ‘Africa’s Queen of Comedy’, has seen her star rise rapidly.
She has performed throughout Africa and staged sold-out shows in England and Australia. The stages in London and Sydney are a long way away from the first play she took part in while in university in Kampala.
She owes her professional success to Fun Factory, which she says gave her both the time and space to improve.
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“I had always known I had a relatively good sense of humor but didn&#8217;t think at all that it was something I would do professionally. But, in 2009, I was spotted by Fun Factory Uganda, a sketch comedy group, and I was given an opportunity to feature in their play, The Nasty Good Story. After that play, I stayed on for their weekly shows at the National Theater (Uganda) and I have been a member since.”
It was not a seamless start in the entertainment industry.
“Being a part of a comedy group, comprised of drama graduates and very experienced actors, really steered me in the right direction. There was too much to learn from them and a lot of mistakes to be forgiven,” says Kansiime.
Apart from the stand-up shows, Kansiime also hosts the television show, Don’t Mess With Kansiime. She is, however, best known for her YouTube channel. The global video-sharing website recently awarded her a Silver Play Button for gathering more than 100,000 channel subscribers.
But this is only one of the many accolades that the graduate of Social Sciences has bagged in the past few years. Last year, Kansiime pocketed the Airtel Women of Substance Award and, in 2013, was named the Best Comedian at the Black Entertainment Film Fashion Television and Arts (BEFFTA), the Best Actress at the Lagos International Festival, and Favorite Celebrity at the Social Media Awards.
The 28-year-old praises her husband, Gerald Ojok, for giving her all the support she needs.
“It’s not easy to balance marriage and a career but with a good partner, things can get a little easier. [He] has been the best support I could ever ask for. He doesn&#8217;t put me in a position where I have to explain myself and my actions.”
One of Kansiime’s most watched clips on YouTube are those where she argues with her husband. She is quick to add that these don’t reflect her life.
“Contrary to what people might think, I am not as quarrelsome as the Kansiime in the skits. I’m very quiet around strangers and, actually, my husband makes me laugh way more than I could ever make him. I’m normal, I assure you.”
Unlike many up-and-coming celebrities who look up to other people for inspiration, Kansiime says: “I don’t really look up to a particular individual in life but rather to everyone that does everything in their power to make the world a better place for everyone.”
That doesn’t stop Kansiime from wanting to inspire others. She is currently working on songs to inspire children.
“I’m currently working on a music album and videos for children dubbed My Name is Kansiime. I’m trying to create entertainment that is actually suitable for children.”
There are many established and up-and-coming comedians in Africa, but Kansiime doesn’t see them as competition.
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“I try not to compete with anyone but rather with myself because I know my humor has a unique touch. So, I only strive to be a better person every day.”
Among Kansiime’s many fans, one stands out. Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o, who was in Uganda working on the movie Queen of Katwe, was full of praise for the comedienne after the two met.
After posting pictures of the two, Nyong’o called Kansiime the “funniest Ugandan. Period.”
It won’t be long before she’s considered the funniest African. Period.

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‘I’m Not As Quarrelsome As People Think’

He is a master of disguise and a brilliant impersonator. Within seconds, South Africa’s most-loved satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys changes from playing an Afrikaans aunty, into Adolf Hitler and a little later into the country’s political enfant terrible Julius Malema. Right on stage, right in front of the audience’s eyes.
In a hilarious yet sharp-witted kind of way, Uys is most of all one thing: politically incorrect. No wonder he has been a thorn in the side of many government officials, especially during the racist apartheid regime.
During a career that spans more than 45 years, the internationally-acclaimed performer, author and social activist has written and performed more than 20 plays and over 30 revues and one-man shows throughout South Africa and abroad.
Today, at the age of 68, the workaholic not only continues to write, direct, act and produce, he even makes his own props and dresses.
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It all began pretty much in the cradle, says Uys, who grew up in a musical family in a suburb near Cape Town. Both his parents were pianists – his mother worked as a piano teacher, while his father, a musician at heart, earned money as a civil servant in the provincial roads department. On weekends, Uys played with his toys on the dining room floor, while his parents entertained an artistic circle of well-traveled, cultured friends.
“Mozart was a friend,” Uys says jokingly. “My whole life was geared with a soundtrack in my head. Mad people hear voices, I hear music.”
Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, just after the National Party was beginning to institute apartheid in South Africa, Uys lived in a house where politics was not discussed, despite the fact that his father’s cousin was the first Afrikaans prime minister, DF Malan. Little did Uys know back then that he would one day become an entertainer who was loathed and feared by repressive politicians.
“I didn’t decide to follow this career. It chose me,” he says.
Uys planned to become a teacher. He studied English, history and German – his maternal grandmother was a Jew from Berlin – at the University of Cape Town where, rather than spending most of his time in the library, he says he learned to smoke a cigarette and twist.
His life changed forever when he received a ticket to visit London and Germany for his 17th birthday. He discovered his love for performance when family friends took him to the theater for the first time. Uys was smitten.
At the end of the trip, he traveled to Rome to track down the apartment of Italian movie star Sophia Loren, whom he had been in love with since he was a schoolboy. He located the flat based on a magazine photo and knocked on the door. To his great disappointment, an assistant told him Loren was in Paris. Uys left behind a letter and was surprised when he received a reply from the actress a few weeks later. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
“It was one of the greatest lessons in my life that a world star would take the time to write to a nobody. We became pen pals. Eventually I met her. She came to one of my shows. I wrote scripts for her. We talk to each other at least once a month,” says Uys.
With that, he dropped his teaching ambitions and signed up for drama school. When Uys got his degree, he first became a stage manager and later started writing plays.
Uys slowly managed to build a career in England although he never quite felt he belonged. He longed for South Africa, where he felt rooted even though he abhorred the apartheid regime. So, he left London to work with famous South African playwright Athol Fugard at Cape Town’s Space Theatre. It was here that he discovered the power of satire.
“I understood how it could make people angry without hurting them, but also hurt people who needed to be twitched a little bit. You don’t laugh because it’s a joke, you laugh because you’re in charge of your fear,” he says.
He also discovered his urge to be political, critical and controversial. He even broke the law by allowing black people to sit in the audience with whites. The government responded by banning the plays, raiding the theater and threatening him with arrest.
“I didn’t see the point in getting angry because anger doesn’t transfer itself into positive energy. Instead, I decided to fight them. I pissed off all the people I wanted to piss off. Humor is a great weapon of mass distraction.”
Living in a homophobic society, Uys, who is gay, also started experimenting with gender. He put on a dress on stage and played women’s roles. It was the first step towards developing what would become his most successful character, Evita Bezuidenhout.
“That’s where it started. At the time it wasn’t planned, but in retrospect there is a red line running through my career,” he says.
Uys’ alter ego is a white Afrikaner socialite and a political activist, at least in her own mind. She is a mixture of a right-wing, glamorous white woman from the American South, he says, a touch of Margaret Thatcher steel, a bit of Imelda Marcos, if only in her shoe choice, and even Hitler’s wife Eva Braun.
Evita challenges her audience through gentle humor and purposeful irritation, always maintaining a balance between entertainment and social commentary.
“She’s my most successful clown. She came at the right time, when society needed a tannie (aunt). But she must never be preachy, reflect the fear of the audience or trash all expectations.”
With grand-dame Evita as his main character, Uys’ performances soon received attention throughout the country. Building on his reputation as a playwright and actor, he put on his first one-man show in 1981, which he called Adapt or Dye.
It included impersonations of then South African President PW Botha, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a selection of apartheid politicians and white liberals, as well as Evita. The show became South Africa’s biggest comedy success ever.
Uys also managed to break the international cultural boycott of South Africa by performing the show overseas.
A year later, Adapt or Dye came out on video and South Africans began to make illegal copies, especially the poor. They did so with Uys’ encouragement and led to his large multiracial fan base.
“That was the greatest audience investment of my life,” he says.
Eventually, the videos made their way into prisons, including Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated.
“The government thought I was an idiot, a drag queen, a clown. So they thought it was safe to let the prisoners watch the shows. They didn’t realize the prisoners would through the shows learn what’s happening in the country.”
Evita lit up Mandela’s dark prison days. When Mandela was elected president in 1994, Evita became the jester he took with him wherever he went. Mandela even allowed Evita to interview him live on television.
“Mandela used humor to unify and reconcile people, to deflate fear and prejudice. He knew that loving your enemy will ruin his reputation. And making Nelson Mandela laugh was one of the best reasons to do my work,” says Uys.
For a short while, Uys feared he would run out of material in the new, democratic rainbow nation.
