Afro-surrealism in theatre making: An exploration of how Afro-Surrealism can influence the 

making of the South African play Ngilande (2019) written, directed and performed by Sizwe 

Hlophe. 

by Nelson Sizwe Hlophe 

 

  

M.A. by Coursework and Research Report: Theatre and Performance 

 

Co-supervisors: Kamogelo Molobye and Kgafela Magogodi 

 

The University of the Witwatersrand 

 

Ethics Clearance protocol number: WSOA191110 

 

25 August 2021 
 



 1 

 

 

 

Table of Contents 

Introduction: Thakazela - Revisiting, Remembering and Recalling 

 

pg. 2 

Methodology 

 

pg. 3 

Contextualisation: Landa/Landa - the practice of Narrating and Retrieving 

 

pg. 5 

Literature Review: Ritual in Performance  pg. 7 

Theoretical application to Creative Process: Ngilande (2019) 

 

pg. 19 

Conclusion 

 

pg. 33 

Glossary 

 

pg. 36 

Links to videos 

 

pg. 38 

Links to Vocals 

 

pg. 39 

Reference List 

 

pg. 40 

  



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Thakazela: Revisiting, Remembering and Recalling 
I am Nelson Sizwe and I walk with oHlophe, Thumbeza kaMyeni, Ntombi zenda ngonyezi, 

Ezabafokazana zenda ngobumnyama, Sohlangana, Mlingo, Mashishwane, Zibini, Fanoyi. 

These are the ancestral spirits I have inherited from my father, Lucas ‘Juba’. I also walk with 

oZondi, Nondaba, Gagashe, Luqa, Nhlab’shile, Bhambatha kaMancinza wena owancinza 

isoka labuyela entombini. These are the ancestral spirits I have inherited from my mother, 

Nancy Gloria ‘Nomali’.1 As much as they carry my genetic make-up, they also carry my 

history. Through them I know that my lineage extends all the way to eSwatini. Their spirits 

watch over me and are my link to the Creator. They form the most important aspect of my 

understanding of the world. They form generational understandings my parents inherited and 

passed down to me. This has formed a crucial part of how I identify with the world. The clan 

names allow for a reciprocal engagement and performativity of fetching oneself and fetching 

others through the process of remembering and recalling to gather and exchange spiritually. 

We say izithakazelo to pay homage and respect to our ancestors who have passed but have 

allowed us respectability of historical and familial lineage as we live. We continue their legacy 

and the names in the present and through future generations to come. Even in death, the 

deceased place their faith in the living to lead them home. The deceased trust that the living 

will guide them to the rest of the family’s dead that watch over the family. The paper considers 

the cultural ritual practice of ukuLanda and seeks to theorise on the practice and its multi-

layered nature through African cosmology. 

UkuLanda is loosely defined as a ritual that involves the process of fetching or retrieving a 

deceased spirit from their site of passing to their space of resting. When not performed for those 

that have passed on, it not only denies them their place amongst those that have passed on 

before them, but it also denies a people their place in history and identification. One can 

consider the Trans-Atlantic slave trade (16th century to 19th century), which committed this act 

to a large population of the African continent. The people murdered and those that committed 

suicide in the middle passage lacked the adequate burial rights that their ancestors from their 

countries of origin, specifically those from African countries which practice this ritual, or ones 

similar to it, were afforded in order to lay them to rest respectably and in accordance to 

                                                 
1 The above mentioned are my family clan names – as inherited both from my father’s side of the family 

and my mother’s side of the family. Clan names are important within the South African context, and 

the Zulu culture, because they provide social and historical identity and identification which is 

predominantly used in cultural and traditional ceremonies.  



 3 

traditional and cultural practice(s). The deaths of these enslaved Africans also have relevance 

to Southern Africans because ancestral spirits exist in multiple categories depending on age, 

origin and relationship to the chosen individual (Mdlalose. 2009: 118 in Makanya, 2020: 7). 

To Southern Africans, the ancestral spirits of the Northern Africans would then be regarded as 

umndawe and ancestral spirits of the same bloodline as the healers would be regarded as 

umnguni. These will be discussed in the paper. Traditional healers work through these ancestral 

spirits (Makanya, 2020: 7). That is why the main character (Khosi) is a sangoma in the play. 

Afro-Surrealism as a performance theory is regarded as African-American2. This factor brings 

me to question its reliability when applied to a South African context. This factor launches an 

inquiry into a South African theatre performance theory derived from its paradigm (African 

Cosmology). 

In responding to this research question, the report seeks to be guided by, and investigate, the 

following research problems and objectives: 

1. What is the practice Afro-Surrealism? 

2. How does Afro-Surrealism practice influence the theatre making process of Ngilande? 

3. How does the actor formulate his characters within Afro-Surrealism practice? 

4. How are decisions made in the directing process of using Afro-Surrealism paradigm? 

5. How is the use of theatre devises negotiated within an Afro-Surrealism perspective in 

theatre making? 

Methodology 
This research enquiry makes use of qualitative research methods. It uses primary and secondary 

data. Primary data can be found in the manner in which it has been theorized through the lived 

experience of ukuLanda. The script, performance and observed cultural practice of ukuLanda 

(to be elaborated on further in the writing later) are key elements serving as primary sources to 

the research. A primary source can be understood as “original data collected for a specific goal” 

(Hox and Boeije, 2005: 593). The secondary sources result from the Desktop research engaged 

with through scholarly journals, articles, books and websites. Secondary sources can be 

understood as, “data originally collected for a different purpose and reused for another research 

question” (Hox and Boeije, 2005: 593). 

In addition, a Practice-Based research approach for this research report was utilised. This was 

done to illustrate that the practice and performance of ukuLanda, like Afro-Surrealism, 

                                                 
2 The foundation of Afro-Surrealism can be found, “in African American literature by the likes of Henry 

Dumas and Ralph Ellison” (Forthun, 2021: 11). 



 4 

attempts to retrieve and relocate the African’s identity and identification with performance 

within an African paradigm. The intention was to develop an African aesthetic for theatre that 

expands the notions of performance beyond what has been learned at academic institutions 

(Eurocentric approaches). African performance practices are incorporated in the discussion to 

articulate their relevance to Afro-Surrealism. 

There are two main forms of research that possess a research component in them (Candy, 2006: 

3). Candy (2006: 3) adds that these forms of research are generally used interchangeably, which 

may contribute to confusion. These types of researches that Candy (2006: 3) mentions are 

Practice-Based research and Practice-Led research. Therefore, it is essential that a clear 

understanding of these forms of research is established before the commencement of this paper. 

Practice-Led research can be understood as research that is “concerned with the nature of 

practice and leads to new knowledge that has operational significance for that practice.” 

(Candy, 2006: 3). According to Candy (2006: 3), the most important aspect of the research is 

to improve knowledge with regards to practice, or to improve knowledge within practice. 

On the other hand, a detailed definition of Practice-Based research is: 

an original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge partly by means of practice 

and the outcomes of that practice. Claims of originality and contribution to knowledge may be 

demonstrated through creative outcomes which may include artefacts such as images, music, 

designs, models, digital media or other outcomes such as performances and exhibitions. Whilst 

the significance and context of the claims are described in words, a full understanding can only 

be obtained with direct reference to those outcomes (Candy, 2006: 3). 

After addressing these two definitions, it is reasonable to settle for a Practice-Based research 

approach. An original play’s performance, creation and direction is investigated using Afro-

Surrealism as a lens. This makes a Practice-Based approach compatible with this research. The 

play (it’s script predominantly) forms an integral part of the research. 

According to Bendrups and Downes (2011: 25), practice and performance as research have 

been accepted as a valid approach in academic spheres, even though artist-academics have a 

consistent argument about the need for written documentation or other forms of documentation 

for the creative process. Scrivener in Bendrups and Downes (2011: 25) argues that art cannot 

nor is it its prerogative to create new knowledge. Scrivener in Bendrups and Downes (2011: 

26) continues to make the claim that the interpretation of artwork is subjective therefore, the 

likelihood of artworks functioning as shared knowledge is negligible. Scrivener in Bendrups 

and Downes (2011: 26) raises these points in his argument: a ‘body of shared knowledge’ uses 

justification as a means of authentication, most artworks are void of this particular feature and 



 5 

justification needs to be communicated alongside claimed knowledge as a prerequisite to 

claims of new knowledge. Even though Scrivener has argued thoroughly against the idea of 

performance and practice as research, other practitioners hold opposing views. “While the 

claims present a significant point of view, there are a number of strategies and approaches that 

are put in place to reveal and record knowledge or insights born from such research.” (Bendrups 

and Downes, 2011: 26). 

The data collection process of this research will be guided by Mackh’s (2013: 21-23) 

perspective on the arts research procedure.  Mackh’s (2013: 21-23) claims that it can be sub-

divided into four sections to consider: Firstly, maintaining accurate records. This was 

accomplished by accurate references that contributed to the research. These came in the form 

of academic literature and the lived experience (me leading my nephew’s spirit to our family’s 

burial ground) The script portrays the development from an earlier draft, 20-minutes 

presentation and final product (consisting of two performances) and images and short videos 

accompanying the research. One video is a segment of the performance and the other videos 

are of pivotal decisions taken during the rehearsal process. These have been uploaded onto 

YouTube and linked within the paper. Secondly, Tracking progress was accomplished with a 

performance comparison of the twenty-minute presentation and the final performance. Thirdly, 

Ongoing evaluation (consists of five categories: plan, act, observe, reflect and revise). Planning 

involved setting out the intended objectives prior to the rehearsal session. Acting, execution of 

the intended goals for that particular rehearsal were conducted. Observing, intervals were taken 

to note accomplishments. Observation created a platform for critical engagement of progress 

during the session. Reflection determined the success of the previous task(s). Revision 

determined whether or not to proceed to the next task depending on the success of the previous 

ones. Ongoing evaluation extended beyond the rehearsal space for this production. A case in 

point, the discovery of the semi-circle formation in the final performance. 

Regarding the fourth sub-division of the arts research procedure, which is stating my 

contribution to knowledge. This research aims to theorize African rituals such as UkuLanda as 

relevant performance theory through the analysis of Afro-surrealism. 

Contextualization: Landa/Landa - The practice of Narrating and 

Retrieving 
In 2017, when my nephew passed away in Port Shepstone, KwaZulu-Natal, I was given strict 

instructions by experienced elders on how to undertake my first performance of ukuLanda. 

