Ntsikelelo “Boyzie” Cekwana
Jon Craig Canavan

“I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom. I tell them it’s the body’s reaching, bringing air to itself. I tell them that it’s the hearts triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It’s life flipping death the bird.”

Lorrie Moore from “Dance in America” from the short story collection “Birds of America”

From the time I first read novelist Lorrie Moore’s magnificently evocative description of the art of dance I have wanted to pilfer it, to use it in some manner or form when writing about South African dance and, finally, I have the chance to do so.
To explain the attraction of dance as an art form, for either the practitioner or the audience, to someone who balks at the thought of spending an evening in the company of Giselle or Carmen or even Riverdance is an almost impossible feat and Moore does so brilliantly.

She also, quite unwittingly, perfectly describes the creative work of Ntsikelelo Cekwana, known as Boyzie to all and sundry, one of the finest choreographers of contemporary dance South Africa has ever produced.

From humble beginnings as a single-parent child raised in the poverty-stricken and revolutionary streets of Soweto circa the ‘70s where he dreamed of pursuing music and football as careers, Boyzie has risen far and fast in the world of dance - to have become a world-renowned choreographer at age 33 is quite a feat in an international dance world where choreographers usually only reach their potential in middle-age.

What is even more amazing is that Boyzie, as both a dancer and choreographer, has reached such lofty heights without the benefit of the lengthy, painstakingly detailed kind of dance education enjoyed by most top-class dance practitioners.
Dance is arguably the more challenging of the theatrical arts, both physically and mentally, and most of the world’s truly great dancers and choreographers have been in training since they were tiny tots, rigorously conditioning their bodies and minds for the incredible demands that will be placed on both during their careers.

Boyzie, on the other hand, came to dance in his late teens but, blessed with so much natural talent – the cliché of a person been born to dance could have been conceived with Boyzie in mind - he made an almost immediate impact, first as a preternaturally powerful dancer, later as a choreographer of rare vision and potent creativity, a choreographer who refuses to follow the safe commercial route and is never afraid of taking the odd risk as he examines and explores the boundaries of contemporary dance.

There is a misconception, explains the tall, lithe, impossibly powerful, powerfully outspoken yet hesitantly soft-spoken choreographer, that theatre is all about bums on seats, about the bottom line, about making a buck at the expense of all else. While he is the first to admit that dance is a business, Boyzie is also quick to point out that the business of dance should not be approached in the same way as, say, the business of selling groceries to the public.

“That’s a mistake that is constantly being made with regard to the arts,” he says. “Yes, indeed, theatre is a business. But it is a different kind of business altogether. It is vastly different from selling bread and milk and to relegate it to those levels is mischievous and unfair.

“Today, for example, William Shakespeare is celebrated as a great playwright and entertainer. Yet many of those who celebrate his work overlook the fact that, while he was indeed a great writer, his work was largely political and social commentary. He was making a point and I think the best art strives to do just that, to comment on some aspect of life.
“The other important fact is that the arts, much against our fantasies and wishes, are not about mass appeal and never should be. Artists always run the risk of ‘selling out’ when their ethic is defined by bums on seats. What we do should be about integrity and truth. That truth may only belong to the artist, but it is a truth that we should respect.

“Art does not exist in a vacuum and the perpetual question persists, ‘does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?’ When we open our mouths to speak, the questions arise, regardless of how positive or negative our statement: would the world have been a better place had I not said what I did? Do I feel better for having said it in the first place? These are the same questions artists ask themselves when they create.

“I create because I have something to share. Be it an idea, a thought or an opinion. And all of these are rooted in a place far deeper than my need to please an audience. As a result, much of my work does not please mass audiences, at least not from an entertainment perspective. I seek not to entertain my audience but to engage them.

“Is this selfish? Well, it is as selfish as putting pen to paper or opening one’s mouth to express an opinion.”

Born in Dube, Soweto in 1970, where he remained until the age of 20, Boyzie never really knew his father, who left the family when he and his twin sister were barely walking, and most of his early memories are of his mother struggling to make ends meet, a struggle that became even more arduous after the massive disinvestment in South Africa during the ‘80s after which she lost her job at a Belgian travel agency and had to turn to domestic work to allow her to feed, clothe and educate her children.

“My earliest dreams were of becoming a musician or a footballer,” says Boyzie, remembering his formative years. “Even though we were very poor, we were always surrounded by music. We listened to music on the radio and there were always live bands playing at weddings and birthday parties. Sometimes there would be concerts at Mofolo Park, a stone’s throw from my home and all of these were free.

“In fact, some of our country’s best musicians – the likes of Vusi Khumalo and Arthur Shabalala - were our neighbours and friends. As a kid, I looked up to them. However, it also became quite clear to me early on that I could not pursue this dream since my mother would never have had the means to afford music lessons or the instruments, so I kept the dream in my soul. That’s when my interest in soccer grew.

“Growing up in an impoverished environment with no amenities to support the youth we could only resort to the easiest and most commonly accessible forms of entertainment and this is where I discovered football. One did not need to have money to kick a ball around and we could kick it anywhere - except our mothers’ backyards!

“So I honed some fierce footie skills on the streets. Or so I thought. The path that fate led me has made it unlikely for me to play football competitively and besides, I am bit too old now. However, it is still my dream to pursue music. Six years ago I bought myself a drumkit and a bass guitar and began teaching myself to play. I can’t say I am proficient yet, but I have lots of time…I hope.”

Like music and football, dance was always part of Boyzie’s life although he never seriously thought about it as a career until much later in life.

“I have always danced,” he says. “As far as I can remember, we always danced at home. One of my brothers, Sicelo, would teach us dance moves from the latest township styles. We would move the dining room table and line up on the floor and learn. He was also the first to teach us gumboot dances when my sister and I were about five.

“Because we were surrounded by so much music, we always danced and I believe that was my first taste of dance, the sheer joy of moving to music with family and friends. The more serious artistic aspects of contemporary dance and classical ballet came much later.”

Boyzie can still recall the first time he danced in front of an audience, a memory that still causes him to wince as he remembers just how scared he was of doing anything that put him in the public eye.

“It was at some kid’s birthday party. I must have been about 12 years old then. I suspect my sister had somehow spread the word that we danced a lot in my mother’s small dining room and we knew a lot of township dance styles. So we were encouraged to get onto the stoep and perform for the guests.

“But, when the time came for us to go on ‘stage’, my sister backed out and I was left to do the dance on my own. Being terribly shy, I also backed out but was forced back on when another kid offered to join me.

“So, the two of us had an improvised, highly energetic township duet which I executed with chin on my chest and my eyes firmly focused on the floor. The audience was sufficiently thrilled - or cruel - enough to demand an encore at which I promptly disappeared into the crowd and went home.

“And that was the end of my very brief and rather disastrous flirtation with public performance. Or so I thought at the time.”
Although one wouldn’t think it when hearing him speak his mind on a variety of subjects, Boyzie has always had to contend with a debilitating shyness, a natural reticence he says that made dance all the more attractive as a non-verbal way of expressing his ideas and opinions.

“I grew up as an expressive, but highly reserved kid. With the exception of my sister, Nombulelo, and my cousin, Thami, everyone in my family was older than me. In our culture, the young always defer to the elders and speak only when spoken to. Of course much of this has radically changed. However, our upbringing was grounded in a strict adherence to that culture and, as a result, my vocal ‘voice’ was neutered. “Dance became a way to express myself without the inhibitions and impositions of culture. In a way, dance gave me the freedom to find and truly express with my body what I could not have possibly articulated with my tongue.

“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I really did choose dance, or if it chose me. I know that once I discovered it, I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it far more than I had ever wanted to do anything else in my life.

“Dance felt natural to me and it came to me at a time when I was ready for a change in my life. Soweto was exploding in the fury of the ‘80s and I was personally in need of direction in life.

“It is quite conceivable that, had dance not found me, the wave of violent resistance to the apartheid regime would have swallowed me up as it did so many other young people at the time. Instead, I found my voice in dance and a tool for my own struggles.

“If it were not for dance I would most probably be fulfilling the stereotypical image of a black man in South Africa, stealing cell phones and car-jacking. Well, maybe not but you get my point. In truth, it is hard to tell what I would be doing now had dance not found me and I it. In all probability, I would be investing much of my time in music. Whether that would equate to making a living or not is, however, debatable.”

While dance had always been a part of his life, Boyzie had never thought of it as a career option for a young black man, especially since the only references to black achievement at the time was limited to teachers, doctors and lawyers. That all changed when he saw an episode of the TV series Fame.

“That was the first time I saw a professionally choreographed work danced by a professional,” he says. “It was a jazz-styled piece and had as its central character Gene Anthony Ray, a brilliant dancer.

“The most striking feature of this sequence for me was not so much the obvious style and panache of the choreography as it was the fact that Gene Anthony Ray was black. Here, for the first time in my experience, was a black person breaking the mould, exploding the stereotype. It showed me that I could be more, so much more than what we were being conditioned to believe. From that moment on, it was clear to me that I wanted to be a professional dancer.”

It was this utter lack of self-belief in their abilities, one of apartheid’s most horrendous legacies, which led many a black youth to doubt their potential as artists and is the overriding reason Boyzie came to professional dance relatively late. As he says, the idea of a black man becoming a professional dancer in the ‘80s was unheard of.

“This is not to say there were no black dancers though. As matter of fact, my first dance teacher, Carly Dibakoane, was of a generation of pioneering black contemporary dancers such as Simon Nhlapho, Thule Malgas, Lucky Diale, Given Sebitlo, Andrew Mnguni and Ellington Mazibuko, to name a few. Before them, there was Leslie Mongezi, who went on to a distinguished acting career.

“The problem however, was that under apartheid they had to function in the dark, as bit characters, and the press did not take them seriously enough to give them the kind of profile they so richly deserved. As a result, we did not know, at least not until Fame, that black dancers could be trained in ballet and contemporary dance.

“The other reason I came late to dance was socio-economic. Like music lessons, there was no way that my mother could afford to pay for dance lessons, not to mention the transport expenses. So, when I eventually got a scholarship to study dance, my chief problems had less to do with my physical ability or intellectual comprehension. The problems were largely financial.”

It was thanks to the work of pioneering black dance teachers such as Dibakoane, who would teach both ethnic and contemporary dance to the youth of Soweto for little financial reward, that Boyzie managed to sidestep such problems. After catching the eye of teachers at the multi-racial Johannesburg Dance Foundation (JDF), he was awarded a three-year scholarship to the Foundation’s teaching programme and has never looked back.

After graduating from the JDF in 1989 he went on to work with all the major contemporary dance companies in South Africa, first making his mark as a dancer before segueing in to choreography and becoming, at 23, not only the youngest but also the first black resident choreographer for one of the national arts councils when he was appointed to the position at the now defunct Playhouse Dance Company.

“There had been hints from my friends (and fellow dancers) Mandla Mcunu and Kelsey Middleton that I should try my hand at choreography,” he remembers. “They both thought I was a little strange and reckoned it would be interesting to see what would happen if I did try and create something. I, on the other hand, did not pay much attention to this. I was too concerned with trying to become a great dancer.

“However, during our first company meeting after the three of us had left Free Flight to join the Pact Dance Company, the opportunity to create for the annual Dance Umbrella was made available. Both Mandla and Kelsey forced me to put my name down as one of the choreographers.

“This is how I became a choreographer. There wasn’t a compelling compunction to create and respond to an idea. I was simply pushed into it. Or blackmailed, depending on how you look at it. I would not have had the courage or inclination to create a work at the time had it not been for their instigation and encouragement. Out of this platform, I created my first work, entitled Recollections.

“The creative process proved less difficult than I had anticipated. Even though I spent many sleepless nights searching for and listening to music as well as mapping the architectural structure of the work, I found the process much easier than learning dance techniques. I could achieve an objective distance that was not always easy or possible as a dancer.”
Boyzie never looked back since after that first stab at choreography, refining his technique and expressive dance vocabulary, racking up the frequent flyer miles as his work took him to all corners of the globe, and grabbing a host of awards along the way including the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, the inaugural FNB Young Choreographers Grant and joint first-prize at the International Ballet and Choreography Competition in Helsinki, Finland.

Boyzie’s work is now in the repertoire of both local and international companies (such as the Scottish Dance Theatre and The Washington Ballet) and he has presented papers and given workshops all over the world while continuing to amaze and delight discerning, adventurous audiences with gems such as his adaptation of Can Themba’s South African classic The Suit and Ja, Nee, a haunting, disturbing piece that focuses on the twin disasters of AIDS and child abuse in South Africa.

Although his self-conscious shyness has dissipated somewhat over the years, Boyzie remains as soft-spoken as ever, or he does until one raises his ire as I inadvertently do by raising the question about the state of dance in South Africa. Like most of the arts, South African dance, be it contemporary or classical, seems to be in dire straits. Boyzie both agrees and disagrees with that view.

“I believe that now, more than ever, we have the most exciting group of young choreographers to ever come out of the continent,” he says vehemently. “The public may look at dance and see it struggling but the fact that South African contemporary dance survives is truly remarkable.

“One must not lose sight of the fact that we lack resources and support from both the government and the private sector. If these institutions gave as much support to the development of the arts as they do to sport and the arms industry, this country would be an even stronger cultural force.

“Our dance scene is strong and it is a testament to the efforts of our young creators that this is so. It is up to the others, the powers that be, to hold up their end and make the scene stronger and healthier than it is.

“I believe that, in a healthy society which ours clearly isn’t, the arts, like health and education, should receive the unqualified support from all organs of state and business. It is through our culture that we identify ourselves and not through rugby, cricket and soccer. Woe be unto us when we begin to define ourselves by the scores of our national sporting teams.

“The public, too, is to blame with their apathy toward the arts. The most unfortunate development in contemporary, urban society is laziness. We as a people have become lazy and it would seem that urban society is holding the arts to ransom: ‘entertain us to justify your existence,’ they seem to say.

“This is tragic as the arts are an integral part of a society’s culture and the lack of artistic practice or appreciation is dire for a society’s culture. In a country as traumatised as ours, we should be demanding that the arts, the highest and most refined aspect of culture, be supported, encouraged and preserved. This is why dance as an art form is so vital. Should the audiences be interested? Of course they should, it is about them.”

As much a teacher these days as he is a choreographer, Boyzie is constantly travelling, leading classes in Vienna, holding workshops in Glasgow and teaching African dance technique in Geneva. And as a teacher he believes that while the art of choreography can be taught it is natural ability, amongst other things, that will define the truly great.

“Yes, it is possible and important to teach choreography, or at least the methodology and precepts thereof,” he says. “However, I am also of the conviction that as with everything else in life, while we can possibly all create dance work to varying degrees of success, some people are truly born with a rare and particular gift. And I have been lucky enough in my career to meet and work with some truly gifted individuals.

“If I had to give advice to any aspiring artist, be they a dancer or actor or writer or musician, I would suggest they learn as much as possible for as long as they can. Learn from life. Open your eyes and ear to the world around you. There is so much information in our history. We have so many stories to tell, tell them with integrity.”
And what, in his opinion, makes a great choreographer?

“An open mind and a willingness to fail are all important. A desire to push the envelope and break new ground instead of regurgitating old ideas. A readiness to follow an idea or theme regardless of whether you will win approval or not. A willingness to sacrifice popularity with audiences and critics for the singular pursuit of a principle and aesthetic. The courage to stand alone and defend a principle when it would be easier to capitulate and join the masses. The guts to risk being wrong when the rest would rather be right.

“Is it any wonder there is no such thing as a great choreographer?”

There, I believe, Boyzie is mistaken for he has just described one of South Africa’s living treasures, a shy, soccer-mad boy from Soweto who has grown-up to be a great choreographer.