Lesedi: A bright star alights on Lulu Mlangeni

A figure in red glides onto the scene, camera is low, she’s filling the screen.

The red dress is made to balloon overhead, behind and around as she moves through a forest of tall, thin wintertime trees. There’s force in every miniscule moment. Dust unsettled. Thrusted arms clutch and pull towards her all that she might gather. Outstretched again, this last time the one arm lingers pointing up, the camera pans skywards, following fingers floating upwards, rising to the light. Lesedi.

For many of us who closely follow the dance ‘scene’ in South Africa, Lulu Mlangeni has been on our radars for looong. On stage hers is the powerful body always rippling with refined movement quality. Thanks to the documentary film on the vNAF programme, we learn that off stage she’s as powerful a force.

Meet Lulu Mlangeni. Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance 2020.

Many of us first witnessed her moving with Vuyani Dance Company, the Joburg-based company founded by dance extraordinaire Gregory Maqoma, himself a Standard Bank Young Artist (SBYA) in 2002. I’ve invited friends and family over the years to accompany witnessing works where Lulu has been part of the cast; and I vividly remember one of them remarking after Siva (Seven) by Luyanda Sidiya, yet another SBYA, in 2015, “…what else was happening? I couldn’t stop watching the woman with the shaved head”. That was Lulu.

Lesedi: The Rise of Lulu Mlangeni is a thoughtfully choregraphed documentary film. Form meets content. From Lulu herself and interviews with family and significant women influences, we share in the biographical parts of her life relevant to her dancing career. Sequenced over street scenes of Jozi and Soweto and outdoors solo on-site dances which in the daylight illuminate Lulu’s creative versatility, the film melds her personal story firmly within the place it was forged.

Yaz, my favourite scene was sis Lulu dancing in the back yard with the twins and Mam’ Dorah. Best! I dare you to resist bumping along a bouncing shoulder – it’s a lovely loose tapping into the realness side of the artist operating in tandem with the professional persona being interviewed. I wished for more of that.

Without anyone needing to explicitly state so, we realise that the places of her history and the people in those spaces are inextricable from who she is. And all is expressed from within her when we experience her artistry on stage, now on film too. The shudders and shakes but also the punches and kicks.

We don’t have on our galoshes but into the deep we go. Lulu swishes and swooshes her way upstream. Kicking water. Only the inquisitive few have patience for that. The water is softly flowing, peaceful, but her moves are brisk, they’re bold, harsh, straight lines and block-shaped. An adherence to form against the seemingly unstoppable rush. But the hard stare into the glare declares the fight.

Later when she climbs the stairs of the small white Ivory Tower… she claims her stake saying “asjik ‘spelimon – until we are heard”. Her defiant movement vibrates through the screen. With every grab at, and refusal to relent from the disintegrating rusting pylon frame, she’s there to #smashthepatriarchy.

A note on the gorgeous costumes: they are true enrichments to Lulu’s choreographic work in the film; they flow to enhance her swirls and twirls, they irradiate her form in the sunlight, they act as a colourful backdrop to the shifts and shapes her body makes. (Also, we need these dresses in our real lives please.)

Although the film traces through Lulu’s life linearly, from her beginnings as a youngster at Mam’ Dorah’s dance studio through to her winning of the prestigious SBYA for Dance this year, the content decision was made to not include archival footage. A choice seldomly made in “how they got here” documentaries.

The Lulu now is who we encounter.

The past is not eroded though. As if walking through a trendy pop-up art gallery, Lulu moves in between framed photos of her career highlights. She relishes it and smiles in acknowledgement of all the tough work it takes in the arts industry to ‘make it’. 

But forward is her direction. This moment too shall be framed and hung on the wall of achievements because it’s not the pinnacle. She blinks back the emotion when Mama Nonku (“umama wako industry, a mother to all the artists”) says “Go beyond the award”.

And, towards Lesedi, Lulu will continue climbing.

Watch the documentary film here.