Being my mother’s only son and eldest male figure in the family, the sacred duty of ukuLanda 



 6 

fell on me. The instructions from the elders required me to connect with my nephew’s spirit 

through the spoken word. This was to bring him to the awareness that I would lead him home. 

During this journey, I became a character playing a role in the drama of speaking to the 

departed. This journey began at the mortuary after the men that accompanied me had finished 

cleansing his body. They sang as they washed his body. I had to first present myself to my 

ancestors. The men stopped singing, and I called to each of my ancestors with umLahlankosi3 

in hand. I proceeded to explain to them the nature of the activity about to be performed. Finally, 

I spoke directly to my nephew’s spirit, explaining to him that we were going home. The men 

started singing. I started leading my nephew. I notified him when we exited the mortuary and 

entered the hearse. We left the men behind. Only the sound of the vehicle and rubber rolling 

on the tar enveloped my voice as I narrated the directions to him. We left everyone behind and 

went to the hospital, in which he took his final breath. 

As I stood beside the hospital bed where he had slept, I explained to him that this is where his 

spirit separated from his physical form. Then we proceeded to a momentary stop at the house 

he lived in, in Port Shepstone, for the community to pay their respects. The men had gotten 

there before us and sang with the community. Once this was done, we commenced with our 

journey to our family burial grounds at home, in Empendle. I relayed every minuscule detail 

of the journey from each geographical location we entered to every river we crossed till we 

entered the round hut in Empendle. We entered to wailing and singing. He was placed at 

umsamu and I placed umlahlankosi on his coffin. With this ritual or with this act or through 

this journey, I had brought him home to his people. This event was only part of the inspiration 

for the piece. 

The following year, 2018, I was deep in conversation with two of my Honours degree peers. 

In the confines of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s postgraduate quarters, We critically 

discussed a variety of Black related topics. Naturally, the conversation led to one of the most 

grotesque forms of antagonisms enacted by white people upon Black people, the Trans-Atlantic 

slave trade. As a Black person that had just recently grasped the importance of African burial 

rites, it was only natural that I interrogated the fate of the countless souls out at sea. Souls that 

belongs to Black women, children and men that died in the middle passage. It was at this point 

that I decided that I wanted to recreate and re-imagine the events of the slave trade from an 

                                                 
3 According to Edwards et al. (2011: 136) ukuLanda is performed with the use of a twig called ihlahla 

from a tree called umLahlankosi (Ziziphus mucronata). Edwards et al. (2011: 136) continue to explain 

that this plant is used to guide the spirit and as a tool to communicate by speaking to it. 



 7 

African perspective. I defaulted to using African cosmology as an approach because I was able 

to theorise and contextualise ukuLanda and its performance through it. However, this approach 

seemed to be limited to a lens customised for the Africans on the African continent. I then 

engaged with perspectives adopted by the African Diaspora and was introduced to Afro-

Surrealism. I decided to incorporate it into this research because of its characteristics that 

closely resembled ukuLanda. These characteristics being the importance on placing the Black 

person central to his/her paradigm; and retrieving the person/soul/identity to relocate it to its 

rightful place. Another characteristic that made me settle with Afro-Surrealism was that 

historical context was regarded as important. This factor is also found in the practice of 

ukuLanda in the recitation of izithakazelo. My creative process then became a journey of 

retrieving from my experience of ukuLanda, history and Afro-Surrealist theory. 

Literature Review: Ritual in Performance 
African Cosmology 

Ngilande (2019), a production written and performed by myself, engaged with the practice of 

remembering and applying the practice of ukuLanda. I first became introduced to the ritual 

when I had to fetch my nephew’s spirit. UkuLanda as a ritual is an integral part of African 

cosmology. African cosmology is not a standalone concept, but it is an aspect of African 

Metaphysics. According to Makanya (2020: 1), African metaphysics is a comprehensive field 

that addresses numerous concepts such as causality, cosmology, methodological perspectives, 

education, development and so on. African Metaphysics can be defined as, “the African way 

of perceiving, interpreting and making meaning out of interactions, among beings, and reality 

in general” (Ozumba, 2004 as cited in Mawere, 2011: 17). Ngilande (2019) makes sense of its 

universe through holistically engaging with the supernatural and the physical environment. 

According to Mawere (2011: 41), at the forefront of the African cosmology is how the African 

is holistically interconnected with beings and forces. These can be explained with the 

hierarchical ordering which can be understood as follows: 

Expressed anthropocentrically, God is the Originator and Sustainer of man; the Spirits explain 

the destiny of man; Man is the centre of this ontology; the Animals, Plants and natural 

phenomena and objects constitute the environment in which man lives, provide a means of 

existence and, if need be, man establishes a mystical relationship with them (Mbiti, 1996: 68). 

 

Mawere (2011: 18) further reiterates that this has influenced the African perception of reality 

as a fusion of matter and spirit by either co-existing or existing as separate entities. Since 



 8 

African cosmology is perceived relative to the human, it is incomprehensible to consider its 

categories as autonomous  because, “it is believed that humans can control both the natural and 

supernatural worlds and thus become the centres around which natural and supernatural forces 

interact” (Forde, 1954, Petrus and Bogopa, 2007 as cited in Makanya, 2020: 2). This study 

explores the supernatural forces involved in African Cosmology. This paper and its concurrent 

theatre production draw on, and affirm, the forms and functions of Creator Beings, Spirits and 

Ancestral Spirits as understood by Africans such as amaZulu among who I grew up. Without 

ukuLanda a soul cannot be an ancestral spirit and cannot communicate directly to Creator 

beings on behalf of the living. 

According to Makanya (2020: 2), Africans possess a multitude of Gods that can also be referred 

to as deities and divinities. Mawere (2011: 39) states that God is at the pinnacle of the hierarchy. 

Ngubane (1977) in Makanya (2020:3) claims that the creator beings live up above (eZulwini) 

in relation to the spirits of the deceased who are found down below (Abaphansi). This can be 

further understood as, “below God follows the ancestors, particularly national or clan ancestors 

then, family ancestors.” (Mawere, 2011: 39). Etim (2013: 13) shares the same notions by 

expressing that God is a transcendental pure spirit, because of this character only ancestral 

spirits and localised deities may assume the roles of intermediaries. The spirits of the deceased 

(Ancestral spirits) possess a lesser spiritual force in comparison to Spirits (localised deities) 

because they have never existed as humans (Makanya, 2020:3). According to Etim (2013: 13) 

Spirits are deities that are spiritual in nature but are localised vastly in accordance with the 

African’s existential importance such as thunder, fertility, agriculture and war. These Spirits 

can be considered “representatives of the complexes of the personal unconsciousness. In 

addition, ancestors in sacred animals, the symbolism of totems (animals, birds, snakes), and 

ancestors dwelling in sacred places (rivers, caves, mountains, sea, forests) are personifications 

of the complexes of the collective unconsciousness” (Mlisa, 2009 as cited in Makanya, 2020: 

3). These spirits can be recognized as clan ancestors (Makanya, 2020: 3). These spirits bear 

relation to traditional healing and types of knowledge that can be accessed (Makanya, 2020: 

3). In addition, the most efficient way to understand this feature is by studying the dreams 

healers have when they are being called to initiation (Makanya, 2020: 3). 

In an interview with Makanya (2020: 3), Makhosi Dabula relays an account of an underwater 

dream she had when she was young. She states that in this recurring dream, she would see 

inzunza (mermaid-like being) that communicated with her in isindawe, a language only 

understood by those initiated in the tradition. When Makhosi Dabula notified her mother about 

this, her mother declared that her gobela studied under the ancestors under water. In this 



 9 

instance the mermaid-like being, “presents itself as a manifestation of the type of wisdom, 

knowledge and tradition, she is chosen to access through initiation with a teacher that went 

through a similar initiation, through the water.” (Makanya, 2020:3). Water plays a pivotal role 

in the African cosmology. It can be regarded, “as the heart of both spiritual and physical life, 

the spirit world is regarded as the ultimate source of such life-sustaining powers.” (Bernard, 

2003 and 2013 in Makanya, 2003:3). The call to initiation is not limited to dreams about water 

and inzunza but may appear as a leopard and mentor as in the case of Makhosi Nobengula. 

According to Makanya (2020: 4), these facets in Nobengula’s dream signified her mentor, a 

sangoma, that would help her in the initiation process and the leopard signified that her type of 

initiation would be that of a sangoma. Nobengula would use a practice particular to izangoma, 

that of the bone oracle or divination bones (Makhanya, 2020: 4). Divination bones can be best 

understood as: 

made up of a few trinkets including the bones of animals such as goats, lions and leopards. The divination 

bones are much more than just a clinical instrument and as such are not only used as a medical tool, in 

keeping with the holistic orientation of the traditional healing model, “diagnostic bones may also be used 

to predict economic, social and political problems as well as giving an indication of how these problems 

can be overcome” (Sodi, 2009: 62) in (Makanya, 2020: 4). 

 

According to Makanya (2020: 5), these spirits can be addressed using the Zulu term, iThonga 

(as overseer of the site in which it exists) and are different from ancestral spirits. According to 

Edwards (1985), Myers (1993) and Ngubane (1977) in Edwards et al. (2011: 132), “ancestors 

inhabit the realm of Spirit, which is recognized as beyond human categories of time and space.” 

Ancestral spirits are the spirits of the deceased family members or clan and they reside in a 

level lower than the spirits that have been discussed in this section so far (Ross, 2010: 45 in 

Makanya, 2020: 5). Edward et al. (2011: 136) explain that ancestral spirits are associated with 

angels and God (Mvelinqangi). In addition, Edward et al. (2011: 135) mention that ancestral 

spirits serve as intermediaries between God and humans because they have ventured further 

than the humans arriving closer to God. From the African perspective death is not regarded as 

an ending of life, rather it is considered to be a continuation (Makanya, 2020: 5). According to 

Etim (2013:13), Ancestral spirits earn the ability to interfere in the affairs of the living through 

being revered and good standing members of society when they were still alive. Edwards et al. 

(2011: 134) believe that ancestral spirits should not be offended because it may result in 

punishment. It is also important to note that ancestral spirits are not entities that punish only, 

but they offer guidance as well (Edward et al., 2011: 134). Ancestral spirits are able to play 

these roles because they “are part of us and people who happened to live with us on earth. 