“I thought I would have to get another job,” he laughs.
He adjusted Evita’s persona to someone who mocked democracy to make South Africans aware that it’s not a given.
But in 1999, when Mandela handed over power to Thabo Mbeki, Uys’ honeymoon with South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, came to an end, although his honeymoon with the ANC’s legacy never did.
As the country’s new president, Mbeki questioned the link between HIV and Aids and refused to make antiretroviral drugs available through the public health system. For Uys, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He once again became a ruthless government critic – and has made the ANC the keystone for his satire ever since.
“I’m afraid the new generation of politicians just wants cars and money. It’s grim. And the only way to change this is to realize that we, the people, are in charge. The politicians are civil servants who are supposed to be working for us,” he says.
Uys is at least delighted to still have a government that on a daily basis writes his best material. In recent years, he has written scripts that sow serious topics like greed, corruption and crime into the fluff of entertainment.
“It’s a wonderful way not to get stale, not to get angry or bitter about being so disappointed in the rainbow nation. I don’t think of it as work. I’m not doing this job for my pension. I think of it as my life. It’s also my therapy.”
At the beginning 2014, Uys’ performed Adapt of Fly, a sequel to his critically acclaimed 1980s show. Once again, he forces his audience to take a long, hard look at South Africa’s stumbling democracy, think about issues that have come full circle since they first reared their ugly heads 30 years ago and, most importantly, to laugh heartily at their fears.

A Weapon Of Mass Distraction

Set in Kenya’s Hell’s Gate National Park, Disney’s animated film, The Lion King celebrates 20 years on June 15. The Lion King’s stage adaptation of the original 1994 film has grossed more than $5 billion across the globe. The original film is the highest grossing hand-drawn film in history.
It tells the story of Simba, a young lion who is to succeed his father, Mufasa, as king. But after Simba’s uncle Scar murders Mufasa, Simba is fooled into thinking he was responsible and flees into exile in shame and despair.
While growing up with two wastrels, Simba is given some valuable perspective from his friend Nala and his shaman, Rafiki, before returning to challenge Scar to end his tyranny.
The story is set in the kingdom of lions in east Africa, with influences from biblical stories of Joseph and Moses, as well as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Though it has had great success, the production of The Lion King has also had its problems. A dispute arose between Disney and the family of South African Solomon Linda, who composed the song, ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, originally titled ‘Mbube’ in 1939. In July 2004, the family filed a lawsuit for $1.6 million in royalties from Disney. Two years later, Linda’s heirs reached a legal settlement with Abilene Music who held the worldwide rights and licensed the song to Disney.
In 1997, three years after the release of The Lion King, Walt Disney produced the musical stage adaptation of the same name, with the first show in Minneapolis in the United States. The musical went on to become one of the most successful in Broadway history and is still running across the globe to this day.
Britain’s stage production of The Lion King casts a huge number of South Africans. In the current run, 25-year-old Nicholas Nkuna is wowing audiences as the third South African to be cast as Simba, following Brian Temba and Andile Gumbi. Before heading to Britain to play Simba, Nkuna was the second youngest black Phantom in the musical The Phantom of the Opera.
“I auditioned for the show for two years and got a call back for the final in the third year. I went to Florida in America to do my final call back. Towards the end of Phantom, they rang me to let me know I got the job,” says Nkuna.
In July 2012, Nkuna moved to Bristol to start rehearsals for the spectacle.
Playing the lead is a huge responsibility and expectations are high. But as time went on, Nkuna says he eased into the role.
“It was incredible; it was eye-opening. The standard of performance is different, the preparation is different. With The Lion King, there’s acting, there’s singing and dancing and you also have the animal elements to it. So you’re half a lion, half a human,” he says.
“You need to learn how to move like a lion. It was interesting to do those workshops. We did Javanese movements. There’s certain cultural depth that they do that’s sort of similar to how humans would move animal-like.”
After two years of traveling with The Lion King, Nkuna has decided to end his journey as Simba to focus on his music and other business adventures.
But the show must go on. In March 2013, The Lion King was launched in Brazil and for the first time in Portuguese. It has been performed in six other languages. It has also been seen on every continent besides Antarctica.
The creators of The Lion King are probably sitting somewhere saying to themselves, ‘Hakuna Matata’, as the Lion King could enthral audiences for decades to come.
