Obituary: Cont Mhlanga
MANY people came to know Phathisa Nyoni, who we all fondly called “MaNyoni” the champion isitshikitsha dancer that Bulawayo has ever produced in the 90s, when she and her friends formed a singing group to compose a sound track music for a Hollywood film production The Power of One that was shot in Bulawayo.
After the soundtrack production, a formal group called Thandanani Group was formed with most of its membership all based in Matshobana.
I came to know MaNyoni way back in 1983 when I produced the Ndebele musical play Ngizozula Lawe in partnership with Bulawayo Traditional Dancers Association, a collection of largely Imbube music groups based at St Patrick’s School in Makokoba led then by umdala uSilonda, a top choral song writer and choirmaster of yesteryear.
She was the only woman in the male cast of 88 men that I worked with in the musical Ngizozula Lawe. She sang imbube beautifully with an all-male imbube group but it was for her execution of isitshikitsha dance on stage that she caught my eyes as a young producer then. When it came to isitshikitsha dance MaNyoni was in a class of her own.
At that time my productions leaned more to karate antics to tell the story and it was working with MaNyoni and other great dancers such as DD that influenced my productions to move away from karate to local dance in my story telling. Their isitshikitsha traditional dance abilities were just out of this world.
From then on I wanted to see MaNyoni in the mainstream full time and professional performance arts industry that I was dreaming to create for the city of Bulawayo. At that time the performing arts industry in Bulawayo was non-existent. Here was original source talent that the Ndebele people could not afford to lose.
Fifteen years on when MaNyoni was chairlady of the newly formed Thandanani group and the late iron lady of the group Ngwenya was the group’s secretary, the whole group enrolled at Amakhosi Arts Academy for a year-long training programme in Performance Arts Business Studies. It was during this training that Thandanani group was rebranded as Thandanani Women’s Ensemble whose aim was to become the nation’s best all-female dance company. After their training they just went on from strength to strength to travel places, perform for the noble of our land and win awards.
I called her “Umalukazana oyiBuffalo” because of her energy and stage presence when dancing isitshikitsha particularly when leading the song Sangena thina ozidudla kwacatsha amadoda, my favourite of her performances.
The whole ensemble returned to the Arts Academy a year later for a course in film acting and MaNyoni excelled in screen acting over the years, getting involved in numerous films and TV productions produced in Bulawayo by various local producers. She was a pleasure to direct in front of the camera and on stage.
She invested her time if not performing and rehearsing in training isitshikitsha dance to various dance groups and colleges and she was a talented trainer. The last time she was at work at Amakhosi Arts Academy two months ago was when she came to the Arts Academy for a week to train the Masvingo Teachers’ College Traditional Dance group isitshikitsha dance. I witnessed her turn singers who could not even speak Ndebele to super vocal singers of the song Wangena uTshaka and dancing to it like you would think they all come from and grew up in Nkayi.
Umalukazana oyiBuffalo was an enjoyable character on and off stage. She was a fashion conscious lady who dressed up to amazing detail each time she arrived for a performance call. Three incidents have happened in Thandanani Women’s Ensemble that have left me internally destroyed for ever; the first was when they lost Ngwenya and my comment to them was “now Thandanani you will split because Ngwenya was a natural glue that united the owners of the company particularly sticking MaNyoni to the rest of the group”.
The second was when the talented company split into two creating serious backstage and rehearsal room tension and war of words from both camps to this day. The third is the departure of the great isitshikitsha dancer of the Ndebele uMaNyoni herself. The traditional dance industry in this city will never be the same again without the presence of Umalukaza oyiBuffalo gracing many stages, functions and weddings travelling across the country and the region.
Hamba kahle MaNyoni uyedlala isitshikitsha sakho soqobo labanikazi baso. Banengi abafunde kuwe babusiseka ngesipho sakho sokusina.