Choreographer Somizi Mhlongo has been in the entertainment business for almost 30 years. His career began when he was 13 years old — he joined the Broadway musical Sarafina! He later starred in the film adaptation of Sarafina! As a young star he featured in the movie, Cry, The Beloved Country.
Somizi has rooted himself at the vanguard of the South African entertainment industry, becoming the go-to choreographer for high-end stage and television shows, hosting live events and music video productions such as SAFTA and SAMA Awards, working as the lead choreographer for Miss South Africa pageants from , and appearing on his own show on Cliff Central. Heading the cast of How Long?
A Lifetime Achievement honoree at the Naledi Awards ceremony in Johannesburg, Ms Mtshali-Jones commands a fan base of thousands through her creations of many memorable persona in the entertainment world over the years. She first became a household name with the popular comedy, Sgudi Snaysi, and most recently appeared in the drama series, Broken Vows on e.
Khaya has 20 year experience under his belt, focusing on a musical background, working with Mbongeni Ngema, Edmond Mhlongo, and the late Themi Venturas, appearing in productions such as Oliver The Musical, Jabulani South Africa, and Master Harold and the Boys, to name a few. Actress Phindile Gwala - self-proclaimed "African queen"- is best known for her starring role as Nonny on the soap opera Muvhango.
The first of these was Manana, the Jazz Prophet, which premiered in His next was Sikalo, which was a great success and even played to white audiences in the city of Witwatersrand in and Its story features a young man who tries to avoid the gangs in his township, but winds up in jail anyway.
These and subsequent township musicals had several common features: much of the action took place in the quasi-legal shebeens, or taverns, where black South Africans could drink. Such establishments were usually run by a formidable woman, and populated by tsotsis, or thugs, dancing girls, and ordinary workers. There was usually a pompous police officer to provide comic relief, as well as dissolute priests and a Zulu boy who delivered his lines in broken English.
Song and dance were also key elements of the township musical, and Kente wrote his own scores, which were heavy on jazz and African gospel. Kente's musicals proved a great success, and he and his actors were determined to bring them to a wider audience outside of Soweto, the Johannesburg township that was his home. Government restrictions, however, usually granted them a performance permit for one night only, and so they were constantly en route from one community hall to another. His group, G.
Productions, trained an entire generation of black South African performers, some of whom would attain stardom on the international stage—among them Mbongeni Ngema, the writer, composer, and director of the musical Sarafina! In the early s, as South Africa's detested apartheid laws neared their quarter-century mark, Kente's writings for the stage began to reflect his dissent against white rule.
How Long, first produced in Soweto in December of , recounts the story of a humble dustman who is determined to provide his son, named "Africa," with the necessary funds to stay in school. At the time, educational opportunities for South Africa's black majority were severely restricted, and the government was even about to implement a new education policy that made Afrikaans, the language of the white South African, the only language of instruction in secondary schools for blacks.
There was much resentment against this law, and it eventually led to a dramatic and bloody uprising in Soweto in that garnered international attention. I Believe, produced in April of , was Kente's next work, and one that took to task the different ethnic tensions in the black townships and the divisiveness that resulted.
Its protagonist is Zwelithsa, a Xhosa, who falls in love with young woman from a different tribe. Too Late, which opened in Soweto in February of , is usually deemed to be Kente's finest work. Its story centers around an orphan, Saduwa, who comes to Soweto to live with his aunt, who runs a shebeen.
Though his cousin, Ntanana, he meets a young woman named Totozi and romance blossoms. He formed a gospel jazz group called the Kente Choristers while there, and eventually abandoned his studies altogether after joining a black theater group called the Union Artists. The township drama was born out of a musical, King Kong, which had been written by whites but proved a hit with black audiences.
In apartheid-era South Africa, the term "township" denoted a place that was anything but pastoral or idyllic. The townships were blacks-only suburbs, with shanties and cinder-block homes among the better-constructed residences, situated near large cities like Johannesburg.
There were schools and churches, but very little in the way of organized entertainment. Kente founded a theater business in the early s and asked his friends to submit scripts. Few that met his requirements were forthcoming, so he began writing his own plays.
The first of these was Manana, the Jazz Prophet, which premiered in His next was Sikalo, which was a great success and even played to white audiences in the city of Witwatersrand in and Its story features a young man who tries to avoid the gangs in his township, but winds up in jail anyway.
These and subsequent township musicals had several common features: much of the action took place in the quasi-legal shebeens, or taverns, where black South Africans could drink. Such establishments were usually run by a formidable woman, and populated by tsotsis, or thugs, dancing girls, and ordinary workers. There was usually a pompous police officer to provide comic relief, as well as dissolute priests and a Zulu boy who delivered his lines in broken English.
Song and dance were also key elements of the township musical, and Kente wrote his own scores, which were heavy on jazz and African gospel. Kente's musicals proved a great success, and he and his actors were determined to bring them to a wider audience outside of Soweto, the Johannesburg township that was his home.
Government restrictions, however, usually granted them a performance permit for one night only, and so they were constantly en route from one community hall to another. His group, G. Productions, trained an entire generation of black South African performers, some of whom would attain stardom on the international stage—among them Mbongeni Ngema, the writer, composer, and director of the musical Sarafina! In the early s, as South Africa's detested apartheid laws neared their quarter-century mark, Kente's writings for the stage began to reflect his dissent against white rule.
How Long, first produced in Soweto in December of , recounts the story of a humble dustman who is determined to provide his son, named "Africa," with the necessary funds to stay in school.
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