<h4>The Soul Of Simba</h4>
The opening scene of The Lion King is unforgettable. As the yellow African sun rises over the horizon, a Zulu voice cries ‘Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba’. It means ‘Here comes a lion, Father’.
That voice belongs to South African award winning musician Lebohang Morake, but to the world of arts and entertainment he’s known as Lebo M.
Morake grew up in Soweto, Johannesburg. From a young age, he started singing in a local pop band. In his first interaction with the music business he saw corruption. At the age of 12, he released his first single Celebration which received a lot of local success. However, Morake only received $20.
After finding success in Lesotho, Morake received a scholarship to study music in the United States (US). It was there that he met world-renowned composer Hans Zimmer. The two worked together on the score for the film The Power of One.
Years later, Hans Zimmer was hired to score the most successful animated movie in history, The Lion King. Zimmer wanted to make the music authentically African and there was only one person he had in mind for the job.
Zimmer traveled to South Africa to find Morake. The two returned to the US where they created a soundtrack to the film that won them numerous awards as well as a Grammy for best instrumental arrangement with accompanying vocal for The Circle Of Life.
Riding on the success of the film, Morake was then commissioned to write the music for The Lion King musical which instantly became a Broadway hit. Morake composed new songs for the production which went well with the music from the original movie.
It has become one of Broadway’s longest-running shows with productions in several countries around the world.
Morake’s original compositions and voice can be heard in a number of films including Chicken Little, Mighty Joe Young, Congo and Tears of the Sun. When you listen to Morake sing, you may not understand the lyrics but you will understand why everyone calls him the voice of The Lion King.

A Roaring Success

The children from Mosupatsela Secondary School in Johannesburg appeared perplexed but transfixed on this warm summer afternoon. Before them, a tragic slice of African history from 98 years ago played out; the night their spiritual great-grandfathers perished in the freezing English Channel 6,000 miles away. These children have more democratic rights and live in a different world to the more than 600 men who died in the SS Mendi tragedy – this contrast was part of the experience.
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The play, Ukutshona ko Mendi (The Sinking Of SS Mendi), was fittingly paid for by the Goethe-Institut, the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and the British Council, three institutes from Germany and Britain, the two states whose war drew the men of the Mendi. It is touring across South Africa. Writer, Lara Foot, tells the haunting and evocative story of the sinking of the troopship SS Mendi during the First World War.
Before dawn on the foggy morning of February 21, 1917, in the freezing English Channel, a 4,230–ton troopship, SS Mendi, was ferrying 823 men of the Fifth Battalion South African Native Labour Contingent to France. Many of the men had never seen an ocean before. Lurking in the gloom was SS Darro, an 11,484-ton ship that was speeding without signalling any warning.
With a terrifying crash, Darro, a meat ship on its way to Argentina, slammed into Mendi’s starboard, almost cutting the troopship in half.
The impact killed a large number of soldiers and terrified the rest. Legend has it that the men removed their boots and stamped a death dance on the slanting deck of Mendi, united as comrades in arms. Among them was their leader, Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha. The ship took 25 minutes to sink and killed 616 men.
The brave survivors told how Dyobha rallied his men in the face of death.
“Be quiet and calm my countrymen, for what is taking place is exactly what you came to do. You are going to die, but that is what you came here for. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers. Zulus, Swazis, Pondos, Basothos, and all others, let us die like warriors. We are the sons of Africa.”
The doomed journey of the unarmed African soldiers began in Cape Town on January 16. The British asked South Africa, its colony, for troops to serve as labor battalions during the First World War. They were to dig trenches, repair roads and cut timber.
It is considered one of the greatest tragedies in South Africa’s military history. The sinking of the Mendi almost took as many lives as the Battle of Delville Wood – one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war.
In the aftermath, an inquest heard that SS Darro captain, Henry Stamp, sailed away an hour later – leaving behind men screaming for their lives in the icy water. Stamp was later found guilty and suspended for a year.
Back at the play at Mosupatsela Secondary School, Xhosa songs such as Isilo asilali emanzini (Creature doesn’t rest in water) and Yiza nabo (Bring them back) touched the heart.
Warona Seane, an award winning actor and Soweto Theatre artistic director, played the role of Noria, the grieving widow of Daniel Mafika, a Xhosa headman who drowned.
