Episode 34 - James Ngcobo: The Art of Storytelling, Theatre, Film & South Africa's Creative Future

In conversation with James Ngcobo, acclaimed theatre director, writer, producer and one of South Africa's leading creative minds, we touch on the power of storytelling and why stories remain central to understanding ourselves, our history and our future.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 0:01

So uh we can start because I want to I think that's a it's really a bit a a bit a bit of a good way to enter the conversation because the first time uh the first work that I interacted with uh that you had directed was songs of my creation uh which uh you were waking with a you all and it's an interesting and I think in many ways an unfinished project. Maybe a project as I'm thinking that shouldn't take a form that is a destination perhaps what you chaps were doing there we could think uh you are d you were actually inaugurating a discipline. What are we if not migrants if moving uh beings if moving beings vis-a-vis climatic catastrophes, floods, um wildfires, uh people get displaced, people are forced to move, or move, or closeness to a river because of drought, land, yes, or or you know there's a disagreement over a certain value system, a certain proposition, and they um they secede. What are we and in that process we we uh have associated uh songs and and South Africa in particular in particular if there is something that is uh fundamentally in the shape of migration is our musical heritage. Most of our sounds are sounds that have already always traveled.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah. They made they made on the trot. Yeah, you know, um it who uh our biggest fascination with that work, um, as we spent time discussing it, no pray, was just that idea that we are we are all descendants of people who left their cables and went on a journey to somewhere. And and then then a huge forecast that I I needed as I was then writing the script, I needed to find these trigger points in in the writing that were specifically speaking to the the musicality of the work. Because because um some of the the the greatest melodies that we've we've created where they start somewhere else as something, and on one's journey, you collide with people who make that melody reach her. And by the time you choose a destination, what you left with at the beginning of your walk has has totally evolved. And so it was it was it it was like for me, like the pace of the writing of of the story, and then got taken by the idea that then physically what do we do on stage? And if you remember, yes, there was there was always somebody moving in songs of migration, the idea with people carrying bags and just moving. And Uprayunam, we felt very strongly that we don't have to explain all of it. Um because it's that thing also about writing a story that at some point you need to find its hook. And so we found that hook. Then, then, then, then, then once we were sitting comfortably with it, it then blew itself to the world. Because there is no nation in the world that doesn't have a migration song. I remember I was talking to a friend of mine who was Greek, um, who is Greek, and and he came towards the show and he said, God James, I wish you called me. And I said, What do you mean? He says, You know I'm Greek. And I said, says, you know the thing with Cyprus, and we you go back to Alexander, you know, he says, we we we are loaded with songs and laments and old deities and dirgies that were written by by by people facing where they're going or lamenting leaving something that they've that they've always known. But just the one more thing that I wanted to say to you that for me also was so beautiful, that made audiences in this country and all over the world where we we took the show that that that had a lot about the the humility that Brayu had as an artist. And people are saying it was the first time they came to watch him in a performance, and he was singing songs written by other people. Which I see, yeah, you know, because we had like really two songs. We had we we had this demail and we we we Mamandoro. Yes, mamando, yes, mamando the door, yeah, mamandoro.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 5:47

Yes, but but but who hasn't been through that? Yeah, the knock here was uh again go see a mujo 2 a.m. in the morning, humble tenga the last vali. You have a nerve to come knocking to your yeshoe to your and nitres and last two, yeah, and it's at night now. You have to go back home and be careful of this. Maman Dora is a real song, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

No, and and and and I could see his his Gomora Alex by you in those compounds and people finding their way. But one more thing I wanted to say also about songs was then was then I think we were sitting with Prayun, we started talking about the Underground Railroad, about Harriet Tubman. And those songs then found um uh their way into the production because in in his early years in America, he worked a lot with with Harry Belafonte. And and so we we moved from this country to to um uh um transatlantic slave trade, with people West Africa being taken there and what I said area and writing new pieces about the new space that they they're navigating. And then that just opened it to be such a universal piece wherever we played it. I mean, we we we went to Abo Belgium, to Abo um Amsterdam, to London, um, um Hatten Empire, we went to Washington DC at the Kennedy Center, and and and there were songs that were in in in Yiddish that was a work from this country, but that is got big hands and it's hard.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 7:46

Because in many ways, everybody is here in South Africa. Yeah, if you think about the world, yeah, uh everybody more than the the people that make up the United States, the makeup here, everybody somehow.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

And I love the symbolism also about this country when you get to the the concept all of um all from one. If you just take back to signs of origins, yes, and whatever. Everybody's here, everybody's from here. You know, and and and and and so the stuff that fascinates me about about music. I was sitting when um invited by uh um this this this guy, and we're sitting and and really having beautiful diverse um um conversations and the music in the background underscoring the sitting. And at some stage, they that um um I think his cinemas Malulek, the guy from from Mozambique, they played his music, and then a lady who was sitting just across me said, Oh, she says, Oh, this who's this? And they told her who it was, and she said, God, it's it sounds so Brazilian. Then the guy who had invited us says says to him, said, No, no, no, Brazilian music sound because he's from Mozambique. And so the the the the the the thing about and um um the arts that I find so fascinating is is if it's allowed to be, is is it it breaks all sorts of hurdles. That it it it it makes things that um uh um are hurdles on the way just just feel like nothing because that if there is always an a beautiful, well-thought-of um reason that is artistically, that is able to um um confronted with a big issue, that is able to deal with it and and and not just an obsession with the explanation, but but an obsession with with what it is and what could come out of it. And and that is why we we in terms of stories, we relate to stories from from wherever they come from, because we are in a space where we deal with humanity, yeah, with the human condition.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 10:06

