Production honours Xhosa tradition of storytelling
FROM Friday onwards, children are set to be dazzled by a stage production featuring an award-winning author and an acclaimed traditional South African musician.
Kwathi ke Kaloku (Once Upon a Time) is a children’s stage production celebrating traditional Xhosa storytelling and indigenous music.
The production features author Sindiwe Magona, as well as local musician Bongani Sotshononda and his United Nations of Africa band.
Magona along with two actors, performs a combination of two of her most popular stories, The Best Meal Ever and Stronger than Lion to the live soundtrack of Sotshononda’s indigenous music.
The production aims to entertain and educate children through the power of the imagination, and preserve and document the rich Xhosa tradition of storytelling, as well as the wealth of indigenous Xhosa songs.
Kwathi ke Kaloku is presented by the Cape Town Music Academy, a not for profit company, that seeks to create opportunities for local musicians in the Western Cape.
“While all stories enrich, mother-tongue stories do a whole lot more; they anchor the child…
“Just as no child in the world should ever be denied the citizenship of the country of her birth, no child should ever be denied or deprived of the privilege of mother tongue. It is a birthright, sacred.
“To de-tongue a child, even by neglect or oversight, should be considered a criminal act,” Magona said.
“The child who reads or hears stories in her mother tongue is much more likely to meet herself in books; see, hear and learn from characters who remind her of herself, people like her, situation and problems familiar to hers.
“Even those who may present the unfamiliar will have a ring of ‘new’ but
While all stories enrich, mother-tongue stories anchor the child Sindiwe Magona Author
within her world,” Magona explained.
The show at the Stellenbosch Town Hall will be suitable for all ages, particularly children between 6 and 13 years old. It will be staged Friday, March 1. The production will then move to Amazink in Kayamandi on March 2 and 3.