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“The British sent a black dress with a letter telling me to mourn the death of my husband. I wish they would send me another one telling me to stop. I don’t know how to stop,” says Seane on stage.
“The black nation needs healing; the souls of the deceased are restless in the far seas.”
Mandla Mbothwe, the Director and Creative Manager at Artscape says, “It is an attempt to tell the story we all never witnessed but we also try to move puzzle pieces on what could have transpired. The memory, dream and subconscious are put together to make sense of why the black men went to the war. With all their respect for the water and the sea, why did they go to the war? It was beyond them to just work for their families; they needed their land back so badly.”
The play also emphasizes the poverty and trauma for widows and children. The quest to reconnect the spirits of the deceased with their ancestral land blends with the story of the captain of the ship that rammed the men of the Mendi to their death.
It could be argued that the men of Mendi were fighting for land. They hoped their loyalty would be rewarded by land restitution.
Over a year before the war broke out, on 28 July 1914, the South African government passed the Native Land Act of 1913, to take land from black people and regulate
its acquisition.
“Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth,” wrote Sol Plaatje, the journalist and African National Congress (ANC) founder secretary.
The leadership of the ANC resolved on not to fight the act until after the war, and mobilized men to fight. Sadly, the men of the Mendi and thousands others paid with their lives.

Mosupatsela Secondary School, African history, SS Mendi tragedy, Theatre, Play, Stage, Acting, February 2015

On a snowy April day, Nelson Mandela was sipping tea in London, surrounded by his political entourage. This was minutes before he was to climb onto the stage for a concert to be broadcast to 600 million people in 67 countries: the biggest audience for a music concert. Just 54 days before, he had been a prisoner.
Mandela was still a marked man. British security forces feared a sniper would shoot him while he was on stage. Everywhere he went, police locked and unlocked behind him to make sure a gunman could not sneak a shot.
As Mandela climbed the narrow staircase to the stage, with the crowds chanting his name, alongside promoter Tony Hollingsworth, he asked to turn back to use the toilet. When Mandela and Hollingsworth had washed their hands, they found out, to their horror, that the police had, unwittingly, locked them in.
“They’ve taken all the entourage and Trevor [Huddleston] onto stage highly secured, and left me and Mandela, I thought ‘oh shit’. It’s a locked room and my bloody headset wasn’t on. So I couldn’t talk to anyone,” says Hollingsworth.
There was no time to waste. Hollingsworth went to bang on the glass.
“I could see into another room, which was where they were counting all the money. I patted in the door until somebody recognized me. They came and unlocked the door. We walked through the money room to a public area, down a public staircase in the stadium, into the backstage area, onto stage. And the security forces didn’t even know we had gone. They were all watching the audience,” he says.
Minutes later, Mandela strolled on stage as if nothing had happened.
“Thank you that you chose to care,” Mandela told the world.
“When Mandela came on stage, the audience erupted. What then ensued was this almost eight minute game, of this crowd cheering at him as he moved around waving his arms. The problem was that because he was unused to the power of the microphone. In his mind, he had to wait for people to be quiet before he spoke,” says Hollingsworth.
Mandela’s speech lasted 45 minutes, ridiculously long according to Hollingsworth. He paid an American consultant—to trail Mandela after his release—to teach him how to speak on television. The consultant didn’t get anywhere and gave up.
Hollingsworth sits across the table, in a Johannesburg hotel, lost in the memory of that day. The man sports a shock of grey hair. It was 25 years ago, to the day, that as a 30-year-old he produced the first of two concerts, both of which would go down in history.
Hollingsworth came from a musical family. He began his career building ejector-seats for jet airplanes, but quit after three months to study theories of ideology at the Open University. His cousin was the orgainzer of the world famous Glastonbury Festival and during a visit one summer Hollingsworth cut his teeth promoting a traveling Moroccan band.
He whet his appetite by staging concerts for the Greater London Council called ‘Jobs for Change’. His speciality became selling ‘issues’ on stage and when musician Jerry Dammers, the writer of the song Free Nelson Mandela, put forward the idea of an anti-apartheid concert, he was in.
Hollingsworth approached Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and Mike Terry, both anti-apartheid activists. It took some convincing.
“Fifty percent of the newspapers at that time reported Mandela as a black terrorist leader, that’s the label he had been given,” he says.
Hollingsworth went to conservative broadcasters with an idea of a concert for Mandela’s 70th birthday.
