Thembelani: Education is not/ a pedestal for success
I have been in the centre of education for a long time as learner/facilitator/teacher/lecturer/foreign-teacher. I haven’t been in the centre of it like my inspirational predecessors but I would like to believe I am making a difference too.
Thembelani, perhaps one of my best created works only performed once. It is not the first time that one of my best works only got to see the stage just once, and now only exists in epic images. In the year 2016 a recreation of the work Emb(race) saw the stage only one time in Jomba! Fringe, and was never performed again. Similar to the work I will be taking about today, Emb(race) also only exists in images and a review
As I somewhat prepare my body to restage this work, ai want to share a critical analysis of the work; this is a breakdown of the work as a creator. As a professional, I believe in interpretation, where the audience is allowed to interpret the work in whatever way they want to and find their own meaning or connection to the work.
This analysis is a means to break each element, I as creator thought about when creating the work. There was for me in the work, nothing left to chance in what I was trying to say whether with word or movement
“Thembelani” created for Jomba! Fringe 2019 in Durban, South Africa at the Sneddon Elizabeth Theatre. The Zulu name of the piece itself tells a story “Thembelani” which loosely translates to “The one we put our hopes on”. So much pressure in a name right?!
I have as mentioned spent roughly about 12 years in Education, that is after high school when I decided to embark on a higher education journey. Honesty the moment you tell yourself you’re going for a tertiary education you’ are throwing yourself in the field of chaos, learning, education etc but it’s not as clear cut as that is it? Well especially for an unprivileged background individual.
Now let’s look at the South African education system. I haven’t even said anything but if you’re South African you could roll out your eyes so hard that you just became The Undertaker. Our education was constructed in the days of apartheid for the white minority (Koller, 2012). Yes, you are reading that right, technically it was for whites. I am in no way saying we don’t deserve to be educated, I am just saying it’s not for all of us and it’s not catering for all of us; more on that a little later. All of a sudden this writing is turning out to be a political paper rather than a blog, but I have something to say, and if you read and listen you have the opportunity to learn something, a perspective.
Thembelani, my first solo performance as a creative artist. To be honest I was scared; I always love working with other bodies, and this time I chose to work with just my body, not only that but I was doing something I have never done before, use live text, speaking on stage and dancing? Hide my face right now. I approach dance in my own way, I have weaknesses, so I try at best to use my strength when constructing work and bring foreign perspectives. Foreign perspectives means i bring in strangers who have no idea what dance theatre is and i ask them to critically look at my work. I did the same thing with this work and I cannot tell you how much of a difference it made.
In this work (Thembelani) I am interrogating education, the ideas of education, the structure of it, the past, and the future of it. Let me paint the setting for you first. On stage there are books, many books, creating a semi-circle, in the centre is a mic stand and me, and above, look above, hangs a graduation gown that has two books hanging on each side, that is the “goal” of the work, to get there.
JC Zondi at Hexagon Studio Theatre 2019
To think initially I had the idea of the gown hanging very low, being reachable and as I move, it keeps moving further away.
On its own I wanted the setting to speak, in your head right now you can imagine for yourself what it is trying to say, yes? Unlike education, in arts, at least most times there is no wrong answer, you let your own thought/imagination guide you; because essentially that’s what dance theatre should be about…interpretation.
Similar with any of my other dance work(s) I had a lot of ideas, luckily I kept the ones that worked best. I wanted my words to be the dance, I aimed to mould myself to become the text I spoke. The idea was that I wanted people to experience and see what education has done to me and ‘them’ out there in “South Africa”. I needed a structure to guide me, so I used the concept of rules of books, something I learnt in high school when I worked as a librarian (Library Monitor). I know, I was a geek, shusshh!
The beginning of text
When I was young I learnt some basic rules about books, I want to share them today, in my own way.
- Don’t bend the spine of the book
Think of a contort creature that has been manipulated so much it doesn’t recognize itself anymore. This creature feels like it doesn’t belong. In this first rule so many thought came to me. I thought about how I have learnt so much that when I go back home to my friends and family who didn’t go as far, I feel foreign. I can’t seem to communicate with them the way I use too; It’s not because I think I am better but because I have learnt to see the world so different, I have seen how broad the world can be. So in the beginning I am multiple creatures that which include an embryo, a spider and a cockroach, which can survive an atomic explosion but merely turning it upside down can “kill it”. That’s what education does, it turns things upside down. Intelligent but stupid!
I bet you didn’t think dance theatre can be that deep huh?! Well, there’s more.
