The Pigmy has grown...

What happens when I gain weight along with stature
What happens when I have cleared up the pastures
What happens when I'm no longer petite
What happens when attempts at carrying me end in defeat
What happens when I'm no longer an accessory
What happens when you can't control me
What happens when I fill the bed and mess with your head.

What happens when suddenly I hold you down
What happens when you have to dance for me
What happens when I set myself free
What happens when I can now be seen
What happens when you cannot decipher most of me
What happens when I sit on the throne
What happens when you have no choice but to love my fire that warms you to the bone

Maybe you enslave me to  history
Try to separate me from my mystery
Make me a coon
Place me in a cage and change my destiny to that of a buffoon
Create pseudo-science to annihilate my being
Try to keep me blind and stop me from seeing

Hahahahahaha
The pigmy has grown legs that leave eternal prints in the dust
Her breasts are so large feeding is a must
Crowed with the largest of hats for her pronounced head
Massive arms that act as a bed
Ooooh she is so much LIFE Humanity is revived by her

This is what happens when MA truly awakes in ME.

Hlengiwe & Lufefe

Every singer must have her own Mic

Melody guides announce themselves to me as they lead me from across Berea road all the way to the city.
There I find the Buddha with 8 fingers performing miracles on the piano.      

He looks at me ever so gently inquires if I should accompany him in lifting uMoya, without much hesitation I do.
Now it has come to my awareness of late that anything annointed and true, moves swiftly without further deliberation.      
He plays I sing, together we lift uMoya and summon spirits dead and alive .

We transcend and transfigure.
A Madonna appears, this time her child is the Buddha with 8 fingers.

Prophecies are spoken in simple riddles , he whispers ever so clearly to his Madonna "Every singer must have her own mic "

The Buddha bows
The Madonna flees continuing to raise uMoya
 
I on the other hand am forever changed.

Ode to the Buddha Bheki Mseleku

ISIKHUMBUZO

in memory...

And as it was so shall it be. We leave to return and before our cycle ends we would have realised atleast thrice that something bigger blows us into motion.

At the age of 9 a crucial time for any girl child , I would say the winds of change started blowing in my life, shifting the cause of my destiny.

A young seemingly well put together man propelled by an energy bigger than he, came to stay at our home for study purposes or rather inform a study on me that would only be realised 35-9 years later.

The first ever university student with an excellent track record would reside at our home. What an honour, a delight and a great opportunity in the 90's.
My parents ceased this opportunity of a lifetime and begged that he transfer some of his mathematical knowledge onto me, not realising that he would in turn transfer his divine calling also.

These Mathematical Lessons would soon calculate the fate of my life. I frequently became his study as he unwillingly became mine.
I calculated his every move and I knew the exact time he would pay me a visit after every "successful" maths homework session . Instead of algebra, subtraction and multiplication he offered me a chance to figure him out hence the world. He reconciled me with a side of myself I never knew I had.
I knew when he would come, how he would come, when he would leave, how he would leave. He made me aware of cycles, how they are maintained and what happens when they are broken.    
He became my god not knowing that in me he was creating a goddess, who could end up calculating much better than he.

I don't believe he knows what he created as I believe that his calling ended when the bell rang and left him exposed.

The class though bringing much pain gave me lessons I would later use with much passion .
In my art the lesson showed up as I teased and played with the truth in order to invoke and evoke.
In my relationships I could calculate needs, manipulate and multiply them accordingly.
In daily life I understood when to show up, when not to, how and why, I figured out sincerity from insincerity.

Well thanks to those late afternoon mathematics classes that led to such lessons.
Lessons I would carry with me always.

With all of that being said, I choose to call this piece ISIKHUMBUZO
I choose to immortalise the man who taught me early on the mathematics of life

His class may have ended but the lessons live on.

Ngiyabonga Skhumbuzo
Thank you for this moment
This cycle
This life
Equals to this equation....

Ngicing'uBeauty

Sawubona ngicinga uBeauty
Ingabe ula?

Tracking back to when I last saw her
The tracking moves further and further away from this time and space
Ngizithola ngilangazelela omunye umhlaba
Enye indawo
Esinye iskhathi

These days she seems to faintly appear but only in dreams
Real dreams , fake dreams, sold dreams, bought dreams, exchanged dreams, sacrificed dreams....
All these dreams coming through a form of a man
a charming man
a fickle man
Might be dangerous man...