This was a time when Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of Britain, was calling the African National Congress (ANC) terrorists. The atmosphere was so charged that many of the performing artists asked for a clause in the contract to ensure that the money raised would not be used to buy guns. At that time, the ANC was embroiled in an armed struggle.
“The broadcasters asked, ‘Is it for the ANC?’ and I would say, ‘No.’ ‘The anti-apartheid movement?’ ‘No. I am doing it for Nelson Mandela’s birthday.’ Half of those people winked back. I had given them the legal solution… the other half went along in innocence.”
The media lapped it up. Especially once Dire Straits, the largest selling act in the world in 1988, signed up. In just four months the word terrorist disappeared from the news, says Hollingsworth, once broadcasters accepted that they were to air an 11-hour show about Mandela.
Then, came the crossfire.
“The ANC were furious that I was putting this event on without calling for sanctions or resistance. There was an intense, difficult time running up to it. Because they weren’t to know,” he says.
It all led up to June 1988 and a packed Wembley Stadium, where Mark Knopfler took the stage with his band Dire Straits. South Africa had banned Knopfler in 1979, after he channeled his profits from South African sales to Amnesty International.
“He was a very shy man… Mark had played a few numbers, and said to the audience, ‘Our records were banned in 1979. I am very pleased to say, this is for the man in question, this is the best birthday party we have ever been to, thanks for having us. This is the guy who launched it all for us,” says Hollingsworth.
Among the musicians on the night, was a lone, unknown, American with a guitar—Tracy Chapman.
“The song that she sang for the event, that worked completely. She sang Talkin’ Bout A Revolution. That’s what the event was like. All of the run up to it, to this trojan horse policy, to a man, that was the whisper,” says Hollingsworth.
Chapman played two sets on the night, the second by sheer luck.
The production manager ran up to Hollingsworth and shouted in his ear: “Stevie Wonder cannot go on. The equipment is gone.”
Hollingsworth didn’t even know what he was talking about. Wonder walked off the stage into the parking lot in tears because his music harddrive was lost. Hollingsworth was left with 23 minutes to fill.
“The only person who could go on stage, with no equipment was Tracy Chapman. I grabbed her manager Elliot Roberts, who discovered artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, and shouted in his ear, ‘Tracy must go back on.’ He was delighted.”
Roberts grabbed Chapman with one hand and her guitar in the other and walked her on stage without telling her what was going on. Chapman sold two million albums in the next two weeks.
“Tracy blew my mind. About 90% of people will remember her. When she came on and sang, it was like wow. She really captured the feeling in her songs. She was unforgettable,” recalls Nicholas Wolpe, who was 20 at the time.
Wolpe, the son of anti-apartheid activist Harold Wolpe, was given a ticket by the ANC.
Stevie Wonder did come back to play, without his harddrive, to a roaring crowd. He sang I Just Called To Say I Love You.
“I recall the people sitting next to me were not necessarily there for Nelson, but for the music. The principal was to highlight Nelson’s birthday, rather than imprisonment. But it achieved that. As more and more people came out on the stage to talk about Nelson, there was this gradual shift. I think people were swept up with the euphoria. It became an incredibly emotive day,” says Wolpe
Mandela was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994. Hollingsworth, the man with whom he was locked in a toilet, produced more concerts around the world, including the 850th anniversary of Moscow’s Red Square, in 1997.
You can argue that these were merely two among the millions of lives changed by June 11, 1988.

Talkin’ Bout A Revolution…  It Sounds Like A Whisper

The South African Ballet was founded in 2001 by former members of the defunct State Theater Ballet, one of these dancers was Dirk Badenhorst. The company opened with a season of Giselle, which was performed at the State Theatre, in Pretoria. After some success, it was invited to perform in Russia, the first South African company to do so.
Badenhorst left the SABT because he wanted to explore and felt stifled.
“We started [the] South African Ballet Theater as an entrepreneurship… These young dancers that we train in South Africa need to be brought up with the idea that ‘I can create my own company. I can create my own work. I can create my own opportunities,” he says.
<div id="attachment_1168" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1168" class="size-medium wp-image-1168" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_0160-300x154.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="154" />Giselle &#8211; First Act</div>
In 2008, he cofounded Mzansi Productions—a classically based contemporary dance company—with Esther Nasser. That same year, he began the International Ballet Competition Gala, taking place every second year and bringing together dancers from across the world.