 10 

When we bury the dead, we are only burying the body, but not the spirit because the spirit 

continues to stay with us, and they stay at their special place called umsamu” (Mkhize, 2013 

in Makanya, 2020: 6). Umsamu is a traditional African shrine (Mkhize, 2013 in Makanya, 

2020: 6). It is also important to note that ancestral spirits exist in multiple categories depending 

on age, origin and relationship to the chosen individual (Mdlalose. 2009: 118 in Makanya, 

2020: 7). In relevance to this paper, only the Mnguni and Mndawe are discussed. Traditional 

healers work through these ancestral spirits (Makanya, 2020: 7). The Mnguni are the ancestral 

spirits that belong to the same bloodline as the healer (Nkabinde, 2008 in Makanya, 2020: 7). 

uMnguni “is a collective ethnic name that encompasses the Xhosa, Zulu and Swati peoples. 

The “foreign” ancestors he identifies as umndzawe (Swati) or umndawe (in isiZulu)” 

(Thornton, 2015 in Makanya, 2020: 7). According to Makanya (2020: 8), umndawe are a result 

of the integration of people of the North into South Africa through marriage, trade or other 

social means. This portrays the diversity in African cosmology (Makanya, 2020: 8). Unlike the 

spirits and ancestral spirits (part of the supernatural, immaterial and spiritual worlds), humans 

and the environment occupy separate levels of the African cosmology hierarchy (Mbiti, 1991, 

Ngubane, 1977, Sundkler, 1961 and Chonco, 1972 in Makanya, 2020: 8). 

Makanya (2020: 8) emphasises that African cosmology's environmental or ecological aspect is 

intricate and dynamic. Reason for this is that the environment can function independently and 

as a space for human occupation (Makanya, 2020: 8). According to Bernard (2003:149) in 

Makanya (2020: 8), nature (plants, forests, bodies of water and mountains) play a pivotal role 

in traditional healer training and practice. This point can be further understood by noting that: 

aspects of the ecology such as the movements of the sun, moon and stars and elements like wind, 

lightening and water can also be seen as signs and communication to be interpreted as from the spiritual 

realm.  In this way, the environment can act upon and is acted upon by humans because of the spiritual 

aspects of it. (Mokgobi, 2012 in Makanya, 2020: 9). 

 

The environmental aspect of African cosmology is also characteristic of the importance of 

animals and plants (Etim, 2013: 15). Etim (2013: 15) emphasises that animals and plants 

possess spiritual dimensions but not all of them carry the same importance and reverence. Some 

animals and plants possess “extra-ordinary powers that can be manipulated to man’s advantage 

or disadvantage. Plants like acantusmontanus - Leopard’s tongue, Justiciaschimperi - hunter’s 

weed, amphianitica – calmwood, alligator pepper, bitter kola, African pepper, and animals like 

the Owl, Crocodile, Python, etc are of this characterization.” (Etim, 2013: 15). UmLahlankosi 

– Ziziphus mucronata is part of this list of important plants.   It is important to note that some 



 11 

animals through sacrifice act as intermediaries between ancestral spirits and humans (Makanya, 

2020: 9). According to Mawere (2011: 42), from an African context, the human being can be 

understood as yielding a dualistic conception. According to Ozumba, (2004) in Etim (2013: 

14), the existence of the mortal body and immortal soul for humans is undeniable for an African 

perspective. Mawere (2011: 42) explains that the human is made up of the material/composite 

(body) and immaterial/ transcendent (spirit). The human being through Black Africa is similar 

but is described differently depending on society (Mawere, 2011: 43). Four characteristics of 

the human being emerge within the African cosmology. These aspects are the human as the 

physical body, soul, shadow and divine human. According to Makanya (2020: 10), the Spirit 

(uMoya) is the highest human faculty and it bears close relation to higher spiritual beings such 

as creator beings. According to Mawere (2011) in Makanya (2020: 10), this idea of the Spirit 

can be regarded in Jungian terms as the collective consciousness that reveals itself through 

dreams, visions and the like to drawing the human understanding to a pre-determined destiny. 

To further the investigation of the human Spirit, Makanya (2020: 10) examines it through its 

Zulu meaning (uMoya), which is directly translated as wind (can be found anywhere and 

originates from nature). This leads us to uMphefumulo (breath/soul). Its relationship to the 

Spirit (uMoya) can be understood as being, “similar in relation to the translucent, intangible 

qualities of wind; Umoya; breath belongs to an individual person and speaks to the 

individualised aspect of umoya.” (Makanya, 2020: 11). The soul is further categorised as the 

human mind and spiritual mind (Bowen, 1993 in Makanya, 2020: 11). In addition, Makanya 

(2020: 11) claims that this categorisation of the soul is beneficial to the understanding of how 

it can access both physical realm and spirit. The spiritual mind grants the human capabilities 

to understand the ancestral spirits, Spirits and creator beings. Makhosi Lebembe makes an 

interesting point regarding the Spirit in an interview with Makanya (2020: 11). He claims that, 

“the soul, no, the spirit does not die, the flesh dies and the spirit always remembers. And the 

spirit goes with the mind… So, our soul journeys forever and they always remember where 

they come from, what we did and all those things.” (Makanya, 2020: 11). This characteristic 

can be identified in the human mind. The human mind is the faculty of the soul that seeks to 

comprehend the spiritual in relation to the physical realm (Makanya, 2020: 12). According to 

Makanya (2020: 13), the human mind stays attached to the soul of the ancestral spirits to 

remember their descendants and take care of them. In addition, “it implies that as descendants 

we can take on the qualities and characteristics of our ancestral spirits who continue to live 

through us or have access to us in this realm.” (Makanya, 2020: 13). Makanya (2020: 14) claims 

that the soul is housed by the body (mineral organism) and the soul uses the body as a vehicle 



 12 

to navigate through the physical realm. She adds that the body can be further understood by 

considering it as two layers (Physical body and Etheric body/Aura). In isiZulu they are regarded 

as uMzimba and isiThunzi (the Shadow) respectively (Makanya, 2020: 14). According to 

Bowen (1993) in Makanya (2020: 14), isiThunzi is a human faculty responsible for displaying 

life force or the person's energy. Mutwa (2003) in Makanya (2020: 14) explains that the etheric 

body is gradually developed from birth (not inherited) based on human experience and 

memory. He adds that this body is designed to withstand this world, and its spiritual connection 

to the physical body gives it the ability to see into the future through dreams because it is ahead 

of the physical body. Makanya (2020: 15) reiterates that the physical body is a point of 

convergence for the spirit and soul because of its ability to navigate the physical realm. Since 

the human is both matter and spirit, this makes the human existence as an intermediary between 

these two mentioned aspects (Makanya, 2020: 15). As a result, “The ancestral spirits need their 

descendants for them to continue to live on in the spiritual realm.” (Makanya, 2020: 15). 

Ngubane (1977) in Makanya (2020: 15) explains this phenomenon through the concept of 

integrated and unintegrated ancestors by asserting that for, “the deceased to move from their 

shadow or isthunzi form to their soul form, a sacrifice needs to be performed by their living 

descendants. This sacrifice integrates them with the ancestors and brings them back home as 

idlozi” (Ngubane, 1977 in Makanya, 2020: 15-16). In Nguni culture the slaughtering of a beast 

is pivotal in the send-off process of the deceased and it is accompanied by the ukuLanda ritual. 

According to Edwards et al. (2011: 136), this sacred ritual is performed with ihlahla (twig) 

from umlahlankosi (Ziziphus Mucronata) in situations where the deceased died away from their 

home. iHlahla from umlahlankosi is used as a link for communication between the deceased 

and the living (Edwards et al., 2011: 136). The task of leading the deceased back home is 

performed by a close family member (usually an elderly person) who abides by this family 

tradition (Edwards et al., 2011: 136). UkuLanda “is regarded as respect for the completion of 

a process that links the living and the living dead” (Edwards et al., 2011: 136). 

Africans believe in human’s immortality and relation to higher spiritual beings. There are 

conditions to this immortality such as the need to transition from soul to spirit and the 

importance of being located amongst ancestral spirits at home. This makes ukuLanda 

paramount to the African paradigm. UkuLanda serves as a conduit between the living and the 

dead. In the performance of this ritual the gap between the material and immaterial is bridged. 

This creates the holistic experience of existence African cosmology is rooted in. 

According to Anyanwu (1967) and Esin (1982) in Etim (2013: 12), African thought is 

scientific, logical and analytical because the African mind can view the relationships between 



 13 

phenomena and analyse circumstances on the basis of cause and effect, and balance and 

conflict. The African paradigm is scientific, logical, and analytical to affirm this point because 

it understands the universe through “hierarchical modes and categories rather than in single, 

isolated individualistic phenomenon” (Anyanwu, 1967 and Esin, 1982 in Etim, 2013: 12). This 

makes ukuLanda suitable for the purposes of this research concerning African performance. 

This is because the performance of this ritual engages multiple hierarchical modes and 

categories in the African understanding of the universe. This approach is an integral aspect of 

the creative process because what was seen as the final performance was an amalgamation of 

activities. These activities being: Acting, directing, writing, dramaturgy, design, choreography 

and dance. These activities worked together to create a world for the audience to view, using  

African cosmology as a lens. 

African cosmology forms the foundations of Afrocentric approaches as emphasized when 

Mazama (2003) expresses that the spiritual - the relationship between the spiritual and physical 

- and interconnectedness must be dominant in Afrocentric methods (Exkano, 2013: 72). 

Afrocentric methods form an integral part of Afro-Surrealism. Asante (1999: 84) claims that 

Afrocentricity theory is not exclusive to the African Diaspora because its roots can be found 

on the African continent, where its largest following is established. Afrocentricity can be 

defined as “a consciousness, quality of thought, mode of analysis, and an actionable perspective 

where Africans seek, from agency, to assert subject place within the context of African history” 

(Asante, 2007: 16 as cited in Exkano, 2013: 66). This is a concept also shared by Afro-

Surrealism. Afro-Surrealism in its modern form is viewed from a Black American paradigm as 

noted as follows, “Afrosurrealism is a genre of Black American writing wherein Black artists 

mobilize the aesthetic techniques about the particular experience of being Black in America, 

expressing the surreal conditions with which Black Americans have encountered within the 

United States’ special brand of systemic racism, which manifested in Jim Crow, the Ku Klux 

Klan, the American Neo-Nazi movement, the American Alt-Right, etc. etc.” (Spencer, 2016: 

209). With this definition taken into consideration, a further investigation is made to link Afro-

Surrealism to a local, South African, context for the relevance of this paper. 

