Bolobedu is an intimate two-hander by Ayanda Seoka and Thabo Rapoo that, at its core, interrogates themes of erasure, voicelessness, breathlessness, refusal, and morality.

This is a work inspired by the story of Modjaji, the rain queen often forgotten or erased from history. In Bolobedu, she is remembered and revived through performance. She arrives in a flurry, collapsing onto the stage. Towards the back of the room, there is a drumming which she both invokes and responds to. She calls upon it and she is bound by it. A conversation between body and instrument emerges. It is invocation and instruction, at once breathless and rhythmic.

Throughout this laboured, procedural call and response, Modjaji is a husk of herself. Her breath is laboured and painful. The two meet and begin to populate the stage with grains of rice. It is an engaging scene, equally evocative of a barren landscape and the welcome sound of rain.

Finally, the sky breaks open and rain begins to fall. It is a scene of sustenance and revival, and one that speaks to the impetus of the work – the act of remembering and honouring those ancestral figures, and the growth and nourishment that follows.

– David Mann

CREDITS:

CONCEPTUALISER | Ayanda Seoka
DIRECTOR | Phala O. Phala
PERFORMERS | Ayanda Seoka & Thabo Rapoo