The SABT and Mzansi Production merged this year to form The South African Mzansi Ballet, (SAMB), of which Badenhorst is CEO. The new company will still perform the classics but will expand its offering to create a wider appeal. It’s a question of evolving to be more contemporary and relevant to an African audience.
Although Badenhorst enjoyed a dance career both in South Africa and abroad, he confesses to never being a fantastic ballet dancer, but has a passion for the art.
To most, ballet is an escape to worlds and times imagined. Not just for the audience but for the dancers themselves. Giselle is a great example. The first act is fun, flirtatious, colorful and light but then the second act transports you to a somber, whimsical, yet still romantic place as Myrtha—the Queen of the Wilis—dances onto the stage. You become transfixed not only by the story but by the amazing ways the dancers’ bodies move, their ability to be strong and graceful at the same time. It’s a beauty like no other.
A ballet patron and former first lady of South Africa, Zanele Mbeki, says it makes her feel as if her soul leaves her body and joins the dancers on stage.
“Ballet is inspirational and aspirational,” says Badenhorst.
The SAMB brought in Michaela DePrince to make her professional debut in its production of Le Corsaire, at the Jo’burg Theater in July. DePrince, from Sierra Leone, was adopted from a refugee camp after her orphanage was bombed. Her father was killed by rebels and her mother died of starvation. Despite this, she held onto the dream of being a ballerina, after seeing one on the cover of a magazine outside the orphanage; she carried the picture to her new home in the States. Once labeled a “devil child” by the care givers at the orphanage, DePrince is now a wonder child.
<div id="attachment_1167" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1167" class="size-medium wp-image-1167" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_3554-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />SABT/Air Products Development School, Alexander</div>
One of the reasons a merger between the SABT and Mzansi Productions made sense, was because it meant pooling the limited funds. The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund has been a great supporter of ballet in South Africa. The fund gives to non-profit organizations and is legally required to spend 95% of its money on three sectors—including arts, culture and national heritage.
There seems to be competition between classical and contemporary dance and Badenhorst thinks there shouldn’t be, since the audiences are so different. The competition lies in the fact that both disciplines go after the same pot of money.
“When you are fighting for survival, then people find it hard to share,” he says.
Badenhorst feels that the problem of funding hampers the growth of the industry. The South African ballet companies, according to him, are not on par with the rest of the world on a national level. Despite this he thinks that South African dancers have more passion and hunger.
“When a dancer in South Africa gets to a certain level, in South Africa, we lose them to overseas companies because we can’t pay them what they can. We don’t have the stability in South Africa that they have.”
Badenhorst agrees that there is less support from the South African government compared to international companies and their governments. It seems that the new South African government still hasn’t moved away from the notion that this is an art for whites which was generously supported by the apartheid government. In 1994, South Africa’s central government issued a notice ceasing all funding to performing companies. At the time of going to press the South African government had not responded to questions from FORBES AFRICA.
It was once written that South Africans criticized ballet for being “a cost-intensive, Eurocentric art form that has no place in an African country”.
Badenhorst notes that while the elitism of the art in the past was racial, it’s now about talent. He compares it to an Olympic sport.
Despite this racial criticism, companies and schools have created programs targeting disadvantaged children in poor areas. The SAMB has about 500 young ballet dancers enrolled in its program. The Cape Town City Ballet’s (CTCB) Outreach, Audience &amp; Development Training program has reached 310,000 people in the last 15 years.
“When you go to the township and work with the young kids and you see what it does on their ability of experiencing themselves, on understanding their bodies… on their imagination development, then I also understand why I’m doing what I’m doing,” Badenhorst reflects.
Ballet in South African townships can be traced back to the work done by the late David Poole in the 1980s, in Cape Town. Poole was a former ballet master and artistic director of the CTCB, after an international dancing career. Former principal dancer, Philip Boyd carried on this legacy with ballet classes in Gugulethu, Cape Town—back in 1991. Boyd’s Dance for All has been around for more than 20 years and now offers training in diverse dance styles in 2 more townships.
A British charity began giving ballet lessons to children in the slums of Nairobi, to keep them off the streets.
In Africa, children are most likely to be pushed into careers that are thought to pay more or carry more prestige—like being a doctor, lawyer or footballer—rather than ballet.
