By Ndalo Mbombo and Thubelihle Mathonsi
Modise Sekgothe, who has been a poet for 10+ years, delves into the depths of human experiences through reflecting on moments of his own life. “We are all living the same life,” he says. “Human experience is not unique — we have been heartbroken and we have been happy.”
His poetry performances redefine the boundaries of such moments by including music, instruments, new rhythm and vocals. At their core are the lived experiences which influence his work. “For example, I think about things like the streets of Johannesburg and think to myself, what if I turn the street into a river? What does that trigger? How does it change the view?”
He hopes his NAF audiences will start conversations about “reimagining the role of the masculine in our society” as he invites them to partake in a joint conversation. His Festival performances plan to tackle themes of masculinity by reflecting on fatherlessness and how that shapes the development of young boys and human beings in general.
Drawing from his own experience, Sekgothe hopes to provoke dialogue about how boys are to make sense of their masculinity without positive fathers and male role models, particularly in the black South African experience. “It’s about sparking conversation about what masculinity is inherently, what we want it to be,” he explains. The production, which will merge his appreciation for theatre and his passion for poetry and sound, is devised in collaboration with the TheatreDuo & Collective (affectionately known as TheatreDuo).
Sekgothe’s distinct sound and musicality are inspired by underground rap music, jazz, and his upbringing in the church, and features the core elements of rhyme, alliteration, and imagery. His poetry offers an intentional choice to create an atmosphere allowing his audience “to have a transcendental experience of that which is real”.
The work reflects an attempt to highlight and portray the “unspecial and mundane” from the human experience by extracting that which is beautiful into a fantastical, dreamlike reality that poetry is able to create.
Sekgothe is only the second poet to win the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Poetry (Koleka Putuma was the first in 2022). “The Award is great confirmation that I am not mad because I have dedicated my life to this work,” he says.