These days she haunts me though
Ucela imisebenzi  
Ucela ukukhunjulwa
Ucela ukunakekekelwa
Ufisa ukuziveza
Ngaphandle kosizo lwalamadoda

Ufuna ukuqhakaza      

Ngiyamuzwa
Ngiyalizwa iphimbo lakhe lihlabelela imilonji emtoti Imilonji yothando
Imilonji yokuphila
Imilonji evusa imizwa

She is rising, Oh she is rising
Watch Out
Beauty is rising
From 9 feet underground she is rising
Now on 1st foot.
Oh My feet can feel a tingling
Her rumbling vibrats via  my heart space through to my tongue space

Shaking off her shame she slowly resurrects in me.  
I open myself
Yes!!! Ngena Beauty
Oh! she places herself in me like a missing puzzle.

She is beautiful  Soooo beautiful
Muhle                                  
I am beautiful
We are beautiful

Welcome Beauty
Wamkelekile
You've been resting for far too long
Would you like some tea?  
"Yes dear" she replies "namaqebelengwane only you can make!"  

Our eyes fix, her story is my story
We sing the night away
Imizuzu iba ngamahora
Amahora aba yizinsuku Izinsuku ziba iminyaka
Iminyaka iba inguna phakade

Ngimtholile ufikile and she is here to stay!

A random shadow appears it looks like a man
Oh NO, it's that "might be dangerous man"
I ask "Askies bhuti uthini?"
He mumbles something I can't quite hear
I reply "No I won't be needing you Today Tomorrow or Ever I have company...."

Beauty giggles in me😜

I am light.

I wonder I search deep Go deep into my memorial archives as I clumsily do a plié at the great  Adele Blanks Master Class organised by the Department of Arts and Culture as part of an incubator programme they have sponsored. Here I am, an incubated incubatee feeling hot and bothered like the incubated chickens my father sold, with one question on my mind ,how did these two left flat feet and rythmless shoulders scam their way into the dance world?  I don't understand how for years my name has been associated with the dance world, a world at most times I absolutely detest.  I fail to understand what I'm doing here? I keep consoling myself by pliéing deeper and messing up my worn and torn right knee.
"How did I get here?" keeps throbbing in my head.....
Perhaps I once upon a time charmed a critic or in my previous life  mocked a pas de deux and  I must now pay for all my sins recent and ancient.
Should I just interrupt this class and yell "wait a minute department of arts and culture, I fucken hate contemporary dance especially the trying to fly part" oh but wait I will yet again be diverting attention back to myself and shitting on "holy cows" my what at this moment I think is my claim to fame "complaining and shitting on "holy cows" or worse run the risk of ever being funded let alone employed.
Ek hou my bek and endure on with one thing at my defence my poor pride.
Lest it be bruised I will have to retaliate with a new creation dissing all things contemporary.

In my beyond tired state I breathe in down 12345678 up 12345678 and pop, I am redeemed sanctified re-membered and re-baptised in the holy name of dance. Truly breathing is magic. A trick I learnt from dance

I realise that dance whether I've pulled it off or not in my own personal capacity, it has given a mouthpiece to express and explore that which I could never explain.
It's given me a language only known by my sacred spaces. It's allowed me to be so angry, so happy,so mad, so in love to the point of no return. I thank the Dance Gods, kiss my worn and torn knees, tuck in, play India Aire's "I am light" shake my feathers and drive my sticky ass to yet another DANCE rehearsal...




"I Am Light"
I am light, I am light [x4]

I am not the things my family did
I am not the voices in my head
I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside

I am light, I am light [x4]

I'm not the mistakes that I have made 
or any of the things that caused me pain
I am not the pieces of the dream I left behind

I am light, I am light [x4]

I am not the color of my eyes
I am not the skin on the outside
I am not my age, I am not my race, 
my soul inside is all light
All light, all light [x2]

I am light, I am light [x2]

I am divinity definedI am the God on the inside
I am a star, a piece of it all
I am light

Isikhathi ...

Sekuyisikhathi nokho yagcinana
Unyaka uphelile
Izifiso zishitshile
Amaphupho afezekile
Kwaze kwafika amasha...