 

Afro-Surrealism 

Afro-Surrealism is “a form of black speculative fiction that began in the 1920s, gained 

popularity in the 1960s, and has now entered a third wave – closely mirrors its aesthetic cousin 

Afro-Futurism in its incorporation of technology into various texts.” (Spencer, 2016: 209). 

According to Spencer (2016: 217-218), Afrofuturism and Afro-Surrealism depend on the 



 14 

fantastic to better comprehend racial oppression but Afro-Surrealism attempts to merge the 

past with the present, while Afro-Futurism explores the importance of Black creators of 

futuristic technologies. Afro-Surrealism also approaches creating that is rooted in exploration 

from a Black lens. Francis (2013: 97) also enunciates that Afro-Surrealism places Blackness at 

the centre of surrealism and modernism as the manifestations of Black artists’ modalities. For 

this research, Afro-Surrealism is best described by a document by D. Scott Miller outlining its 

principles. This document is known as the Afrosurreal Manifesto: Black is the new black – a 

21st century Manifesto (Miller, 2013: 113).  Within this Manifesto, Miller (2013: 115-117) 

structures these principles in ten points. Miller’s (2013: 115-116) first point introduces the 

readers to key individuals that have contributed to the Afro-Surrealism movement. These 

mentioned individuals include Wifredo Lam, Jean-Micheal Basquiat, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry 

Dumas, Victor Lavelle, Darius James, Frantz Fanon, Jean Genet, Chester Himes, William S. 

Burroughs, Reed and Zora Neale Hurston (Miller, 2013: 115-116). As much as it is 

conventional, Hurston’s Novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God uses conventions that 

transcend novel genres by incorporating folktale and oral tradition (Crabtree, 1985: 58). 

According to Crabtree (1985: 65), Hurston uses performance and folk culture to express 

courage, creativity in daily encounters with poverty, deprivation, catastrophe and imminent 

death. This can be deduced in the suggested meaning of the book’s title which is, “men and 

women, confronting "dark" unknowns such as loss and death, create or recognize a force behind 

reality that makes sense out of it.”(Crabtree, 1985: 65). This is in line with the second point of 

the manifesto which declares that, “Afrosurreal presupposes that beyond this visible world, 

there is an invisible world striving to manifest, and it is our job to uncover it.” (Miller, 2013: 

116). The author continues to illustrate within his second point that nature (inclusive of human 

nature) brings into being more surreal encounters than other processes (Miller, 2013: 116). 

Miller’s (2013: 116) third point emphasizes that Afro-Surrealists look to the past from a 

contemporary paradigm to appropriate from it. He continues by pointing out that Afro-

Surrealism may look at mental illness as an encounter with a divine entity and the legitimacy 

of magic is recognized. The fourth point of the manifesto declares that, “Afrosurrealists use 

excess as the only legitimate means of subversion, and hybridization as a form of 

disobedience.” (Miller, 2013: 116). Within the fourth point Miller (2013: 116) further explains 

that the reason for the distortion of reality in Afro-Surrealism is to achieve emotional impact. 

The following point that is expressed by Miller (2013: 116) is that Afrosurrealists attempt to 

create an artistic aesthetic that expresses beauty, opulence and is whimsical. Miller (2013: 116) 

further emphasizes the impossibility of viewing an image objectively because the concept of 



 15 

an objective image does not exist. In the sixth point the author states that, “Afrosurrealists are 

highly-paid short- term commodities (as opposed to poorly-paid long-term ones, a.k.a. slaves).” 

Miller (2013: 116) further describes within this point that the Afro-Surrealist existence is one 

that is not bound by social constructs, in effect the Afro-Surrealist may don multiple identities, 

identify with different names and can be ambiguous if they so choose. In the next point the 

author declares that, “The Afrosurrealist wears a mask while reading Leopold Senghor.” 

(Miller, 2013: 117). In the eighth point Miller (2013: 117) expresses that it is in the absurdity 

of a ‘post-racial’ existence that Afro-Surrealists strive to mine meaning. The ninth point 

maintains that whether it is in fashion or theatre, Afro-Surrealism brings to light the post-

apocalyptic elements of contemporary existence in an eloquent but blunt manner (Miller, 2013: 

117). The final point of the manifesto is, “Afrosurrealists create sensuous gods to hunt down 

beautiful collapsed icons.” (Miller, 2013: 117). As a further explanation, Afro-Surrealism has 

the following characteristics: 

Afrosurrealism is about the present. There is no need for tomorrow’s- tongue speculation about 

the future. Concentration camps, bombed- out cities, famines, and enforced sterilization have 

already happened. To the Afro-surrealist, the Tasers are here. The Four Horsemen rode through 

too long ago to recall. What is the future? The future has been around so long it is now the past. 

Afrosurrealists expose this from a “future- past” called RIGHT NOW (Miller, 2013:114). 

Time is a key factor within Afro-Surrealism. Spencer (2016: 213-214) claims that to attain the 

relevance of history and an African notion of temporality, one that merges past, present, and 

future imaginings of events that are contemporary, Afro-Surreal narratives include cinematic 

storytelling devices into their narratives. He continues to say that historical traumas can be re-

imagined using Afro-Surrealism cinematic qualities. The idea of using new media in drama 

was also advocated for by Dhlomo (Wenzel, 2005: 60). Afro-Surrealism possesses a variety of 

facets such as, “The dreamlike effects of surrealism such as abstraction, animation, parody, 

symbolism, incongruity, play of thought, direct manipulation (of the film image), and emphasis 

on the unconscious may seem out of this world, but in fact surrealism was profoundly 

connected to and illuminative of the mysteries, ambiguities, and strivings of actual political 

and lived reality.” (Francis, 2016: 47). Afro-Surrealism also places importance in the mystical 

and the metaphorical as follows: 

Leopold Senghor, poet, first president of Senegal, and African surrealist, made this distinction: 

“European Surrealism is empirical. African Surrealism is mystical and metaphorical.” Jean- 

Paul Sartre said that the art of Senghor and the African surrealist (or Negritude) movement “is 

revolutionary because it is surrealist, but itself is surrealist because it is black.” Afro surrealism 



 16 

sees that all “others” who create from their actual, lived experience are surrealist, per Frida 

Kahlo (Miller, 2013:114). 

According to Spencer (2016: 213), Afro-Surrealism displays both reality and fantasy and, in 

effect, brings to light the absurdity of ‘real life’. Spencer (2016: 217-218) mentions that Afro-

Surrealism relies on the fantastic for the comprehension of racial oppression. 

A statement that encapsulates all the above information is that Afro-Surrealism “teeters on the 

edge of folklore, myth, fable, history and science, bridging all through humor, a dreamlike 

narrative, and an uncertain optimism about the future.” (Spencer, 2016: 210). 

From a global context, Afro-Surrealism exists in the form of Black Surrealism. It “is a broader 

category than Miller’s Afrosurrealism, as it is surrealism used by Black artists worldwide to 

artistically express their lived experience in a world largely dominated by the powers of white 

supremacy (Jackson, 2019: 5-6). It is of importance to understand that Afro-Surrealism’s 

predecessor is Black Surrealism, mainly because Afro-Surrealism’s conceptualisation is 

derived from Black Surrealism. This is stipulated by the author when he says, “With the 

publication of Negro, the seeds of the American iteration of Black Surrealism – what would 

later become Miller’s Afro-Surrealism - had been planted.” (Jackson, 2019: 14). Jackson (2019: 

16) also makes mention of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man published in New York in 1952 as a 

seminal text to American Black Surrealism, which would progress to be known as Miller’s 

Afrosurrealism. Jackson (2019: 82) mentions Miller’s reference to Suzanne Césaire’s creation 

of the Marvelous within the context of Black Surrealism as paramount to Miller’s idea of 

Afrosurrealism. Jeremy A. Jackson explains the Marvelous as, “powers and ideas that exist 

beyond our tangible reality, bringing the surrealist’s art into a realm that transcends simple 

“reality,” including things like dreams, religions, mythologies, and the supernatural.” (Jackson, 

2019: 3). The Marvelous has created a platform for the Afro-Surrealist to be able to make the 

invisible visible. This has been achieved mostly by using myth. Myth in the context of Afro-

Surrealism can be understood as, “shorthand for Baraka’s “entirely different world organically 

connected to this one.”” (Jackson, 2019: 8). In addition, Jackson (2019: 8) explains that the 

Mythical world functions differently to ours and it is for this reason that artistic production 

within myth permits for revelation. It permits for the exposure of invisible information, 

possibilities and the resistance against hegemonic power structures (Jackson, 2019: 8). Jackson 

(2019: 3) explains that the Marvelous allows the Afro-Surrealist to move away from realist 

structures to create a world that exposes racism. These factors demonstrate Black Surrealism’s 

impact on Afro-Surrealism. According to Jackson (2019: 6) Black Surrealism can be traced 

back to the 20th century with the Negritude movement. Senghor (1974: 269) lays claims that 



 17 

he, alongside a small group of his peers launched the Negritude movement in the thirties. An 

explanation of the Negritude movement is as follows: 

Négritude was a multifaceted movement focused on the opposition of global white hegemonic 

racism by way of art, politics, and philosophy in order to create a unified Black community that 

could stand up to the powers of imperialism and colonialism. The word Négritude was 

originally coined by Léopold Sédhar Senghor and Aimé Césaire in the literary journal 

L’etudiant Noir, and came to represent an embrace and celebration of Blackness – specifically 

in Francophone colonies such as Senegal and Martinique, where both poets would later become 

prominent statesmen (Jackson, 2019: 81-82). 

According to Senghor (1974: 272), Negritude was developed in three stages: Firstly, the 

rejection of Eurocentric ideologies, then the discarding of prejudiced notions of approaching 

racism (antiracist racism) and finally the realisation that all classical civilisations found on the 

Mediterranean latitude have not only culturally but have also biologically appropriated from 

each other. This has led to the Negritude movement deeply embedding itself in Black people’s 

values, whilst simultaneously keeping an open mind to other people’s cultures (Senghor, 1974: 

272). This is a crucial aspect to understand about Afro-Surrealism. Afro-Surrealism having 

been derived from a Negritude school of thought does not have malicious intentions towards 

western ideologies. Instead it directs its focus to pro Black concepts. Stephan Howe claims 

that, “the founding figures of Negritude emphasized African cultural and psychological 

distinctiveness but did not, on the whole, have a separatist political programme or even, 

necessarily, any political programme at all.” (Howe, 1998: 24). According to Howe (1998:24), 

Negritude has developed into a major influence for Afrocentrism and theories that are related 

to it. This facet of Negritude also links Afrocentrism to Afro-Surrealism. 