Before we depart this uh songs of migration as a project, I mean I started by saying it seems like something that could be a discipline since people are always uh singing in relation to moving. Uh and you could write a whole different set of songs from, for instance, 1994. Uh maybe Ingo Meza Chule Marigana. Uh songs that were sung during the floods of Debian.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 10:45

And the songs that were sung this year in those floods uh in Limboko Mbumalanga. You could you could say a lot of uh, you know, there's always a song of a person running away from some natural disaster on the one hand, but songs of workers who are finding themselves in some mine, in some conversation with miners, yeah, or with mine owners looking for making a living because they've got families, a marker, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 11:19

But uh songs of the fees must fall, kids. Yeah, uh, who, unless they do the doi-doi in the university, they have to go back home without the degree.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 11:30

You know, as a discipline, it it's it's like um a thing that could continue. The songs of migrants, the songs of migrants, the songs that are possibly being composed in Palestine under those conditions of annihilation. Uh the songs that are sang maybe in the Congo now. Yeah, in Sudan. Uh in the Sudan, yeah, uh uh, but maybe as well in the United States at this moment. Yeah, this moment where uh where the Hispanic people are being aggressively targeted, uh and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

So it could be a song, songs sung by people who are hit by amnesia, who are suddenly kicking people out of their countries, people who have following where the wealth of their countries went to. I mean, you see what is happening in places like the UK. Yeah, you know what I mean, and and in the world interesting, yeah, yeah, um, um places like Bristol, yeah, you know, very open um um places, but people there have no memory that the lives they live are um are a result of a looting that happened um and and somewhere else. I remember I was walking around Antwerp uh in Belgium, and just the architecture, the scale of it, and the the clean streets, the most amazing. I mean, um Antwerp is called one of the most famous stations in Europe that is an envy of a lot of countries, and you go and find galleries and you and you see pink or sort of eats history. But at the back of your mind, you're sitting with the rubber plantations, you're sitting with Leopold, you're sitting with limbs being taken from people, and then I witness a young person having an argument with um a Belgian guy who was there, and and and and a lady called Lisa Dora that I'd I was meeting, or whatever. She then explained to me, says, This is a PhD candidate from Congo was moved to to uh um um Belgium to further their studies. And and I said, What was the guy say to him? He she said the guy was saying, go back to you to your kind the audacity of it, because that person is not is not able um um to just pause a bit. Um I think there was a poet called Alfred Tennyson who spoke about and need to pause, to pause and and understand that what you think is an influx of a certain type of people in the in your country, you need to understand the why. Yeah, if you're without a why, you're just an emotional person.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 14:22

What is story then, uh I think you guys are uh uh at the center of having to always contend with that question.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 14:36

What is story? If uh you were to give for us a sense of a definition, a characterization, what would you say story is of a beast called story?

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, it's it's yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's a lovely one because it's um for me, where it starts, like the foundation of of a story, is is a story has to be inspired by its time. It it it uh um it has to be um um um penned by somebody who is living in a certain time, and there are things about that time that they're navigating that that pushes them to a space where they want to dissect it more. And I'm not going to contradict myself. A story also is an inherited thing. A story can also come from a different epoch, from a different time. You can inherit a story, but for story to always speak to people who are supposed to consume it, it has to deal a lot with the people that are around it. The story has to um has a fascination about about its surroundings, um, about its immediate environment. And and and because the idea of writing a story that is not going to appeal at all to the people that are around you, the the the wordsmith that is writing a story, then then that story has no impact. Because then then you maybe maybe then that's the writing it for yourself. They there always has to be something about what is it you want to say about the time you live in, that then the the consequence of that or the result of that becomes a story that you've teased. You've you've you um um and and and I always say that one of my two favorite English words, uh those words are what if. Because when when when when you look at a scenario, you look at somebody, you look at uh um um um um land, you look at whatever, and you when it tickles your curiosity, that is usually followed by a need to understand it further. And when you do, you you you end up writing about a story. I'll i'll I'll tell you what what happened. I was in Hawick in Wazul Natal. Say Hawik and uh Senda Win, we were staying and and in it, and then there was a lady who was sort of like helping um maintain uh the the the space that we were staying. And I've always been like a a freak for walking. I love walking, and I always say I don't walk for fitness, I walk for solitude. So I'm walking, and then then I see as she was driving, I waved at her, and then she went, and then I went up this copy, and it's a hectic copy, and then then later she says to me, Oh, I saw you. Did you go up there? And I said, Yes, I did. And she said, Do you know what it's called? And I said, No, I don't know. She said, It's called Wanda Bangai Koshua. And I said, What does that mean? She said, My grandfather told me that that copy is so steep. When you start here telling somebody a story halfway in in into you going up, you forget the story and start dealing with with you know atigandabangai kor. And so when she said that, it just warmed my heart. And immediately I wanted to then write about what would be my version of Gandhabangai Kor. So I'm just going back to the question you pose about a story that I I firmly believe that a story really has to touch on the the people who are who are um around it to help them maybe understand um and the time before or understand the the the the the the where they're at and understand what could be maybe the aspirations to come. And when a story, I've been in a space of of getting stories, re reading stories, sitting with marketing people and saying what will be the hook to sell the story. I might say this is one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read. Pass it to colleagues and they read it and have the same feeling. But how do we give it traction? How do we have thumbs on seats to come and and watch that story? There has to be something about it that has a pertinence that talks to a possible patron that will come and see it.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 19:32