2. Use a bookmark, don’t bend the corners.
What’s the purpose of a bookmark? Yes, to remind you the last place were you read. I am guilty of still breaking this rule till this day, bookmarks are so hard to find. In this rule for the work, I was looking at where we come from in terms of education; How far it has taken us. That ability to read and write, the ability to break boundaries and talk to people from foreign countries. It’s a basic evolution of humans. This is were the books first come into use. The semi-circle resembles the idea of evolution. You go around learning and learning and suddenly you evolve as a person. It’s only then that you realise “You’ve been going around circles or rather half a circle”, you’re no longer evolving that much. You get mad, angry at yourself, the people around you and the world in general. but then…
3. Don’t lick fingers when turning pages and do not steal the books
In that mist of that anger, you try to think how education is trying to teach you how to be better than that. Its constantly trying to teach you how to handle yourself. Don’t be an animal it says…because apparently we “black poor people are animals”. We only know violence and crime, so we are being educated, so we become “Civil” creatures. Isn’t that why the education system was built in the first place for us South African Majority, so we can be civil and work for a living. Age of the British Empire!
You can imagine how frustrating it was for me to be in this situation. I love education and learning so much, but there is a darker side of the moon that I know exists about education that it pisses me off.
4. Do not eat and drink with the book
Then there is that “PROMISE” in education. I am using the bold format and quotations so you can really see the sarcasm in the use of the word. I actually want to quote directly what I say in the work.
” I was told education will serve as our daily meal, that it will be our daily bread. That is exactly why my mother gave me my name she told me; because she had hope, that I would bring bread to the table. So I learnt” ( Zondi, 2019)<<<< Yes, I am referencing myself, epic stuff.
I believe it’s about here in the work that I ran around collecting books, which were all over the place. “Knowledge and Education” so I can have a chance to feed myself and my family. Honestly there is so much pressure isn’t there? For a black child, to feed your family and you haven’t even created your own yet! It really sucks to be placed in that position as a young person. That cycle of whatever finance you get, it must go home first. I mean that’s the reason the cycle doesn’t end, because now as a parent you’re fucking broke and living on hope that your kids will feed you; so on and so on.
In the work here I create this empire, this unstable tower using books, so I can reach the highest level of success in education above me. You know that graduation gown, that money, that PHD, that soft life; As I try to climb this tower of education it all comes crashing down and all I am left with is, me staring at the roof and what could be, could have been.
5. Do not write on the book, Ironic isn’t it?
I use the words ironic there because if not a book then where are we suppose to write? I believe that’s why the education system fails us so much, it keeps telling us what we need to do in order to succeed but when we do it; it goes and says “Uhmmm about that promise??”
Then we are fucked.
I was told education will provide so many things and I believed it. My mom and teachers beat me (Years of corporal punishment, yes I am that old); I was beaten, being told and forced to go get this education so I can get a better life. So in this part of the piece I beat education into me so much that my body is in pain… all over.
6. Do not rip off the pages of the book
What is education now?
I think it’s a question to ask everyone really; what is education? I mean as I say in the work
“The better question to ask is who is it for?” (Sir Ken Robinson, 2006)
We need to sell education better to people, especially black people. We blacks, poor background individuals are stuck believing a “PROMISE” that will never be kept.
“Education sells a linear idea, that if you start here (Bottom) and finish there (Top/ Graduate), you will be set for life” (Sir Ken Robinson)
Which is not true is it? Well not for most of us. Some of us spend a lifetime searching for the results of our education, and even after, that lifetime isn’t enough (Zondi, 2019)
We need to be told the truth. That truth is complicated but it does start with this KNOWLEDGE is important. It’s access to knowledge that has a better possibility to lead you to a better life rather than education. Access to knowledge gives eminent possibilities of self-discovery and world discovery.
I am in no way saying education is bad, hell, to be honest it has made a lot of changes in my life. I just think it definitely needs a new approach. The future is ahead of us and some of us are stuck, especially those of us who come from certain backgrounds. Remember that question about what is education? Yeah ask it in your class or around, and see what answers you’ll get, see where the common answers arrive from, you won’t be surprised.
I have great ideas, I really do. In this work there were certainly deeper layers that I want to leave for interpretation, those who were able to see the work can articulate those layers, even in the comments. I definitely would love interpretations or even points of view on education’ perhaps I can use that information to extend on the restaging of the work.
As a creative artist I watch the world and use what I see and my experience to deconstruct everything I possibly can. I am on that constant journey and I hope people can join me in that discovery.