Molefi Kete Asante (scholar and author) raises a point that displays Afrocentrism’s relation to 

Afro-Surrealism. Asante (1999: 84) claims that the theory of Afrocentricity is not exclusive to 

the African Diaspora because its roots can be found on the African continent, where its largest 

following is established. It can be defined as “a consciousness, quality of thought, mode of 

analysis, and an actionable perspective where Africans seek, from agency, to assert subject 

place within the context of African history” (Asante, 2007: 16 as cited in Exkano, 2013: 

66).The characteristics of Afrocentrism are as follows: 

(1) An intense interest in psychological location as determined by symbols, motifs, rituals and 

signs; 

(2) a commitment to finding the subject-place of Africans in any social, political, economic, or 

religious phenomenon with implications for questions of sex, gender, and class. 



 18 

(3) a defense of African cultural elements as historically valid in the context of art, music, and 

literature and a defense of pan-African connection based on broad responses to conditions, 

environments, and situations over time; 

(4) a celebration of “centerdness” and agency and a commitment to lexical refinement that 

eliminates pejoratives, including sexual and gender pejoratives, about Africans or other 

people; and 

(5) a powerful imperative from historical sources to revise the collective text of African people 

as one in constant and consistent search from liberation and Maat. (Asante, 1999: 4). 

These characteristics as mentioned above can also be found in Afro-Surrealism. Afro-

Surrealism strongly uses metaphors and symbolism. Afro-Surrealism places great importance 

on time (the future-past called the right now) and engaging the historical aspect of African 

lives. It embeds itself in the portrayal of African realities and struggles in the pursuit of 

liberation from oppression. Afro-Surrealism views from an African perspective. These are key 

aspects of Afrocentrism. These aspects of Afrocentrism are highlighted by Asante (1999: 81) 

when he concurs with a view made by Appiah in a philosophical journal. Appiah in Asante 

(1999: 81) notes that the Afrocentric movement can be regarded as a paradigm. 

As much as Afro-Surrealism might be a concept that has matured in a Black American context; 

its roots can be found as close as Africa. This deduction can be made from the examination of 

multiple theories, paradigms and historical movements. African cosmology, Black Surrealism, 

the Negritude movement, Black theatre, Afrocentrism, and ritual can be seen to encompass the 

same values and principles of Afro-Surrealism. These values and principles campaign for the 

liberation from oppression. They place the African’s perspective of the world central. Afro-

Surrealism speaks of the representation of African narratives by the use of multiple approaches 

such as metaphor, ritual, magic and fantasy which gives it its surreal characteristics. Scrutinised 

carefully, these approaches in African cosmology are elements of its reality. Therefore, what 

is considered as surreal to one, is the other’s actual lived experiences. For these reasons, Afro-

Surrealism can exist in the context of a South African play. 

UkuLanda as ritual seeks to liberate the soul of the deceased by taking them from the site of 

death and placing them home through a rigorous process of narration (family history and 

geography) and performance. This is similar to Afro-surrealism that seeks to retrieve African 

identity that has suffered social death through oppression. Afro-surrealism also does this 

through rigorously engaging with history (an approach it shares with Afrocentricity). 

By considering the above, this study explores the supernatural forces involved in African 

Cosmology. 



 19 

Theoretical application to Creative Process: Ngilande (2019) 
This paper and its concurrent theatre production draw on, and affirm, the forms and functions 

of Creator Beings, Spirits and Ancestral Spirits as understood by Africans such as amaZulu 

among who I grew up. Without ukuLanda a soul cannot be an ancestral spirit and cannot 

communicate directly to Creator beings on behalf of the living. Khosi4, the main character of 

this play, experiences this predicament. He along with his people are robbed of their burial rites 

when they sacrifice their lives. For this reason, the beginning of the play has a double meaning. 

Firstly, to represent his spirit roaming the earth. Secondly, for him to fetch the other spirits 

roaming the earth. This brought the audience into his world, making the invisible visible. This 

is a concept that is understood as the Marvellous in Afro-Surrealism. According to Jackson 

(2019: 82), Suzanne Césaire’s creation of the Marvellous within the context of Black 

Surrealism as paramount to Miller’s idea of Afrosurrealism. Jeremy A. Jackson explains the 

Marvellous as, “powers and ideas that exist beyond our own tangible reality, bringing the 

surrealist’s art into a realm that transcends simple “reality,” including things like dreams, 

religions, mythologies, and the supernatural.” (Jackson, 2019: 3). African drama originated in 

the form of Sympathetic Magic, a combination of religious or magical ritual, rhythmic dances 

and song that were believed to produce what they mimicked (Dhlomo, 1977: 3). The 

Marvellous has created a platform for the Afro-Surrealist to be able to make the invisible 

visible. This has been achieved mostly by using myth. Myth in the context of Afro-Surrealism 

can be understood as, “shorthand for Baraka’s “entirely different world organically connected 

to this one.”” (Jackson, 2019: 8). In addition, Jackson (2019: 8) explains that the Mythical 

world functions differently to ours and it is for this reason that artistic production within myth 

permits for revelation. It permits for the exposure of invisible information, possibilities and the 

resistance against hegemonic power structures (Jackson, 2019: 8). Jackson (2019: 3) explains 

that the Marvellous allows the Afro-Surrealist to move away from realist structures to create a 

world that exposes racism. Mystical and metaphorical representations in Afro-Surrealism are 

used to interrogate oppressive structures (Spencer, 2016: 217-218). According to Dhlomo 

(1977: 3), since Africans believed in the principle of Sympathetic Magic (that like produced 

like) they were extremely to imitate – to – dramatize whatever result they desired to 

accomplish, and their dramatic representations of battle, pain and other things, were vivid, 

                                                 
4 Derived from Makhosi. This term is used amongst traditional healers as a sign of respect and can be translated 

into meaning King (Nene, 2016: 1633). A further elaboration on this point is, “that every person who dies enters 

the world of the departed and automatically becomes a king (makhosi), since they have conquered the world of 

the living and now, they are in the world of kings ‘amakhosi’.” (Nene, 2016: 1633). 

https://youtu.be/OLXHAPaEuwI


 20 

artistic, realistic performances. Sympathetic Magic is a dramatic tool used to express the 

experience of the African life. Death and burial rites are common experiences in African life. 

The performance of a burial rite such as ukuLanda can be considered as Sympathetic Magic 

because of its evident combination of performance and religious or magical ritual intent. This 

warrants the use of ritual in the play Ngilande (2019). The use of ritual in theatre can also be 

found in the work of Ghanaian Playwright, Efua Sutherland. Anne V. Adams acknowledges 

Sutherland’s focus on the “revis(it)ing of ritual” but also expresses that Sutherland’s works’ do 

not completely investigate local cultural traditions and their interactions with European cultural 

and political forms (da Silva, 2005: 258). Ngilande (2019) revisits a cultural tradition 

(ukuLanda) and revises its interaction with a European cultural and political form (the trans-

Atlantic Slave trade and the western theatre space). In Ngilande (2019), ukuLanda is performed 

by a spirit leading the living. This is meaningful because firstly this role reversal establishes a 

new world that operates with different rules. Secondly, ukuLanda is performed by the living 

for the deceased. As a result, this exposes the social death5 that African people endure due to 

anti-Black antagonisms and subjugation. Lastly, ukuLanda as a performance device 

deconstructs traditionally western forms of engaging narrative and existence within space and 

time in theatre. African drama places importance on the mystical and metaphorical 

representations of Black lives. Within the context of this play and paper, the Marvellous and 

Sympathetic Magic allowed me to address the injustices of the slave trade as follows: 

Khosi as a spirit had a red and black shawl (ibhayi) with a lion print wrapped around his waist 

over another shawl.6 According to Nene (2016: 1633), a traditional healer's attire is chosen by 

their ancestors and is a representation of rank/qualification amongst other traditional healers. 

In addition, Nene (2016: 1643) further explains that colours on ibhayi carry meaning. In the 

case of Khosi the red and black represents umndiki7 that is performed by the vocalist in the 

production. The lion on ibhayi carried significant spiritual connotations because ancestors in 

sacred animals, the symbolism of totems (animals, birds, snakes), and ancestors dwelling in 

sacred places (rivers, caves, mountains, sea, forests) are personifications of the complexes of 

the collective unconsciousness” (Mlisa, 2009 in Makanya, 2020: 3). As a performance device, 

the red and black ibhayi was crucial in the portrayal of different characters because of its pre-

                                                 
5 “Social death bars the slave from access to narrative, at the level of temporality; but it also does so at the level 

of spatiality.”(Wilderson III, 2015). According to Paterson (1985: 38) social death occurs when the individual is 

socially non-existent outside of their masters paradigm.  
6 According to Dr Mnguni the black and red, lion bhayi is associated with the lion’s strength and it is a 

representation of the Spirit, idlozi (Thenjiwe TV: 2021). 
7 “Feminine ancestral spirit” (Nene, 2016: 1634). Dr Mnguni is in agreement with factor (Thenjiwe TV: 2021). 



 21 

existing symbolic meanings. In performance, iBhayi was worn in manners that formulated the 

basis for the characters in the production as if chosen by the different spirits/characters. These 

spirits can be recognized as clan ancestors (Makanya, 2020: 3). These spirits bear relation to 

traditional healing and types of knowledge that can be accessed (Makanya, 2020: 3). These 

localised clan ancestors are referenced in the production’s opening monologue as follows: 

Narrator: Ngiyababona! Nababayeza, Ngiyababona! Ngibonisiwe, ngibonisiwe 

ngamaqaphelo okhokho. Vumani bo! Ngabona okuqale njengenkazimulo, kwavula inyathuko 

ebumnyameni kwazala izinkanyezi eziqhakazile emkhathini. Ngabona uMvelinqangi evela 

ohlangeni ukuqambeka kwamagama kwathola intokomalo esifubeni sikaNomkhubulwane. 

