Rural Gwanda arts group in maiden SA tour

WHILE most arts groups and artistes relocate to big cities and towns following where the market is, an arts group based in deep rural Gwanda — Makua has managed despite the remoteness of their performing platforms and seemingly little exposure to attract an invitation to perform in Johannesburg.

Makua is an abbreviation for Manama Kom Unite in Arts and is led by a dub poet Ntuthuko Mabulala Nyathi who said they will be leaving for South Africa tomorrow.

The group was invited to perform at a fundraising campaign by a South African organisation Abalobi Bakithi whose major objective is to promote and preserve formerly sidelined languages, some of which are facing extinction by encouraging writers and performers to do something to give a lease of life and preserve the little remaining vestiges of some of the languages.

Zimbabwe's Southern Region shares a lot of lingual similarities with South Africa and Nyathi whose poetry is multilingual said they were elated that they have started being recognised outside the country's borders adding that apart from performing at the Abalobi Bakithi Fundraising Campaign they were also looking forward to performing their plays in Johannesburg.

"We are happy that we have started getting some recognition outside the country's borders. Being in the rural areas, little in terms of marketing ourselves can be achieved but this invitation shows we are doing a good job and some people are following.

"We are often stereotyped where people believe nothing good can come out of rural artistes and the charges are usually obscenely low when negotiating. The unwritten rule seems to be that we are not supposed to compete with our urban counterparts and yet sometimes we perform better," he said.

Nyathi added that they hooked up with Butholezwe Mpofu, who used to organise maskandi and scathamiya shows, who felt they have something to offer to the mixed audience of South Africa through their play Double Trouble.

He said they proposed to rope in renowned poet Lerato "Nqindi" Ndlovu who they will travel and perform with at the three shows in Olievenhoutbosch popularly known as Stop 12, in Diepsloot and the final one at Hillbrow Theatre.

He said the Hillbrow Theatre show will be on this Friday adding that the theme of their tour was "Lest we forget. Returning to our roots" where they have roped in Nqindi and Bolamba Traditional Dance group so that they give Zimbabweans and South Africans the original unadulterated arts they grew up enjoying.

"The major component that constitutes entertainment industry of Zimbabweans based in South Africa is maskandi music. Slowly but surely they are losing the touch with the entertainment they grew up consuming, stage plays, poetry and music concerts "amakhonsathi."

"So as Makua we believe it is our duty to remind them their roots through polished acts of poetry, drama and traditional dances hence the reason to incorporate other players in the industry who we believe are still relevant like Nqindi and guys from Bolamba who do Birwa dances," added Nyathi.

He was however, quick to point out that the fact that they were based in the rural areas posed a challenge in organising the tour.

"As you know we are based in the rural areas whereby arts is still suffering stereotype . Our group has one female actress who can't dance and the other lady from Bolamba can dance but can't act, so we need one female to complement them. So our play needed a young vibrant actress for the lead role.

"We therefore called several groups and individuals and we received so many responses especially from Bulawayo but unfortunately most were demanding too much in terms of allowances so we ended up altering the script but we have one joining us for dances only. We got her from Bulawayo," said Nyathi.

He added that about nine guys are going including the composer and choreographer of the Babirwa dances.