Where Oti found her feet
WE all know Oti Mabuse from the dancefloor of Strictly, but hers has been a long journey from a township in South Africa.
Fresh off a nationwide tour, with a show inspired by her childhood, she’s curious to go back to her homeland – a place she left a decade ago.
Oti, 32, says: “Not going home to your roots, it makes you feel disconnected. South Africa has always been the place where I go for answers, the place where I find myself, where I could regain that strength, regain me.”
It’s an emotional visit, beginning at the nursery school in the township where she grew up and where her mum is the principal.
“I’m proud to be from this township. It’s not the prettiest township, it’s not the richest or the safest, but the people are happy,” says Oti.
In the classroom she dances a cha cha with her mum, who worked multiple jobs, including catering, sewing and selling Tupperware, just to afford dance classes and costumes for competitions.
She retraces the familiar road trip to a theatre where she took part in ballroom dance contests, remembering how she didn’t notice she was the only black child on the dance floor.
“This is where people of all colours and from all places came together, it’s where I realised I could be more than my surroundings,” she says.
It’s a country full of contradictions and Oti has a unique perspective, remembering the struggles her family had under apartheid.
But she meets inspirational people in a South Africa that is changing.