Vumani bo! Angiboniswanga ngawenyama kodwa ngesiphiwo sethonga lami ngiya ngaqina 

ngezwa ukukikiza kwabantu bakithi bedlulisa imyalezo yabangasekho ngazizwa 

ngifudumaliswa intokomalo kaMama. Ngizwe intwasanhlobo enkangala, ukuphila kwagcwala 

amaphaphu ngithe ngizama ukuhogela imicabango yami yokuqala kwakhala ibhungane 

angiwatholanga amagama afanele. Vumani bo! Ngiye ngaqalaza okokugcina ngababona 

bemoyizela baqinisekisa ukuthi ukuphindela kwami emuva kuyoba ngokwamukelekile. 

Vumani bo! Isithwalambiza singinike umhlahlandlela sihleli ecembeni ngesizotha silalele 

ukuheleza komoya wasekuseni. Obabamkhulu ngibabona ngaphansi konyezi behuba ezintabeni 

nasemifuleni. Ngibabona becula emagqumeni agcwele izihlabathi, ngibezwa njengemlolozelo, 

ngibezwe njengenhlokomo yomsindo wempophoma, ngibezwe lapho kuthule kuthe cwaka. 

Vumani bo! Ngiyababona impela ngiyababona.  (Ngilande, 2019: 3). 

Within this monologue Khosi shares knowledge systems his ancestors have bestowed upon 

him. He speaks of ancestral spirits in their various forms, in animals, mountains, waterfalls, 

stars and winds wailing over desert sands. Khosi speaks of them showing him the beginning of 

time, life and the Gods. Leeming (2005) and Wynter (2013) as cited in Makanya (2020: 2) 

explain that creation myths assist us in piecing together ideas of creator beings as the source of 

our origin. They had also shown him the end of life as he knew, the arrival of the coloniser. 

The monologue also contributed performance wise. With it, an engagement with the audience 

and getting them to partake in the performance was achieved. This was achieved by going to a 

few audience members and gesturing that they should blow air into the pouch with oracle 

bones.  Punctuating the monologue with, ‘Vumani bo!’, spurred the crowed to respond with 

‘Siyavuma!’ This act was a symbolic contract between the audience and performer. There 

cooperating showed me that they consented to being taken on the journey of the play. 

According to Design Indaba (2002) Vumani bo! Siyavuma, literally translates to “Do you 

agree?”, “We agree” but the actual meaning is based on ancestral consultation and their 

blessing being provided. This engagement between audience and performer can be recognised 



 22 

as the Law of Joint Performance. According to Ukala (2001: 34), the Law of Joint Performance 

is based on audience participation. Within this law the audience may sing along or pose 

questions to the performer or may even take over if a narrator fails at delivering (Ukala, 2001: 

34). This monologue also served as a means to establish further the Law of Opening, which 

had already been in performance in the foyer. The ‘Vumani-Siyavuma’ exchange completed 

the introductory aspect of the production. 

The Law of Opening is used as a method to begin a folktale performance in Black Africa and 

it has three functions (Ukala, 2001: 33). These functions are meant to arouse the audience; offer 

them the chance to encourage or stop the narrator; establish main characters and/or establish 

temporal and spatial settings of the story (Ukala, 2001: 33). When this law is transposed onto 

ukuLanda, the audience becomes the ancestral spirits and the spirit of the deceased. Calling out 

their clan names arouses the ancestral spirits. The success of the ritual is dependent on them. 

Finally, by stating why you have gathered them, establishes the main character (the deceased) 

and context for the type of ritual. Another law of relevance to this research is the Law of 

Creativity, Free Enactment and Responsibility. This law was important because it existed 

through every aspect of the play. By performing the script, the Creativity aspect which 

stipulates that the African narrator dramatically performs the memorised tale was engaged 

(Ukala, 2001: 36). According to Ukala (2001: 36) Free Enactment requires the narrator to break 

into role-playing and back into narrating at their own discretion. Playing the multiple characters 

including the narrator that were played in the production achieved this facet. The slave trade 

from African perspectives from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean was interrogated and 

responsibility of the portrayal in performance was taken. In the Responsibility aspect of this 

law, Ukala (2001: 38) believes the African narrator deals with complex material and is 

therefore accountable for the tales they create for performance. Ukala (2001: 33) adds that 

unlike the psychological actor, the African narrator accomplishes Free Enactment without 

hooking and loosing themselves in a character. This law applies to ukuLanda because the ritual 

requires the performer to narrate the journey to the deceased. Most of the journey is usually 

memorised. To account for every detail the performer needs to be vigilant enough to spot signs 

with names of rivers and locations. This is important because the performer carries the 

responsibility of ensuring the deceased is not left behind in the journey. Khosi moved between 

the audience focused on the branch but projecting his voice into the foyer’s space. He moved 

between the people to stop and kneel in unoccupied spaces and continued talking and 

explaining that he would lead them to their rightful spaces. At this point the audience had 

become the souls the ritual was performed for.  



 23 

Khosi’s path included seeking for audience/souls outside by the entrance of the foyer to find 

others to lead and when he returned and was about to lead the people, An ancestral spirit, 

performed by Nolitha Radebe appeared from behind the curtains and captured everyone’s 

attention with her voice and disappeared back behind the curtains. Her vocals and melodies in 

the play mirrored those of the songs and wailing that accompanied ukuLanda for my nephew. 

According to Mutwa (1974: 78), African people believed that singing was the highest and 

holiest form of expression. Singing has been used in the preservation of African history because 

of the simplicity to recall a catchy and soul-stirring tune (Mutwa, 1974: 780). Similarly, singing 

in the production was used to invoke a variety of emotions in the audience members. The 

vocalist’s voice was not limited to being directed to the performer but extended its reach to the 

overall performance. Khosi reacted to the spirit’s first appearance as if she were a presence that 

is felt like the hairs standing on ends rippling down a back. The secondary reason for not overtly 

acknowledging her was that the male singers where not acknowledged during ukuLanda for 

my nephew. At this point, Khosi started interacting with the audience directly. He told them to 

follow him and they did but some audience members that were familiar with the ritual were 

startled. The reason for this was that the chosen method of leading them into the theatre 

(ukuLanda) is a ritual meant for the deceased, not to guide those who still exist in their physical 

forms. Some members verbalized their discomfort and anxiety. Others hid behind awkward 

laughs. This process made the audience confront what they experienced from two paradigms 

(western and Afrocentric). The western paradigm had created a particular order for engaging 

with theatre. This order being: foyer, front entrance, ushered to seat and patiently waiting in 

the auditorium for the production to start. By obliterating this order, the Black audience that 

understood theatre solely from a western paradigm began to consider the extents of their social 

deaths.  Furthermore, those that understood the ritual (Afrocentric paradigm) began to question 

what aspect of them was dead for a ritual of this sort to be performed for them. With these two 

factors in play a concoction of emotions ensued. Audience and Khosi walked past the entrance 

Radebe had disappeared behind and walked through a green door that lead them down a flight 

of stairs. Like ukuLanda, this journey was narrated to the audience moment to moment without 

sparing any detail. They walked between the loading bay and Downstairs theatre backstage 

through a little door. Once through, Khosi led them through a narrow dimly lit passage that 

lingered with the scent of impepho8. They were underneath the Wits Main theatre auditorium. 

                                                 
8 Helichrysum aureonitens is made up of multiple slender and erect stems that grow to approximately 300 mm 

high from a creeping rootstock (SANBI, 2007). In addition, “the stems and leaves are pale grey because they are 

covered in white woolly hairs that grow flatly appressed to the surface. The leaves are narrowly oblong to 

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At this point, the western traditional theatre experience was already being challenged. This was 

achieved firstly, by starting the performance before the audience entered the theatre and 

secondly, by not entering the theatre through channels deemed normal (front entrance). In 

addition, the mere presence of the scent of impepho within a colonial structure further 

challenged the western traditional theatre space. The Wits theatre complex was officially 

opened in 1983 (Wits, n.d.), during apartheid South Africa. At this time the University of the 

Witwatersrand had enrolled 13877 white students and 583 Black students (Politicsweb, 2012), 

making it historically white during the apartheid regime. The apartheid regime was heavily 

supported by Christian denominations (Joebgen, 2016: 1). Similarly, Christianity was also a 

religion the majority of slaveholders identified with (Time, 2018). The reason these claims are 

of relevance is because Africans where made to reject their cultural and religious practices 

through manipulation into adopting western ideas and Christianity (Shange, 2021: 4). 

Christianity rejected the practice of burning impepho for the purpose of communicating with 

the ancestors (Shange, 2021: 1). Therefore, burning impepho in the production was the third 

device used to challenge a western traditional theatre space built on ideologies that rejected 

and oppressed African perspectives.   

It can be assumed that majority of the audience had never been through this space, but they 

trusted Khosi to lead them as a spirit following the bearer of umlahlankosi would. At the end 

of the passage was a light the audience walked through to finally walk onto the stage. They 

were met by Radebe’s (ancestral spirit) voice as she adjusted and set up umsamu9. The set 

design was adopted with the intention to disrupt the idea of the proscenium and the forth wall. 

The idea to bring the audience onto stage was inspired by my first attempt of the performance 

which was a twenty-minute presentation. 

 

                                                 
oblong-spathulate, with margins flat or a little revolute (rolled to the underside of the leaf). Each leaf has a tiny, 

hard, hairless tip.” (SANBI, 2007). According to Ntshangase (2012: 1) Impepho is a plant indigenous to Africa 

that is burnt when communicating with ancestors. Ntshangase (2012: 1) further explains that impepho is used by 

traditional healers when communicating with the deceased, various ceremonies, and traditional feasts. 
9 Umsamu is an African traditional shrine (Mkhize, 2013 in Makanya, 2020: 6). 

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Figure 1Wits Down-stairs Theatre, twenty-minutes presentation, Ngilande (2019) 

The constant reminder of the fourth wall (western device) was disappointing. This was enough 

motivation to seek for methods to disrupt this device. It was not until I was in a taxi returning 

to my apartment, that I saw a performance opposite the Bree taxi rank, Johannesburg. Being 

stuck in traffic awarded me the privilege of seeing the semi-circular formation that was used in 

the performance. This method of engaging with audiences is common practice in KwaZulu-

Natal with Maskandi (a popular genre of African traditional music) artists and gospel artists. 

Both of these genres are generally performed in isiZulu on these occasions. To achieve this 

formation, the performance venue had to change to the Wits Main Theatre. 