Thokozani...

Whilst chasing time
For the first time
Time stood and confronted me straight in the eye
She said "hey you
what you doing over there following me trying to play catch up with me."
She slammed banged me in the face
Mind you she isn't very polite
Presenting herself as black as night with smoke signals and fumes chocking my lungs
She repeated "hey you get off my back you too close"

Bang bang bang she kicked me.
I crawled up to her feet begging for a chance to take me back .
But she moves hey, faster than fast
She moves like iqhikiza that she is
Thick legs with heavy izigi
Shaking her ass she moves her waist made of springs.
I like her cause
She warns you giving you ample opportunity to slow down and not step on her izithende.

She says "listen ngizokushaya, pick a fight with me uzobona umhlola."

She is such a temper freak this Goddess of time you would swear she was stood up at the alter.

Unolaka akafuni ukulandelwa eduzane Incase her many lovers accuse her of cheating she runs phambili light years ahead
Spinning around like iginsa fixing his need

She dissappears leaving me behind with aches and pains black and blues fears and illusions
Thoughts and wondering what the hell was u thinking chasing timeless time

The journey between Feeling and Knowing......my love diary entry.

....exactly 10 years ago whilst deeply engrossed in Peter Gabriel's DVD of one of his magnificent concerts, I had  a sudden feel to one day direct conceptual concerts in Mzansi.

I never forgot this desire instead I locked it safely in my desire compartment and left it there for the Gods to handle.

On the 29th of June 2014 I bumped into Dr Simo Lushaba a brother, angel and mentor who would  become the bridge between a moment and that very specific 10yr old desire. His proposition changed my perspective forever.

To cut a long process short imagine... 9 Maskandi groups, each group comes with close to 10 dancers and back up singers , 2 weeks to put together a musical theatre show/ launch, where these maskandi artists would have to double up as actors. Direction by a 32yr old black female who has absolutely zero knowledge of Maskandi music culture and struggles immensely with her own very basic knowledge of existence as a Zulu woman in this space called the world....

now with panic systems good to go the only thing that can save us is Flight or Fight, we all choose to Fight and boy did we all Fight.

We fight for our presence to be recognised in things termed "izinto zabelungu noma abantu abafundile" But most of all we fight to understand and to be understood. Now I find that to understand is not always easy because it requires that "AHA!" moment  (made famous by Miss Winfrey) only recognised if one is willing to search. My Christianised mind starts to seek with confidence to find ,  to refuse to conform instead opt for transformation through the renewal of my mind.

Dare I say that I am in trouble already as I am now on an intellectual/ ego trip. I quickly realise that I would have to ask the Intellectual/ Ego taxi to drop me off at home because my heart is what I will need to cope with this mammoth task.

I go home to my heart to search and never have I found such love during a creation. I learn the extent of colonisation that has taken place in my body, I learn that a mind is not a natural organ but rather a concept, I learn that the only reason I went to school was to teach myself  thanks to Kgafela who makes me aware of this opinion. I learn that knowing and feeling are different emotions used for different purposes and for this purpose I learn that I would have to feel more than I know.

On the 19th of September during a disastrous final dress where the drummer fails to pitch I realise gazing from the lighting booth that I was totally out of order to expect these amazing artists to act to feel,  to them what inhibits them is either alive or dead, they can either feel or not feel but one thing they cannot do is pretend to feel. At that moment I realised that I had to quickly revisit my so called professional education that taught my mind to act feeling and  acknowledge that perhaps this was not the truth for this particular moment.

Conclusions drawn, probably indefinite as life is a long  masterclass...

• Art to the African was never a vocation but rather an expression of worship and feeling

• Truth for the African can only be acquired when he decides to consult with his heart.  The drum therefore serves as the heartbeat.

• I think in English because my mind is made in English therefore it often has the tendency to react in an Anglicised manner causing a lot of conflict within myself and those I interact with.

• I am afraid that Africa might be a concept doomed towards extinction however if we continue to breathe to live, the Truth will always be a part of us.

• I am alive because I can feel and also think however thoughts are defined and influenced by the circumstances surrounding a human being.
• Africa is probably a desperate concept, a concept I am most desperate for.

I wonder if I should have published this ....

Welcome to Sof'town Magic...  Come in chill with us, It don't matter who we pretend to be