Since time is so central to the way you have described it, can can it be untimely or can it can it be out of joint? Would it still be a story if it was working with something that is out of joint, like a like a time out of joint or an untimely? I'm thinking here isn't story also something capable of betraying itself, that it can be a story about a story, yeah. Yeah, that it can be a story that sometimes portrays um time.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

And uh that actually becomes the bravest way of writing a story. Because I find the easiest way to write a story is when you worry about chronology. When you're not linear with a story, then the person who's listening to it or watching it, they are not passively sitting there. You are challenging them because you're jumping. I love it actually. I love when a story does that because it it's out of kilter in terms of the the the the the the way stories are usually told. It takes a very brave writer to um to do that. Or or you get a scenario where you can you can commission somebody to write a thing and say to them, write about the worst day of your life. And they write, and when you read it, you then realize they've had so many worst days of their lives. They can't choose one. They write about one and then they go, no, but that can't be, because then I had that other thing. You know, and so it starts, it births then then then um tentacles. It's it's it's a story that starts here, but but but but it if it finds it a way to really stretch itself and and going back to time, the audience that we're dealing with now is a different piece. It needs to be challenged in that way. And you look at stories that maybe maybe if we can just take um um um scenarios sort of like um um um around the world, stories that would have been written um um past 1948 with the imagins of In this country, had a lot of urgency about them because there was a need for the status quo to change. And the writers also of that time had an amazing knack to write stories and be so clever in their prose that they will they will write about the big problem that the country is dealing with, but find a very poetic way to write about it and allow you as an audience to disify it. I mean, I'll make an example. One of the works I did, in fact, the very first play I ever directed was a story written by Escampatliele called The Suitcase. And I read the suitcase. Suitcase was like five pages long. I read the suitcase. And as I finished, there used to be a shop that had an annual book sale. And I would go there every year and come out with books and sit and have a cappuccino, and you start thinking, I'm gonna read this one, read this one. There was a book called The Drum Decade, where this story came from. And and and the genius of the writing of Eskian Patele, there is a point where the the the protagonist, Dimi, when he's finally arrested, he's found with his suitcase, and he's trying to understand why, why, why this big thing that has happened to him. And Eskium Patele wrote a thing where he says, Timi sat on the floor of his cell, and he says he looked at this environment that was so strange to him. And then he says, he then witnessed a wasp tormenting a worm. And he says, it seems to stand on its head as it stings the worm. The worm wriggles violently, seeming to want to fly away from this earth. Suddenly the worm gives up. Partly that takes an animal with a sword that that that nature's given its sword, and a worm that doesn't have the agility to run quickly. He compares the aparted machine. He makes the aparted machine the the the the the the the the wasp and the little man demi who comes from from multitudes of little people is the worm. And I called him motional when uh when I read the story. And and and he says, why is it that the most armed and agile creature always stings the defenseless to death? So when you read that, you you you the the the the the the the writer is is is like this with you and and and the feeling that I got I knew that I wanted to adapt this piece that we did here and it's gone all over the world. And wherever we've taken it, we've never explained it to anyone because people sit there and they hear some of our indigenous languages that are in the story. The characters have names that really come from this country, but what the characters are grappling with are universal things.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 25:02

The creative power that comes with this uh the the imagination, um, and I want to come to our presence, you know, in uh novels and short stories and to create worlds, to create relationships, relationships of people with people, people with places and all of that, to give language, uh time dialogue, in thoughts and so on, and then to have to bring that to life, like the suitcase into a theater piece. There's also a mechanism of unlocking it out of its textual uh paradigm into now this stage uh theater with living characters now and Samuel's, but there's also to adapt it into a film now, uh, and it has made those evolutions. But it seems to me at the center still is this even even when I'm thinking about James Cameron and his avatar, the passion to go and uh colonize uh or the chaps that are adapting um the works of uh novelists in in Hollywood, but in the end, somebody has to write a script. And if it's not a script, it's an adaptation, it would have been a novel. Writers are so central. In the end, the the creative person must have sat and written. Yeah, yeah. The writer is so inevitable, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

No, you gotta have um the writer. I always say when I'm in a reassemble that the the writer is the reason why there's a gathering and and and and the kind of um um uh um uh uh um uh just the the the the the the the the people who are able to see it and and having done it um myself is that you read a work and you get permission to adapt it. And the first thing when you adapt that you need to know is that you are not rewriting. Because if there's a bigger need to rewrite, then maybe you should write your own story. So it's the first humility that comes with with an adaptation that that that even when you stop introducing characters that are not in the original story, they have to be so seamless and and and and and enter the space that is created for you by the person that that that concocted the world and the people in it. And and um and and so so that's the first thing that that that that you you constantly have to remind yourself, what is it that I fell in love with? Then there is this poetic license then that allows the writer to to embellish on the moments that are in the book, and you are adapting it now with an idea that one day there's going to be a focus pooler and a DOP in the room who's going to shoot it and and you adapt it with an idea that that if I'm shooting this white, I don't need to to to to to to over-explain it because the tools that I'm using will then give that narrative with without it being said by an orator, by an orator on stage or in or or in front of the camera. Is there a lot of adaptation happening today? I mean not as much as we should, we should have, but it was very interesting in the last couple of years, like specifically for theater, before I go into form, um Lara Foot, um uh uh um our brilliant director Lara Foot at at the backstory in Cape Town adapted the life of Michael K by by the the the the um um Nobel-winning writer James Gutier, and absolutely amazing. And um uh um Tobim Troatsi has just adapted Mpachela's down 2nd Avenue, and I've just worked on on um uh uh Fred Kumano's um dancing The Death Thrill, a total reimagination of Uzga Gamendi, which I did with with with um um Balisama Zames. There's been in the African space, there's been a lot of adaptations that have that have been that have been um um um commissioned by theaters, by by commissioning editors, and uh with television. But television sadly is the one space in this country where the the need to adapt has completely just um um like a sound, it has dissipated. It is is I don't know how we absolutely revisit it because see if you could think back now in your growing up, some of the best work that was made on television in this country were works that came from books and and and and and they were adapted and and and and and spoke to an audience of of that time so.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 30:44

So on the I mean in the with apartheid television, yeah. Apartheid black television would have always been an adaptation of a sort written novel, Zulu written novel. Yeah, but yes, yeah is it because how do you explain television's uh contagious thing that if I tell in novel local novels and local short stories? I mean if I knew that writing a novel stands this big chance that all novels in the West almost always stand, which is the chance to be adapted. Um novel writers, writers of novels would would still be writing, isn't it? Yeah. But what why why do you think television in South Africa turned its back on adaptation?

SPEAKER_02 31:41

I it it one it's very sad that that it did that, and I I think television has been exploring um maybe the the idea that audiences have changed. And and I think maybe the one flaw in that idea of audiences have changed is is that you um we always talk about developing an audience, but the other big word we need to have is how we retain an audience. Because when when you obsess on the idea of of retaining an audience, is that your your yesteryear um um expertise and and and and and and quality and standards of of story, you don't lose them. You don't you don't you don't you you preserve what you know works and then and then and rightly so, then get into untapped territory, find the new audience, find the new writers, find all that's new. But but but you've got an an arsenal of of works that you are able to look back at and just say, that story was written by so-and-so at that time, but my god, it just when you read it, it feels like they were commissioned right now to to to to to to write it. I once dealt with a piece written by Professor Zay Simdar, and which I think is one of his seminal works, one of his most beautiful work, called You Fool, How Can a Sky Fall? About about looting, about corruption, about about about power.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 33:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Girls in their Sunday dresses. Yes, girls in the Sunday dresses, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

The heel, which which which has got beautiful similarities with with with packettes waiting for God over his then uh um the heel also look, and I love the fact that the characters are even called man and young man, because he deals with faceless, faceless people. They have no names with and they wanting to come here. And and we put on the piece, and it was speaking so much to the contemporary, the contemporary South Africa. And then then when you adapt more and more, you then realize, I mean, Disney for years. I've been adapting stories from yen stories from Asia and turning them in into big uh blockbusters that start with animation and end up being being being being being musicals that that are on Broadway. I mean, uh an example, there's a story, there's a story there, two um um amazing um um um um uh professors who have written at length about a man called Sunjata from Mali, from the 13th century in in Mali, uh Professor D. And they will always say the tall story of Mali and and um and and Professor Matidiyawara things at NYU, and they've written about about Sunjata, which is a big inspiration to Lam King, also Sunjata. And and and and um and a couple of years ago, one was able to take that story and I adapted it and and set it here. And there's a story from around Timbuktu, you know, and and set it here. And it was just so humbling how audiences just grabbed it in the first five minutes because of the elements that are in the story. And so, in the world of the training of young people and to have the tools to tell stories in in the future, the there has to be somebody who's able to open a safe with those jewels and expose young people to the genius of of of writing, of of um, and and and and um that inspired the era of television that you're talking about. And one is not saying they're the amazing shows that are being made now, but I was answering you when you said is is there a lot of it? And my answer was it's sadly we don't have um a lot of it. And and I think of writers like K Sela Deka, and um um um you know, we um a writer that I think really deserves to be to be to be adapted, Professor Louis Ngosi. Um you think of something like the Anthem of the Decade by Professor Mazisik Nene, and and um um you think of of a story A. C. Jordan Bem Yang and the Wrath of the Courts, you know, and and and and a revisit to those works is is always just the most beautiful thing because it then, in terms of constituencies, it puts in the same auditorium that audience that I'm talking about that is needs to be preserved, and a new audience. And you take the the storytelling culture forward.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 36:46

Let me go back to theater. How are the audiences in theater? I mean, uh in the age of screens, uh the age of TikTok, of shorts, the pressure to to be on the gadget. Uh that the papers, the books, uh the films are all making it in the intimate space of uh the mobile phone. And um everybody tries now to fit into the mobile phone. Uh my music is there, uh, my text message is there, my phone call is there, but also my book, my uh my movies in the Netflix and show makes and all of that. Um if I want to consume art, I could go into the same phone and uh look at a catalogue in a gallery. Uh but if they've done a three-dimensional shoot of a gallery, I could travel a gallery and look at different uh curations that would have taken place in a distant gallery somewhere, maybe not live, but the purported uh shooting of it at the moment uh is I could almost almost uh get a form of experience, but theater. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Theater, you know, this this time, theater has never ever been challenged like it is challenged now.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 38:32

And curators of spaces not only in this country, all over the world, we are pushed into a space where innovation has to be at another level to um uh can theater do anything else in this thing in these digital technologies.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Are you are you able to say uh or are you saying there is something of an evolution that yeah, we are, we are, we definitely we are. Yeah. So so so um um um theater now, from you know, I always say to the team, the team that I I work with, I said, I say to them, we are practically all over the world begging audiences to come to the theater. You didn't if you're not working from that space, your delusion is frightening. We are begging audiences to come to theater. So I will unpack it very quickly. So this challenges how we make theater. So theater needs to be made for contemporary eyes. That that even when you're dealing with the person who's got all those gadgets, it's made to speak to the now that they're able to sit in the auditorium and theater feeds all these other things that that are part of their everyday existence. Secondly, we um looking at how we we we we have audiences coming to the theater, but how we also take our content to to these other platforms that have now and that are now in existence. Um and and to say, how do we exhibit our content differently? So the traditional way is buying a ticket and going to a theater, and then usher says you enroll ease. Yes, yeah, yeah. And and we still absolutely love people coming, coming to the theater to these venues. But at the same time, we need to be cognizant of the fact people still go to zoos. Yes, people still, yeah, that's a beautiful one.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 40:41

People still see people, yeah. They should, they should, uh, they should nonetheless have a room for theater. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

In Debian, there's still that thing called mini town. Uh you go and see the whole expanse of the city of Debon, and people still take their kids to go and see those things. But but for me, what has really been driving me about around this concept of of a different way of exhibiting our work is that we need to be cognizant to the fact that there are big pockets of this country that don't have theaters. That that that that that that the the the the the the the the apartheid government didn't build theaters in the in their spaces and our our government now has not built theaters in those spaces, then I'm then think here is an untapped audience that we need to find a way that it's too pronged, that in this urban um setup that I'm at, I'm still breaking my back to to make theater that you can look at and and and feel this is a work that there's a lot of heart and a lot of thinking that has gone to it, a work you can defend, that you want to get the audience that is in the in this urban setup to come and see it, but then at the same time to think of other areas in the country, in our country that don't have the playhouses. So we are busy now concocting that new chapter of of of theater. And and the covet era was very interesting because the covet era just it was a knee-jack reaction. The covet era left us with no other choice but to to and um to find a different way. I was at the market at the time, and and at the time, the market was one of the few theaters in the world that never really closed. We carried on and and and programming and and then realized that we are light years behind in terms of those ideas. You look at theaters like the National Theater in the U in the UK, um uh or provenues like the Metropolitan in New York. They've been doing that stuff for years. And so for me, it is it is very exciting that that we are sitting now and looking for a hybrid way of presenting our installations that we we we that we do. And one goes to boardrooms to to go and talk to business people, to talk to them and give them a different narrative. That that that we're needing help that is going to take us to this space, not the space that that we've been coming to you over and throughout the years to speak about. It's in it's a new space. It is it is creating new jobs in in our sector, people who monitor the the ARs, the and and of of or the response of audiences to to this. We haven't gotten it right yet, but the most beautiful thing is that we are not of I've always said about myself the one thing I've always fought is to be in an artistic bubble. There's nothing that scares me that being in a bubble, because it means you're not moving anywhere and so the idea of you burst that bubble and and and just look for other ways of of of of of making the theater's been dying for years i mean people wrote po poetry and and and there was a song that was written in the c in in in in the 60s that that that that it goes and it gets to a part where it goes here's the theater really dead you know it's it's it's been a dying patient and then but what fascinates me as as artistic director and as a curator is to be able to sit with a team and say what what is that next thing that we do that makes how we program and how we curate feel different very strong in the declaration that it is almost never gonna die.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 44:55

It won't die if it can always capitalize on the fact that we are introduced to theater peace like every every school every childhood developments and every primary school and fortunately and inevitably in educating children it is it's always there's always go and and act such and such a story if the pedagogical power of theater still finds its place in our education system isn't it doesn't it follow if people are still learning a novel if people are still learning a short story a lay work etc yeah that is if people are doing a musical in order to teach children maths in order to teach them history from time to time they must do a play if playing since it is a play is still part of the pedagogy then theater shouldn't die meaning maybe your challenge as an industry is to plug into audiences in that precise way. I absolutely love that when people when last was their child driven where parents would definitely want to come to the market and watch their kids.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Yeah you see I absolutely love that because because this is one of our biggest focus uh um um as we program at the Jobic theater is around setworks we do a lot of setworks and we become this beautiful conduit between the written work and and the the the the and the the teacher student teacher slash um student and we come in and take a work and enact it for for for for a better or a more fluid um understanding of the text for for for from for young people and so so our theaters are teaming with young people that um are dropped by buses that walk to the theater in the case of so some of your big audiences remain school going to be yeah we bring them and and and and and this also speaks to one of the things I talk about a lot that I feel also we need to get right and and in this country is when young people are introduced to theater at a very young age it takes away this thing of this prestige there's a prestige that is attached to theater that sometimes I find quite nauseating because and and this and this idea of of it's elite there is nothing elite about theaters absolutely nothing elite in countries that have gotten it right you will find a professor and a guy who cleans toilets in the underground train um station sitting watching what is a Shakespeare or recitals of T.S. Elliot and and D H Lawrence we need the the the the this country desperately needs to take away this idea that theater belongs to a certain enclave it doesn't it it limits theater it's got a terrible business argument to it because you are really doing this to numbers instead of of of a blow up to theater I always say that one of my biggest um dreams almost like a utopian dream about theater is that there are spaces around the world where a couple will go um to a theater in the um during the weekend and when one of them goes where they work on Monday they never say I went to the theater they say I watched a Wallace Show Inca piece about the beer farm or I watched a Shakespeare and and because everybody goes to the theater don't say to people I went to the theater everybody does. So that for me is the the early introduction of theater to to young people you posterity you are thinking you are thinking there about about where to find and and audiences and and and and and and and for theater in the future then the Setwits also for me becomes a very beautiful space that is where one is able to incubate the the the emerging voices young you know I've been blessed and in the last couple of years I have met just some of the most dynamic young directors young writers young people who write libretto young composers and the the the idea the idea of of learning from these young people are always people who know me very well they'll say they'll tell you one of my mantras is a very good mentor is the one with the humility that tells them that they too have a lot to learn from a mentee. Because a young person their approach to something that you've known forever is different and you have the humility to learn it it it it it it it it evolves the the the nature of how of how stories are told so we have a huge audience that come in to watch pieces I have even taken it to a space where I I've I've said to myself and sitting with a team we can't just keep making theater in English only in this country we and and this is also even part of the constitution the visibility of indigenous languages we take books and that are written in our languages and and and and adapt them and put them on stage we commission um writers to write there's a a guy called Muhammad I once commissioned him to write a piece called which was the story of the of the Bakaping in in in in in in in in the late 1800s characters dressed in Victorian carp that told you that that the the the English had already arrived but it was like a like a really joyous story about those people it had nothing to do with the changing the landscape to be able to take works that that maybe some of our wordsmiths wrote them in English translate them into our languages we um we are creating the visibility of our languages we are doing the biggest celebration of our writers and so so for me is that that that the our thinking caps really need to sit very nicely because there is so much that we are able to do when we accept that the playing ground is changing and when you do that you're not in that artistic bubble that I was talking about earlier. You are just saying and what is it that will make storytelling really appeal to a very young person today but but also the idea of introducing young people to story to you when we sat down he said to me what is story to introduce them to story to the ownership of story to to a very clear memory of story to something indelible that happens to them when they're told story and I think one of the things one of the basic needs we have is humanity we all have a need for somebody to tell to tell you a story and and and and and people we click with it's because there's a narrative between us and so theater is only but an extension of humanity of things and and and and so it needs to be viewed you to be viewed in that way that that that that some of us who are the present custodians of story we have a big responsibility in the how we write it the how we tell it the how we present it so that those that are the recipients of it are responsible for taking story forward. Maybe my final questions then will rest with the place of storytelling and specifically film and theater in the government's thinking about the human condition in South Africa about all the challenges we face and when they think policy wise when they do industrial policy or when they do education policy or when they do crime combusting policy one of the big themes over the last 12 months has been the police and the corruption in the police and all of that when you think about fixing all that situation I want to ask you about government this current government do do you think they they think about the place of of film and of theater in the resolution of the many problems the let me say the key problems facing South Africa I I would honestly um say not as much as government should be thinking about how how um the idea of story is interwoven with with the evolution we have in the country and with issues that we're dealing with in the in the country and and to unpack that further just basically to say one just feels there has to be if you look at maybe the Department of Arts and Culture whatever like discretionary funds that I feel get created to circumvent exactly that to deal with with with with with um how people who come from a world of story can can can can work with with with departments and to unpack things that are very intricate that maybe need to filter down to everybody that work in those spaces to understand and better what sometimes is presented in a in a very high way to me who doesn't understand what this whole thing is about. And so I it's my plea actually to um to government my plea is again is two prong is is is is is is for us to be able the idea of sending our young around the world to to to be around countries where our sector has been galloping for years to not be so obsessed with with with reinventing the wheel to go and look at how it turns in other in in in other spaces is is is is is very important because you're using those limited resources we always talk about how difficult the financial climate around the arts is but but we sit on that negativity and not at um an innovation that says how to how do we use the little and tend to a very big and impactful way so so for me and and and and and and and I've I've been in spaces where I've gotten to do it a lot to create international relationships take young people to those spaces to just go and see where those spaces are at come back here implement some of the the the the the the the the the the the the beautiful lessons that would have picked up and everywhere and then then then the other thing also is is is is is is to find a way that in the different departments you almost you almost have a a cultural attache that will be attached in a business in a department of forestry in a department of police in a in all the different departments that that when they are dissecting what they have to deal with in one fiscal year they they need to have somebody that they can look at and commission and say if you had to capture this to into a story how would you do it then the efficacy of the arts is then really blown up in in in in in in in in in the country if if you do that. So there are things the theaters are are working the theaters get allocated resources for them to to run and and the theaters are very cognizant with the idea that the theaters need to to to generate income we need to think um outside of the idea that there's always will be money that will come from the main shareholder but that thinking needs to happen in theaters it needs to happen um in in in in the government bodies that that that that that that are um are are responsible for for theaters to work and and and and when you get to like positions like like like artistic director and I've always said that position is totally um evolved and and and one now goes to boardrooms to sit with people and who most of the times are not artistic at all and you present ideas that that that that sometimes I say to people and and and to the team I work with or the the the people we meet in the boardrooms is that one of the biggest mistakes also that we do as artistic people we feel everything we do should happen in the theaters it also theaters need to go out and collide with life we need to curate differently we need to find different ways of looking at programming and and and and not have this idea that we will sit at the theaters and wait for people to come to us we go and find and and and that lovely word that you hear in the streets the hustling we need to learn as people in in in story in this country to hustle to find a way to tell stories and then also to walk away from the myopia that tells us that we can only tell South African stories. And since 1994 there's been a total metamorphosis of this country this country is evolving all the time there are narratives in our streets that we don't have an affinity to we don't want to put those stories in our stages to put them in our television sets to put them in our forms and in that we are missing out on a huge audience that has come that has come to this country so it's it it it is quite desperate right now that we need to think so broad and not and not be stuck in in this is how it's always been because if it's like that then you um you you are pairing it you are absolutely kidding theatre I'm aware that you did be uh a NC's hundredth yes anniversary yes and I wrote and directed it yes take me through that what what um how how how how did how did it how did you survive these tender premiers and but but yes I mean it showed at uh at the rally yeah and and and and also you remember that yeah the the January 8 was in in Plumfante yeah it was in manga woo in manga woo yeah you know um just one of the most challenging projects the before you go on was it shown there and only there yeah I see yeah and and so and I still meet people who say to me um so it never traveled uh no it never traveled you know I still did it have a plan to travel it's such that it didn't as a result yeah there was a plan but the plan fizzled also which was quite sad because because the approach to it was was and I say it with all the humility in the world was very fresh. It wasn't about the poster boys and girls of of of the organization.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:02:13

So what was the purpose ANC at 100 at 100 yes so what did you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Yeah so so so for me the first the mic no it's back I can put it back and ask my question yeah maybe what was what was it about ANC at I mean has a lot of years yeah so how what did you make that it was the a theatrical production the theatrical production yes so what did you make it about yeah you know I I just like in my walking that I was uh talking about I remember when when this project came I drove to there's an area called Sekirbostrand uh you know on entry and it says Nigel um something and you go and it's on the other side and I took and a long walk and I was uh and I was thinking because I'd seen other pieces done that are historical seen beautiful things that have been done I keep saying to myself how can this be different and the thing that really grabbed me was was to write characters that made the NC what it was then then then to do what I think would be the most obvious thing to celebrate the leaders of the NC amazing leaders that have been produced over the years and and um and I then felt very strongly and and um um and I wrote in um a very dear brother um mahauland into it and I said team no let's let's work on on this and so we created a character where characters where the formation of the youth league would be told by a character that you don't expect the the the the day mandel and them were were sentenced to to life abo mama abareka mavej and and there were the orators were told who told the story because because because for me it it was a thing that felt very strong that you can you can you can celebrate an organization and celebrate how it's been cared for all the years by people that run it. But you must never leave behind the people who made it what it was.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:04:48

And so you've had to peach this obviously as I understand for them to approve it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

Yeah I went to the Tully house and and and there was um and and and and we had to pitch it I remember um in one of the meetings and somebody asked and said who's playing next man there I said no who is playing Oliver Jam no the panel yeah yeah it's a panel of like very at least at least tell us who was chairing the panel was it Zuma no it was and and and beautiful Mambalega writes herself yeah she was she was yes she is a a a steward of the earth yes so she was there mom mom was there was there yeah was there um and and and and malim had not left the NC at the time he would he would he would he would pop in but also then there was a lovely mixture also of people like Professor Kyorab and there was Mantra Langa and and these uh published um writers who were Then themselves quite fascinated by just and at that time the the Minister of Arts and Culture was Bob Palo Jordan. I remember he walked past when there was a launch, and he he said, I believe you're writing and directing this thing. And I said, Yes, he says, Good luck. It was a long struggle.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:06:37

Oh god, I can't remember what it is. That's artistic honest.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

No, it was uh um uh um one of the uh uh uh the the people in in the room, but their acceptance of it for me was was was was was was so beautiful. And then we had um Victor Masondo uh um who did who did the music. I had Gregory Macoma and Luanda Setia um doing um um choreography and part of Greg's company and and imaging um and one of our finest choreographers Lulum Langi was was was was was was was in the piece and we opened the piece with one of our finest actresses, Nomchenkon, as as the piece opens with um a communal tab, and people are waiting for Immodiamans that has not arrived, and they're waiting, and she's there with a granddaughter and the grandson, and they're listening to their to sort of like the the the Kendrick Lamas and the Jay-Z and whatever they're young people who are quite irritated by the idea that they have to come here and be humiliated and wait for water and whatever. And Goko says to them, This is nothing, there's been bigger humiliations than this. And the little girl says, But what could be better than this, bigger than this? And Goko then takes this so the the peace really at its core is an old woman sitting with two grandkids telling them about her walk in this country, a walk passed onto her, a walk she has walked, and a walk that's not ending, that is is is is is full of challenges and things, and and and we had a huge set. And then all these characters then pop out of this narrative that this woman is telling. And then it allowed us with ease to move from decade to decade. And and so so so if there is a Moses Kortane in the room, he's not important. It's the orator that is telling the story about a guy that always used to come stand there. He loved wearing a gray suit and a gray hat. He would always have people around him. And he says, I never really got to know his name, but we are doing beautiful projections that is linking what these characters are saying. That is, but I was very clear that we we mustn't do a production that is like a pamphlet, an organization pamphlet. We need to use theater to make um a gorgeous piece, but that takes on all the past and the it played in the stadium.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:09:17

Yeah, yes, it never played anywhere else.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

No, it never played anywhere else. And I I still meet people to this day. Is the script still there? Yeah, no, I've got the script, you know.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:09:26

Uh uh the script. The ANC never asked for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:30

No, we it's you know, it's it's nobody read it. It's a work that's that's that is sitting there, but but um um and to be able to work with uh uh uh uh uh uh Prague Europe and and and Mandananga, the elements that we were uh um we even had a young aka in it, and and I remember he's he was driving a a beetle and he arrived and I I called him to a uh uh a room and and Victoria. And Victor Masundinum, we we said to to aka, and I said to him, I want you to write a piece that colli that is in the now that collides with the soul. And aka said to me, give me a couple of days, and when we when he came back, his vessels are just sat like this in a real song. That was just so beautiful. And so for me, it was it was the the there was a moment when when when we uh walked out of Lutulia House and and there was there was uh a bunch of young people were plomed, like it happens with young people. I remember um looking at those young people, like we when I say young people, 14 to maybe 18, I said, if the peace we make people of the young people of that age don't get it, then it's it's not worth being made. And so it then it became just a concoction stylistically of so many things that we were able to to put in it. And I still also um called Brayu and I took Brayou out. We went to the old Hyatt and I sat with with Brayu, and I said, Prayu, there's this thing that's here, and and I wanted advice on and and you know, and and the artists we had Judith Sepuma, um, um uh um the penny whistle guys, we had Zahara, we had Brahpiri, we had Vusma Shasela, we had we had um That was great. Yes, and Purdana, but it was a huge cast, then challenged all the artists that were there, that nobody sang their own song. You know, and and and and I remember sitting in the reassole and and and a young guy from um Soto Cospel choir singing a stimulus song, and Pray, I could see his heart was smiling, looking at this young guy when he finished. We went to Prae, with Prairie in No Zahara, they did it doesn't matter now that it was weeping, that song and whatever. And so, because I even thought if somebody sings their own song, then it's it's it takes it away from what the night is about. And it was it was just like uh a work made with a lot of love and a work made also to challenge ourselves. And and we we we we literally had 16 days to put together this work with actors like Lionel Newton, Vaneshwan Armogan, Siabonga Twala, Tony Horoche, and and and just got lucky the best that the that the the the the country has. I think we had fun and in it, yes, and and just this amazing Pegim Kwane, Masasambang, all these amazing um actors, and we all and each one was responsible for a certain decade, you know, and and and and that is how it was made because I just I just said it needs to look differently to a book that somebody might have read about the NC. And so that's the joy of storytelling and the what if and and and that the the the chatting the new waters and and and and just and just and just uh the obsession to grab an audience when you tell them a story. And anything for me that is less than that, I don't have a clever word to to use, it's just less than that.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:13:29

Thank you so much. Thank you. That's it, false. I feel my mic went, huh?