 



 26 

 

Figure 2 Ngilande (2019): Wits Main Theatre, full production performance with Nolitha Inam Radebe (Vocalist) and Sizwe 

Hlophe 



 27 

 

Figure 3 Ngilande (2019): Wits Main Theatre, full production technical run 

 

Metal stanchions with a thick brown rope were utilized. One row of cushions was placed below 

it with a few chairs for the elderly. This was done to exterminate the idea of comfort because 

the captured people of Africa were not detained in comfortable conditions. The application of 

a stage design of this sort disrupts conventional theatre. The shrine was placed in the front to 

symbolise umsamu. My home, like many African homes, has this sacred area allocated for 

burning impepho and communing with the ancestors. In the production it was made of a black 

wooden block covered with a maroon velvet cloth. Petrified wood, a piece from a broken clay 

pot was used for impepho, a small grass basket, beads and miniature ceramic artefacts 

constituted the makeup of the shrine. The semi-circular formation offered intimacy since the 

viewers were in proximity. This was beneficial performance wise  because it allowed for a 

means to gauge interest. Interest was lost due to performance, script or direction. These issues 

where either dealt with during the show by the quick evaluation of clarity (projection, 

pronunciation and enunciation) or evaluation of where action was directed. In situations where 

this was not possible, reassessment of the performance was conducted. Then sections of the 



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performance would either be changed or omitted if they did not work. The law of Joint 

Performance (Ukala, 2001: 34) was also used to gauge audience engagement by noting crowd 

participation. If they looked away, yawned or were not responsive, a loss of attention was 

evident (which was evident in some aspects of the twenty-minute presentation).  

Once the audience was attentively positioned in a semi-circle, Radebe gave the white audience 

members white paper boats to place in one of the three aluminium basins with water. Their use 

in the production was to symbolise the oceans (trans-Atlantic trade routes) that carried captured 

African people, where most of them died. These water-filled basins were placed on the inner 

edges of the semi-circle. The boats were given to Black men if white people did not attend the 

show. This was a symbolic representation of the parties involved in the slave trade. A 

reimagination of the capacity of how Black men contributed was portrayed in the character of 

Zibonele. He was an ambitious traditional healer that sold the king he advised into slavery. 

Once the boats were floating on the water Radebe retrieved a pale of water and poured the 

water over the boats to sink them. The sunken paper boats then represented the unretrieved and 

unspoken for souls in the Atlantic Ocean. The symbolic nature of the production encapsulates 

principles of the Afro-surrealism Manifesto. In the Manifesto, Miller (2013: 116) explains that 

the distortion of reality in Afro-Surrealism is to achieve emotional impact. In addition he claims 

that Afro-Surrealists attempt to create an artistic aesthetic that expresses beauty, opulence and 

is whimsical. Miller (2013: 116) also emphasizes that it is impossible to view an image 

objectively because the concept of an objective image does not exist. The act of floating paper 

folded into boats on a surface level was playful. The underlying meaning attached to it was not. 

In this one action, meaning is challenged in a playful manner that distorts reality. 

At the same time, still with the branch in hand, Khosi moved through the semi-circle and recited 

the names of his ancestors. Radebe then retrieved a grass pouch. Still invisible to Khosi, Radebe 

as Khosi’s maternal ancestral spirit hung the pouch around his neck and for a moment blurring 

the line between reality and the supernatural, past and present. For a moment she became 

visible to him. This startled him but not enough to frighten him because when she disappeared 

again, he immediately started searching for her. Unable to find her, he opened the gift he had 

received from his ancestral spirit. His ancestral spirit suddenly released a guttural screech 

projected at the cyclorama. His first vision appeared. A black and white sketch-like animation 

of ships coming towards the coastline played. Khosi saw the vision, performed the opening 

monologue as his ancestral spirit sang. Once he was done, he approached umsamu in a 

deliberate but cautious manner to scatter the divining bones on the floor. 

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Figure 4 Ngilande (2019): Ceramic oracle/divining bones by Anda Dodo 

His ancestral spirits voice became more prominent as he felt her presence more. He started 

clapping his hands in a six-count rhythm. He got up and engaged with the audience, suggesting 

with a gesture that they should partake in this rhythm. The Law of Joint Performance was 

further layered by the audiences’ participatory clapping. As soon as the performance space 

resonated with rhythm, song and clapping, he embodied it. Starting of facing umsamu, he 

gradually moved his feet to the rhythm of the clapping. Slowly it started translating as a Tswana 

traditional dance. Without breaking this rhythm, he turned to face the audience as the dance 

took over his body and he engaged this movement. The vocals of his ancestral spirit soon took 

charge of his movements and they translated onto his body as a reimagined Shembe traditional 

dance. The confluence of the rhythmic communal clapping and enchanting vocals made his 

movements evolve. The merger of the two dance forms transformed into what could be 

interpreted as contemporary dance. This escalated into a trance-like frenzy as he spun around 

rapidly to fall in front of the divining bones. He landed on his knees and hands with a thud that 

silenced everything. He took a moment to read the divining bones and doubting his capabilities 

declined his duty to warn his people. Rolling back to stand and face his audience, He started 

narrating in detail the events of the night his village was attacked. He spoke about the unsettling 

silence that grew into chaos to how his people were murdered and kidnapped. He then re-

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enacted how he questioned his God, Mvelinqangi. Makanya (2020: 3) expresses that the 

Creator beings are only invoked in critical circumstances (catastrophic disaster or extreme 

drought) because they do not involve themselves in daily matters concerning an individual’s 

life and health. The assault on his village was an appropriate time to call on his God. The scene 

ended in an abrupt black-out. The lights came up and he emerged with his left hand holding 

the ends of ibhayi that draped over his right shoulder, extending across his back and emerging 

around his left latissimus dorsi. His posture had adopted an exaggerated slouch as if he was 

being pulled forward by his nose. His right hand became animated in front of his face. He had 

transformed into a new character, Zibonele. Zibonele was what would be considered induna, 

the king’s (Ndabezitha’s) right-hand man and advisor. Zibonele also has a moment with the 

Law of Joint Performance when he throws a childish tantrum demanding that the audience 

applaud him. This resulted in the audience laughing, ululating and applauding at this man’s 

comical tantrum and desperate need for validation. Zibonele was an ambitious character that 

wanted fortune at the expense of his people. Zibonele claimed to be ‘Supreme Gifted’. Within 

the context of the plays world he would be regarded as a leader of izangoma and shamans. He 

perpetuated the false image of the colonisers being purveyors of knowledge, gifts and wisdom. 

Underneath this ruse, he had been selling his people to the colonisers. He even sold Ndabezitha. 

Khosi encountered the same fate in his attempt to warn Ndabezitha. Khosi arrived in the middle 

of Zibonele’s self-indulgent speech in the royal house. Not finding Ndabezitha, Khosi 

attempted to reason with Zibonele to the point of consulting with the ancestral spirits. The same 

guttural shriek was projected on to the cyclorama by Radebe. A black and white animation of 

white men gathered in a conference discussing a diagram of Africa played. After Zibonele saw 

the vision, he panicked and banished Khosi but in actuality he was selling Khosi into slavery. 

Khosi was then apprehended and knocked out by a guard that was under the influence of 

Zibonele. Khosi and Zibonele’s characters were distinguished by the manner in which ibhayi 

was draped around. To make the transitions seamless, leaping forward so that ibhayi would be 

caught in the wind momentarily was necessary. This created a transitionary window period of 

manipulation for next character. Along with responding to an imagined guard, this contributed 

to the physicalised aesthetic of the piece. 

When Khosi regained consciousness, he was in captivity being hauled with his people to the 

coastline. On this journey, which was narrated over his ancestral spirit’s poignant vocals, he 

described the conditions of his enslavement. He described how the enslaver assaulted them 

regularly and how defeated Ndabezitha had become. Khosi detailed his journey to the point 

where they were marshalled through a damp and dark room to be led through a door, the point 

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of no return. Towards the end of his narration he tied ibhayi to his ankles and crossed his wrists 

in front of himself. This was to represent being cuffed and shackled. The tension that hung in 

that moment was shattered by his ancestral spirit’s shriek that spilled the projection onto the 

audience and cyclorama. Khosi stood in front of it and watched the land disappear into the 

horizon. All that was left to see was the ocean in every direction. Khosi then turned around to 

address Ndabezitha who was also captive on the ship. Khosi pleaded with him to lead his people 

out of this predicament. Still with ibhayi binding his ankles, he leaped anti-clockwise into a 

three-quarter turn, landed in a deep squat on a block that formed a piece of umsamu. He then 

uncurled into Ndabezitha’s character as the ancestral spirit praised, “Wena wezulu!”. 

Ndabezitha with chest out and head held up high, resonated the command to pick up arms and 

fight. He then chanted the war cry, “Amandla!” and the projection spilled onto the audience to 

the cyclorama as the audience responded instinctually, “Awethu!” In black and white, the 

projection depicted a battle on the ship between the captured black people and the white 

enslavers. He repeated the war cry twice more and the audience responded in kind. 

Dismounting with a clockwise jumping full turn, he landed on the ground as Khosi. In support 

of Ndabezitha’s war cry, Khosi chanted the war cry, “Niyabasaba na?”, “Hayi! Asibasabi 

siyabafuna!” responded the audience on cue. He repeated his war cry as he struggled with the 

chains that bound him. His actions became more aggressive as the audience responded. His 

ancestral spirit’s voice became louder as she sang an upbeat melody to match the pending 

battle. Breaking free from his shackles, he draped ibhayi around his waist. He then spurred on 

the audience to clap a fast four-count rhythm. The audiences’ responses to the war cry’s and 

participating in the clapping revealed other instances for the Law of Joint Performance. Khosi 

then translated the rhythm and melody into Indlamu10, a traditional Zulu war dance. Screaming 

at his enemy and to his comrades, the dance evolved into contemporary dance but resembled a 

fighting sequence. Eventually out of breath Khosi addressed the audience as the narrator 

sharing their victory and the loss of Ndabezitha’s life. Everything came to a standstill and he 

narrated how without a leader the people turned to him for guidance. Radebe playing a captive 

gave him his pouch with the divining bones. He opened it and presented it to the audience 

members to blow into it. He returned to umsamu cautiously spilled them onto the floor. He 

engaged with the audience with the exact sequence of events as the first time he used his 

divining bones. After landing on his knees and hands he asks the ancestors to show him the 

                                                 
10 Commonly associated with the Nguni( including Zulu, Swazi, and Ndebele or Xhosa) cultures and It is a 

derivative of the war dances of amabutho (warriors) (BAM, 2020). 

