A Girl And Her Dream:

Thembi Ngwabi Profile

By Khanyile Mlotshwa

HER voice cascades in a rising crescendo as Thembekile Ngwabi slowly gains confidence to talk about herself and her experiences since she joined Amakhosi Theatre in 1989.

The afternoon is bleak like all days are in this country these years. However Thembi’s strong voice is resilient like her growth in the theatre industry, which has been a long winter as far as awards are given.

“I’ve never won an award in my life. I’ve always been second,” she says.

It is disgusting to realize that such a fine artist has no glory from her countrymen. Thembi is among the few women to carve a place for themselves in theatre arts, probably the toughest genre in arts. In this genre it is hard work and little glamour and glory as opposed to music where one song artists can be transformed into instant celebrities overnight. Thembi has with stood all this.

“I am not demoralized because I don’t understanding their judging. How can a one role actor win a national award when there are actors who can play any role. If the selection was to be fair and they judge from acting not anything outside it then I will understand. Even if I won I cannot be so sure, there will be someone out there better than me who would not have got a chance,” she says with humility.

She is so humble and acknowledges that she is very lucky to be in the middle of her dream and do what she loves best. She, however, was not part of the amakhosi multi-award winning 1989 production, Nansi Le Ndoda.

“I was still young and at that time my mother did not even allow me to go to town alone,” it is so fun that it make her laugh to recall that piece of her childhood.

Thembi, as she likes to be called at the Township Square Cultural Centre where she works from, is currently the lead guitarist of the all women music band, Amakhosikazi. The band is a result of the Women In Arts Project, a project she coordinated at its inception until it gave birth to Amakhosikazi. It started in 1994, but gained intensity with its production of Oskhova, a group of young female artists that made an appearance in ZTV and Amakhosi co-produced live variety show, Friday Live At Amakhosi programme in 2002. the project later led to the birth of Amakhosikazi.

“Ever since I was a child, I used to watch television a lot as my dream was to become a well known actress. Even today I am still working hard to achieve that. I just want to be a good actress,” she says with a sense of seriousness. This is something from the depths of her soul.

When she was starting out, Thembi, had no inspirational figures like most young artists do. She has been fueled on and on by her dream to be a great artist.

“I can’t recall who was my inspiration. I think it has just been a dream. All I have wanted to do is to work and work without doing any junk work,” she says.

On her debut on stage, Thembi says she experienced stage fright just before she took to the stage but it went away as soon as she stood on stage.

“I experienced the stage fright because by then I hadn’t experienced the adventure of standing on stage. The truth is that when you are acting you leave yourself to rest and assume another self. Maybe that explains why I didn’t experience the stage fright then,” Thembi says.

Surprisingly she felt shaken again after the performance as she rode home.

She however experiences so much stage fright when she is asked to stand infront of people and give a speech.

“That is why I don’t like talking to people. You will remember that the only time I stood in public was when I was called to talk about Oskhova on Friday live in 2002,” she said.

Attempting to live outside of herself she spoke a lot about women in theatre and their problems. That is what we do, we try to run away from ourselves by focusing on others.

“Female artists problems don’t change, they are still the same,” she spits the words out, in anger.

“I wish we can develop a gender policy to address problems experienced by women in the arts industry. I believe that in the whole SADC region there is no policy that protects women in arts,” Thembi said.

She said the main problem was that female artists did not have technical skills and this made their lives in arts difficult. Thembi said it mostly led women artists to take light riles like acting, singing, and dancing instead of tough ones like lighting.

“In the past and sadly even today women are overpowered by men. As a woman I could not take an instrument like a boy will do. Boys don’t give girls a chance. You see man will always oil their ego by undermining female aspirations. Lack of physical power on the part of women has translated to the lack of power in the arts industry. As artists we need to give each other chances and this will allow girls a chance to develop,” Thembi says.

Despite all the swirl in the arts industry with young artists coming up to capture the imagination of the arts consuming public, Thembi said she believes our arts have not moved an inch.

“I believe there has been no changes in the arts because I am still struggling to learn a bass guitar,” she says. It is said that an artist, like a bird, learns her craft all her life. In recent years she has emerged as one of the leading bassists in the country.

One time Russian ruler, Joseph Stalin, once said, a thousand deaths are a statistic and a single death is a tragedy. He meant that things are better understood at a personal level, then their full impact can be grasped. Maybe Thembi’s dilemma explains the predicament of many female artists. What they have aspired for long back is what they still dream of today, and in that way the industry cannot be said to have moved. The progress and position of its women can measure progress of any society in the morden world, and arts are no exception.

Thembi said this anomaly is what has inspired her to take over the women’s programme and emphasized on gender development.

“If a policy is developed and it is implemented then I believe we will achieve something,” she says.

Inspite of all the pain and hardships that women in arts have been through, Thembi believes that in future there would be a lot of women producers and directors of high artistic prowess.

“In future we will have a lot of women producers. Already we have Loveness Wesa who produced Brooms, a dance drama and she also made an album,” Thembi said.

She noted that, “At first she (Wesa couldn’t play instruments and depended on men.”

She downplayed the idea that women were themselves enemies of each other as they rarely supported each other.

“Naturally women are like flowers so they will always compete with each other. However there are some that are changing,” she says..

“I developed Oskhova project because I thought that if we need to train women artists then we need to train them at young age. We need to make girls understand the performance on the stage before they know what is behind the stage like stage management, lighting and the making of a performance. First you have to perform and understand the basics of stage production. Then you can branch according to your interests and dreams in arts,” Thembi says.

On her future plans she said she wishes to improve her bass guitar playing skills.

“I can’t dream of anything else outside that. In my family there is already a writer and a director but I am not interested in that,” she says.

When she is not at work, Thembi, relaxes with her best friend, daughter, Wenzile.

“She (Wenzile) likes to do a lot of challenging things like writing and scribbling. She is my best friend and my happiness.”

On the future of the arts industry she said there is need to create more competition so that arts workers can always be pushed to higher levels of artistic achievements.

“The creation of competition and pouring in of more funding into the industry will have a great influence on where our industry will have a great influence on where our industry goes from here. We don’t have to create corruption but an industry where people compete fairly. Talking about competition, if a production came to rival Amakorokoza or Studio 263, then directors and producers will be pushed to work hard. We need this competition in order to create good products,” she said.

Ngwabi has starred in many plays produced by Amakhosi. She acted in Stitsha, Members and she will also be remembered for her role as leading actress in Keep In Touch, a play by talented Styx Mhlanga. She took a leading role in a short film, Iluba Lothando, produced entirely by Amakhosi’s film crew as part of their first filming project. She also played a role in Sister Theresa: The Run away Nun.