Esther Boldt interviews Hlengiwe Lushaba
How did you become a dancer?
Either it catches you or not, you are born with it or not, and then of course you can learn it. With my "flat left feet" I already danced as a kid at the age of four, one had no choice but to because the music was too good to ignore. I studied at the Durban Institute of Technology my initial understanding of the arts was very commercial, all I knew was television and I just wanted to become a star. Luckily, our teacher Jay Pather introduced us to interesting ways of engaging with performance, of thinking about art, There was a curiosity to learn how to tell a story differently, how to explore images and how to deal with the self.
You are a dancer, singer,
choreographer and an actress. How do these things or languages come together?
I am an artist. I use whichever language I need to tell the story I want to tell in the space needed.
The main question I’ve been obsessed with when creating is “how to give
the African human his dignity back?” and I experiment with finding this dignity
for myself first. In my daily existance it is really hard to do,
(so let’s try it in the arts??) :
Art becomes my solace.
How could that happen?
I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like it exposes my vulnerability, like putting
my insides out. And the inside is not always pretty, it could be defined as
ugly, many say it is not dignified, However it is beautiful. Thus Hlengiwe is
constantly conflicting in trying to find this so called “dignity”. I search for
it every day, because it hurts. Every day you wake up with a conscious division,
and it is the story of the inferior man. It is the constant search for
paradise.
What did you mean by being
displaced?
For example: There is this home I have occupied since as far as I can
remember, love dearly and whose rules I know and follow. But then someone comes
and takes this home saying: “I live here now you will need to be my tenant”. I then
end up being a stranger in my own home, in my own body, in my own spirit.
I know that there is something very wrong with this picture; we have to
find it, rip it out, for the sake of our humanity.
How did you come to join DDA?
How I came to DDA is really funny, because I am an artist from South
Africa and I am here through the recommendation of Faustin Linyekula a
Congolese artist, who is the artistic director at Studios Kabako in Kisangani
DRC.
Studios Kabako helped produce this work. My collaborator Sdu Majola and
I felt that this work needed a Congolese voice so we approached Studios Kabako
who then gave us a month long residency in Kisangani to explore the work with
two other Congolese artists Pepe Lecoq and Franck Moka. There is a wall, there is a border on stage,
we sometimes catch ourselves colonizing each other artistically. We are our
parent’s children, they are leading the carriage, and only after 20 years of
democracy, we find ourselves thinking to be superior to our neighbors with 50
years of independence. How we respond to this urge is interesting? Do we allow
ourselves to be victims? All these questions come to play.
In your piece “Paradise Road/
Highway to Heaven” you are dealing with the Congo Conference. Why?
We were playing with the idea: What would happen if we all are present
in the Congo Conference? Who are the black bodies that were never invited ? We try
to invite all of these spirits to help us, our Grandparents, whose hands were
cut off because they couldn’t make enough rubber, Bismarck
and?..... His political friends
On stage, are black bodies on a white space and white corridors on a
black space, white faces on black bodies and black faces on black bodies. The presence of the nigger is felt he tries to
contain himself but his Spirit is felt. The Congo Conference happened, it
continues to happen unless we acknowledge its flaws it will always define us.
How did you creat the different
characters on stage?
Miss Africa is the main character. She is the base of every character
explored on that space. Four performers hide behind masks as presenting this
story as themselves could be too hurting and maybe dangerous. We are trying to
be good niggers. We are really trying to be good niggers, dancing, popping, and
playing with this clichés that come out. All that’s missing is a sunset, a
woman with something on her head, the sounds of birds… I sometimes wish I could
live in this place, it sounds so pretty. I long to be there someday.
But as you say in your
performance: “Paradies, c’est fini.” Are you blaming your grandparents for having
been a good host?
I myself have to be a good host in this country in order to make money,
to have basic needs, to have people invest in me, to host the World cup 2010. But
if we all pretend that things are okay, the guilt will haunt us, the shame will
haunt us. We need to talk about this thing, we haven’t effectively started and
we are still sugar coating some really bitter truths. My Grandparents did what
they could with what they had, I need to do the same. I have consciousness and
courage on my side it should count for something.
Obviously, there are references
in the work someone in Germany does not understand. Is this a problem?
The work is about how we feel as performers we honor the story and we
share it, it does not have to make German sense. We sometimes don’t have to use
our intellect to understand as our Spirit transcends that which we have been
taught at school. As human beings we
also don’t have to know everything, we don’t have to understand everything, and
that’s okay. Open up and let the work touch you and your life however it needs
to. There is a work titled “Baron Samedi” that I have been a part of for the
last 3 years after seeing it, some lady said: “I don’t believe in God, but
after this work I now believe in people” If there is one thing touching you, it
is plenty.
