The Centre for the Less Good Idea is an interdisciplinary incubator space for the arts based in Maboneng, Johannesburg

UMTHUNGO

Vusi Mdoyi is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, artistic director, and pantsula.

Umthongo is a Considered 3 Minutes that grapples with abstract notions of identity and origin through performance.

In Mdoyi’s words: “Umthungo (Stitch) forms part of a chapter of my current research into performance. It is a grappling with questions such as: ‘Who am I?’ ‘What is of me?’ and ‘What is mine?’.

I was born aboard a train, entering a moving world naked and to a mother who was unprepared for this moment. I’ve been told the birth was messy but that the fellow passengers helped my mother, offering her what they had in the form of clothes to cover us up.

When we sew, the machine jams; materials pucker; the edges of seams catch – this is all what it means to mend and stitch. Only when we turn clothing inside out do we achieve a clean stitch.

This piece explores the threads connecting me to my birth story. The fabrics that kept me warm. The stitch as the needed fix. The metaphor of being inside-out. To fix is to stitch from within. The true mend is inside. The helping hands when you least expect them.

‘Sithunge kau’! impilo ngu’mthungo!’ (Stitch yourself brother, life is a seam).”