Durban University of Technology Urban Futures Centres department held a seminar with Dr Mhlami on the topic of heritage at the Steve Biko Campus, this week.
Internationally acclaimed KwaZulu-Natal-born composer, cellist and academic, Dr Thokozani Mhlambi is rich in the heritage of KwaZulu-Natal while still asserting global standards of quality music-making. Mhlambi is an NRF postdoctoral fellow in innovation, at the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative at the University of Cape Town.
For Mhlabi, heritage is a bag of wisdom, as he speaks on a Zulu saying that goes, ‘Inyanga ifa nezikhwama zayo’ (The diviner dies with her or his bags of wisdom). He has recently come to a different interpretation of the saying. While it is true that inyanga may die guarding knowledge, for him it is the nature of inyanga to be a trailblazer of society.
“I have always interpreted the saying as pointing to a great tragedy in leadership. Because inyanga has chosen to guard knowledge for her or his own prestige, she or he fails to make a way to sustain that practice even beyond their lifetime. In this way she or he dies with those bags of wisdom which means generations that follow are thus robbed of knowledge they could have accumulated,” said Mhlambi.
He also said that the biggest problem in South Africa is the lack of knowledge of our indigenous history and where we come from. The current and next generation is clueless about our identity because of the people, who knew, never spoke out to preserve the legacy, hence the country is influenced by Western life.
To honour heritage month, Dr Thokozani Mhlambi is using different media and multi-cultural musicians to creatively explore new South African music idioms, using as a starting point the iconic cultural legacy of Mazisi Kunene and Princess Magogo and how it intercepts with Western classical music through new music, spoken word and orchestra works. He has assembled around him an ensemble of like-minded music makers from KwaZulu-Natal, UK, Italy and Peru.
Nomfundo Ngcobo
Pictured: Thokozani Mhlambi, Thando Nyameni and Menzi Maseko, at the event.