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Directors : Slindile Mthembu, Kamogelo Nche, Ra($)m Sankofa
Writers: Slindile Mthembu, Kamogelo Nche, Ra($)m Sankofa
Executive Producer: Mabu Art Foundation
Producer: Alvin Knight, Enos Nhlane Manthata
Assistant Producer: Jhadi Quinn
First Assistant Director: Thato Dhladla
Choreographer/ Collaborator: Lulu Mlangeni
Interviewees: Mam’ Dorah Mbokazi, Nelly Mlangeni, Siphosihle Lesedi Mlangeni, Nonkululelo Thabede
Director of Photography: Nyembezi Ncaba
Camera Department: Thami Mnisi, Warren Soqanse
Sound: Mpho Nthangeni
Production Designer: Sandile Maseko
Lighting Designer: Thamisanqa Xhosa
Lighting Assistants: Thomas Rapheso, Thabo Mofokeng
Costume Designer: Neo Serati
Onset Stylist: Larry Asmah
Hair & Make Up: Lungile Mngadi
Onset Photographer: Mvelo Mahlangu
Grip: Keabetswe Mokwena, Luthendo Liphosa

Post-Production Departments
Editing And Grading: 
Kabi Modiko
Music Composers: Mpho Nthangeni, Wandile Molefe
Voice Over Artists: Lulu Mlangeni, Slindile Mthembu
Vocalist:  Gabi Motuba, Bonginkosi Motha, Kaz The Scribe
Sound Design: Audiophile Post Production
Caterer: Afr’euro Cuisine

2 thoughts on “Lesedi: A bright star alights on Lulu Mlangeni

  1. Lesedi: The rise of Lulu Mlangeni gobsmacked me with its authenticity in story telling of Lulu’s life outside theatre that no any other documentary has managed to do before!
    The opening scene where Lulu dances in the thick of the forest, blending her skills with nature in the early winter morning! It was powerful and made me interested, wanting to see more! The music is out of this world!
    Mabu Art Foundation astutely left out archives of her earlier achievements and let Lulu tell her genuine story in her own language, surrounded by people who helped her to shape her life.
    Growing up in the dusty streets of Meadowlands, passionately known as Ndofaya, her extended family and community contributed immensely in shaping her career in dance! The beautiful mpansula dance with Mama Dorah Mbokazi’s twins is a glaring contrast to Ndofaya’s culture! Mpansula dance is associated with a lowly “Kalkoen’s” culture!
    Ndofaya was a group was of “tsotsies” who came from Sophiatown town, they spoke Afrikaans based tsotsitaal because of their background of a mixed communities with Afrikaans speaking Coloreds. The Sowetan were called “kalkoens” an Afrikaans word for turkey! Their tsotsitaal was Zulu based and called isicamtho! The Ndofayas were clevers, listen to Jazz and wore clothes like black Americans, while the kalkoens were mpansulas and preferred to listen to Maskandi music! “Die Clevers van Kofifi”!!”Jy moet my mooi kyk, ek is nie a moegue, a kalkoen nie”
    As I said earlier what makes this documentary special is that she is allowed to relate her story, it’s not scripted! She uses the language of eKasi, the taxi as means of transport! “Mam Dora my first,first,first dance teacher !
    Something nje man! Shebert” !She navigates the street of Jozi like “a Cherrie van Ndoyafa” cutting through male pedestrians with attitude and no fear!!
    The blending of her yellow costume, green pants with tall thin winter trees as a backdrop and brown winter grass as a carpet was breathtaking! As if that was not enough she jumped on the the top of a red taxi in honor of her family who raised her from the proceeds of the family taxi business… one can spot an inscription on the door written Mlangeni taxi……

    In 1894 President Paul Kruger established Joburg Fort Prison in the center of Johannesburg City, which was later known as number 4 prison! Lulu Danced on top of the military cannon that has been standing there as a symbol of power that successfully defended Johannesburg during the British Invasion ! She dances with vigor, defying all negative forces thrown to her by apartheid machinery , lovely choreographed, flowing with Maya Angelou’s poem, I’ll rise! The music again is beautifully crafted befitting the scenery!

    The decision to film the documentary at Constitutional Hill was not only amazing but very insightful and inspiring! She enacted the scene from her recent dance piece- “Confined” in honor not only of Winnie Madikizela but other anti-apartheid stalwarts, the likes of Albertina Sisulu, Barbara Hogan, and Fatima Meer , who were also incarcerated in the female section of the Fort prison ! She danced this time solo, held in ropes. She leaped towards the white ivory tower which is the highest structure in the Fort with 360 degrees views of the prison and the greater Joburg city, used by security guards in the days ! She could see the female inmates taking a shower in an open just outside their cells using cold water in the middle of winter, in full view of the people in the surrounding offices! Female prisoners until 1976 were not allowed panties and sanitary pads, the showers were placed in an open area outside their cell in full view of the guards and surrounding offices! Asjiki!! Asiphelimoya!! How befitting to end the documentary paying tribute to her ancestors oMlangeni……..ancestry praise is a story for another day!!
    Written by Mdereza kaMdlolo
    0832632782

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