Ballet requires a lot of commitment and focus in order to excel. Andile Ndlovu is a South African ballet dancer who’s been dancing since the age of 10 and is in his third season with The Washington Ballet. It’s hours of work from an early age and Badenhorst believes that aspiring professional dancers need to be ready to enter a company at the age of 16.
It’s not cheap either. The running cost of a performing company, a year, is around $1.4 million. This money can be gathered through ticket sales, private business and the government—if its lucky.
The SAMB has 60 permanent staff members, including dancers, and employs almost as many temporary staff in season. This art form from the old age European aristocrats may have made its way to the “African bush” but it fails to enjoy the same popularity—leading to companies facing financial strain.
Only a few years ago, the SABT sent out an appeal for funding. Badenhorst, who was not with the company at the time, says that the companies need to be more frugal, cut down on staff and change their models to fit the environment. By 2010, the company had raised $793,000, a sure sign that ballet in Africa is not dead.
For years, Badenhorst has formed a mutually beneficial relationship with the National Ballet of Cuba. The international company is performing abstracts from its best work in South Africa and has included South African dancers, like Kitty Phetla, in the show.
Phetla became the first black ballerina to perform in Russia in her role as The Dying Swan.
Badenhorst’s parting words: “We have to go back and we have to not see it [ballet] as an expense, but as an investment”.

Pirouettes Under The African Sky

After 12 years on stage, fans worldwide still marvel at the performances of Africa Umoja, a colorful musical that took two old pals, Thembi Nyandeni and Todd Twala, 10 years to craft. These two performers came from the dusty streets of Soweto. Together, they created a world-class theater piece that showcases the African cultural renaissance through rhythm and dance and has visited more than 30 countries.
Young people idling in the streets motivated Nyandeni and her friend to create this production.
“Showbiz helped me to find myself. Now I want to protect others who are vulnerable,” says Nyandeni. Her father supported her throughout her dancing career by taking her to discos and parties. “My father would drop me and wait for me outside and I would dance through the night. At four in the morning, he would take me home with all my friends.”
Past members of the troupe have performed in big shows on Broadway in New York, like The Lion King. On average, dancers spend about five years with the troupe. Collen Mavundhla, aka “Mosquito”, is one of the oldest cast members. She’s been there since the group’s inception. “I’ve seen a lot of cast members being developed into professionals,” says Mavundhla.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-919" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tribal_femaleDancer-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />
Umoja’s recent performance in Lagos attracted captains of industry, senior public sector officials and members of the diplomatic community. First Bank, Nigeria’s oldest bank and the show’s sponsor, was so impressed by the performance that it proposed to partner with the dance troupe. According to Folake Ani-Mumuney, head of marketing at First Bank: “The choice of Umoja is really based on the theme behind Umoja, which is the spirit of togetherness. This is something that transcends South Africa. It is something that finds a place across the globe and Nigeria.” Ani-Mumuney believes the proposed partnership will go a long way to bridging the gap between Nigerian and South African businesses and correct some of the negative perceptions that exist about the countries.
Relations between South Africa and Nigeria are strained after South Africa deported 125 Nigerians from O.R. Tambo airport. “When the political relationship hits a bad patch, South African companies bear the brunt of it as they are the face of the bilateral relationship in Nigeria. Business people suffered most from Nigeria’s retaliation on the visa issue and they formed the bulk of those turned back at the airport recently. The foreign minister had already threatened to ‘clamp down’ on SA’s companies if SA did not apologize for its immigration officials’ actions,” wrote Dianna Games of the South Africa Nigeria Chamber of Commerce.
For Africa Umoja, partnership with a Nigerian bank is an opportunity for them to be part of the solution. “Umoja is not just a South African story, it is for everybody African. So I would like to put together 12 South African and Nigerian singers and dancers to create a show that will be a symbol of unity between us. My vision is to bridge the divisions between Nigeria and South Africa,” says Nyandeni. She concedes that the road ahead is not going to be easy. In addressing tensions, cultural diplomacy will be an invaluable tool. There are prevailing negative stereotypes, she says, that need to be dispelled. Yet there are few neutral channels to nurture understanding.
Of course, to discourage stereotyping will require more than one show. But, says Ani-Mumuney,
“I always say one thing about the creative industry; it is only limited by the limits of our imagination, which
is limitless.”

Tag: Stage

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA