In day 11 of our ‘Love the Arts’ feature, we chat to Musa Hlatshwayo – choreographer & dancer extraordinaire. He has performed in many conventional & non-conventional spaces, he has toured through a few states in America, extensively though the UK & Africa & says he has most enjoyed performing in Africa. He rarely looks at art platforms as favourites, saying that it is really impractical & unfair to compare. But he does like the concept behind the Danse L’Afrique Danse festival, how it was conceptualised & run by African artists & practitioners.
Asked if he could perform anywhere, where would it be, “It would be at my grandmother’s hut, with her. Sadly, we lost her about 2 years ago.”
What do you most love about performing?
It’s the platform it provides you to express yourself & immediately plug into your audience’s response. The ability to tap into someone’s emotional response & journey with them on this imaginative, creative moment where souls intertwine, where minds reimagine, recreate rethink magic. It’s the magic of energies conversing right in the moment. That is magical.
When was your last live performance?
As a choreographer, the last live performance that I provided was in March. ABOMHLABA(THI) was part of the Rerouting Arts Festival in Pmb. (Thanks to funding from African Culture Fund). The work featured 3 of my dancers; Snethemba Khuzwayo, Aphelele Nyawose & Njabulo Zungu. As a dancer, during the making of the 3 works I created in collaboration with 3 poets as part of Poetry Africa under the programme; ‘Digging; the fluidity of language.’
What is your wish for 2021?
To stay alive with enough life & creativity to keep expressing myself in more colourful & creative ways. For artists to find ways to reinvent themselves & the industry while defying the odds of marginalisation & all things that continue suffocating us & our industry. For the end of all that continues suffocating & killing us.
Musa is part of the Denis Hurley Centre AGM this Saturday.
Musa Hlatshwayo