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way. His ancestral spirit casted a vision of the future and he was struck by a seizure as the 

images move by rapidly. The projection that played was of a montage of historical images of 

Black people in oppression. These images ranged from sketches of enslaved Black people, 

Apartheid and the Black Lives Matter movement. The images started of by flashing by 

gradually, then sped up frantically and eventually slowed. It was at the fastest point of the 

montage that Khosi fell into a seizure. The events leading up to this moment reveal important 

Afro-Surrealistic components. Specifically the blurring of boundaries between reality and the 

supernatural. Ritual becomes blurred when performed representationally in the conventional 

theatre space firstly. Then, further blurred when visions (usually seen by the healer only) are 

projected for an audience. This incorporation of cinematic devices in performance is common 

practice in Afro-Surrealism. An example of this can be found in the works of Kara Walker. She 

uses shadow puppetry that is filmed and projected onto a cyclorama or scrim to tell stories that 

reimagine historical traumas (Peabody, 2013:147). Her works include animations, abstracted 

segments of film, maps, and newspaper clippings (Peabody, 2013:151). This goes to show that 

“Contemporary Afro-Surreal narratives incorporate cinematic storytelling techniques into their 

narratives, first, as a means of making history relevant and, second, to suggest an African notion 

of temporality, one that merges past, present, and future imaginings of events.” (Spencer, 2016: 

213-214). Spencer (2016: 211) also emphasizes that historical traumas can be re-imagined 

using Afro-Surrealism cinematic qualities. As in the case of Khosi’s premonitions that resulted 

in a sensory overload that induced a seizure. 

When he regained consciousness and control of his body, he got up from the floor as the 

narrator. He told the audience that his home was gone and suggested that returning would make 

their battle futile and forgotten. Without a word he climbed onto the block and his ancestral 

spirit joined him. He looked at his peers (imagined) who had joined him on the edge of the 

ship. He looked at his ancestral spirit and they jumped into a blackout. When the lights slowly 

came up, he had a branch in his hand. He explained to the audience that the mass suicide was 

an act to preserve their spirits. This was so that the story of a united Black people defeating the 

coloniser remained to be later retrieved. This concept of large-scale sacrifice is also explored 

in Dhlomo’s The Girl Who Kills to Save: 

In his play, Dhlomo recognizes the cattle killing (and the consequent devastation of the 

amaXhosa) as a catalyst that makes possible, and necessary, the construction of a broader 

national culture and a struggle for identity and rights on a national, rather than a tribal, scale: 

the amaXhosa, the amaZulu, and other peoples were "pacified" individually and could continue 

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their struggle against the depredations of colonial modernity only by joining together (Wenzel, 

2005: 65). 

Taking this information into consideration, a conceptual Black identity informed by unity was 

expressed by this production. 

Khosi handed over the branc to an audience member and suggested that the other members 

pick up the branches in front of them. With his duty completed he turned to face his ancestral 

spirit that sang to him. She called him with a gesture, turned around and walked away. She was 

leading him to finally join his ancestors. This type of ending can be likened to the Law of 

Closing. This law draws from the traditional African method of finalizing the performance of 

the tale being told (Ukala, 2001:39). In this final stage the narrator wraps up the tale with a 

final remark such as the moral of the story or may incorporate a song (Ukala, 2001:39). 

According to Mda (1977: xiii) these modes of African performance possess extremely 

developed dramatic elements that contribute to South African theatre. It is also important to 

note that, “African tribal dramatic representations were rather tragical than comical – which 

disproves the assertion that comedy overflows all African drama.” Dhlomo (1977: 4). The idea 

of African drama’s duty to the representation of Black lives is further expressed in Dhlomo 

(1977: 6) stating that attention should be awarded to African history and tradition. He proceeds 

to state that, “Drama is the reconstruction, recreation and reproduction of the great experiences 

of a people, and it helps them to live more abundantly.” (Dhlomo, 1977: 6).  Dhlomo (1977: 6-

7) emphasises that drama can be used as an important tool for education and it is the African 

dramatists duty to use it. 

Conclusion 
This research has explored how Afro-Surrealism influences the theatre making process of 

Ngilande (2019), a South African play. Throughout this research endeavour, Afro-Surrealism 

carried a lot of similarities to African centred ideologies and performance practices. The first 

concept that was of interest was the invisible made visible. Both Afro-Surrealism and African 

cosmology regard it as important. Afro-Surrealism uses it to expose and interrogate hidden 

truths, and for African cosmology it is truth. Afro-Surrealism creates the link for making the 

invisible visible through the Marvelous. The Marvelous explores power and ideas through 

methods that transcend reality by including dreams, religion, mythology and the supernatural 

in there works. For the African that sees the world through an African cosmological lens, the 

Marvelous is reality, as evident in rituals such as ukuLanda. It can even be contested that the 

African comprehends the universe around them through the Marvelous. African cosmology 

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encapsulates religion, mythology, the supernatural and dreams as extended platforms for 

spiritual engagements. Through dreams the invisible is made visible in the African cosmology 

paradigm. Truths are revealed such as duties that need to be fulfilled (callings) and glimpses 

into the future are revealed. Both Afro-Surrealism and African cosmology place a sense of duty 

to the uncovering of the invisible. In the case of the production, Ngilande (2019) was the 

symbolic manifestation of the ukuLanda ritual. It attempted to reclaim Black pride and identity 

that has been systematically killed by hegemonic power structures. 

The Negritude movement which has influences in both Afrocentrism and Black Surrealism, 

was also regarded as the African Surrealist movement. This brings forth evidence that the 

Negritude movement is Afro-Surrealism’s earliest stages. The African Surrealist movement 

was surrealist because it was Black. This point in Afro-Surrealism is perceived as, ‘others’ who 

create works from there lived experiences and therefore are regarded as surrealists. By 

deduction, this places the South African play Ngilande (2019) in the realm of surrealism, 

African Surrealism to be precise. 

Afro-Surrealism was useful for this research because it allowed for the investigation and 

engagement of different African centred theories and performance practices. This provided the 

opportunity to draw from multiple creative and theoretical sources. As a result, work that was 

characteristic of an African aesthetic was formulated. In addition, African cosmology and 

African Theatre are capable of being standalone approaches to creating, especially when 

Dhlomo’s idea of using new media is taken into account for the creative process. Afro-

Surrealism also advocates for the use of multimedia. These mentioned points provide the 

necessary justification for the incorporation of projections in Ngilande (2019). African 

cosmology and African theatre offer structured frameworks for engaging with creation. The 

African cosmology hierarchical ordering provided a structure for conceptualising a world with 

different layers and African theatre offered the eight laws of the African folktale tradition of 

storytelling. By combining African Cosmology and African theatre a possible structure for 

creating theatre that produces an African aesthetic emerged. Afro-Surrealism did not provide 

for a possible structure, but it layered the work with the theoretical approaches that where 

necessary for the work. It offered considerations for symbolism as a means of engaging difficult 

concepts and allows people to introspect through that engagement. An example being the white 

paper boats being submerged in water by the audience on stage. These represented the drowned 

enslaved souls and slave traders (both Black and white) and the parties involved. 

The invitation extended to the audience to be on stage worked for the performance because the 

audience seemed to participate on cue. This was not the case in the Downstairs theatre 



 35 

performance. It seemed that greater effort was required to break the fourth wall to get an 

audience response. An example is when Khosi danced to induce a trance like state. He clapped 

his hands in a manner that suggested audience participation. Most members did not participate 

in the Downstairs theatre but in the new formation in the Wits Main Theatre they responded 

instantly. The law of Joint Performance was also used to gauge audience engagement by noting 

crowd participation. If they looked away, yawned or were unresponsive, interest in the 

performance was lost (which was evident in some aspects of the twenty-minute presentation). 

For the Wits Main Theatre, starting the play from outside and leading the audience into the 

space worked because the audience offered their complete attention and focus by the time the 

story was unveiled. The semi-circular formation offered intimacy since the viewers were in 

proximity. Performance-wise this was beneficial because audience interest was gaugeable. 

Interest was lost due to performance, script or direction. These issues where either dealt with 

during the show by the quick evaluation of clarity (projection, pronunciation and enunciation) 

or evaluation of where the action was directed. If this was not possible, I reassessed my 

performance and either changed or omitted aspects of the performance that did not work. 

Given another opportunity to engage with this work and similar projects, a balance between 

African cosmology, African theatre and Afro-Surrealism would be pursued. In the Wits Main 

Theatre performance, more focus was on Afro-Surrealism (A note from my external examiner). 

This was probably caused by the transition from African cosmology to Afro-Surrealism. An 

excessive amount of time was invested in Afro-Surrealist theory. This affected rehearsal time 

and in turn affected the quality of the performance. It could have been better despite the positive 

response from the audience. It could have been more encompassing of the ideologies and 

relevant performance practices. 

Afro-Surrealism offers the theatre-maker flexibility. Meaning that you should expect that the 

work is likely to transform drastically from what is initially imaged. The ability to filter out 

what does not contribute to the works intended goal should be present. That being said, a 

concise working plan should be in order, example a script and well-researched idea for the 

production is paramount to its success. 

Using Afro-Surrealism as an approach to South African theatre has manifested the realisation 

that South African theatre can achieve the same results without Afro-Surrealism as an 

approach. 

  



 36 

Glossary 
• Abaphansi... Spirits the reside below the heavens. 

• Amabutho... Warriors. 

• eZulwini… up above where creator beings reside/ Heaven. 

• Gobela… Person selected by ancestral spirits to guide an individual on their to 

becoming a sangoma. 

• Landa… retrieve/narrate. 

• Hayi! asibasabi siyabafuna!... No! We fear them not, We want them! 

• iBhayi… Spiritually endowed shawl/sarong. 

• iDlozi… Ancestral spirit. 

• iHlahla … Branch. 

• iMpepho… Used to communicate with ancestors. 

• iNdlamu… Zulu war dance. 

• iNzunza … Mermaid-like being. 

• isiNdawe… An umndawe/umndzawe spiritual language. 

• isiThunzi … human faculty responsible for displaying life force or the energy of the 

person. The Shadow. 

• iThonga … A Spirit ranking above ancestral spirits. 

• iziThakazelo… Clan names that provide social and historical identity and identification 

which is predominantly used in cultural and traditional ceremonies. 

• Maskandi… Contemporary Zulu folk music. 

• Moya… highest human faculty that bears close relation to higher spiritual beings such 

as creator beings. Wind. 

• Mphefumulo… Breath. Soul 

• Mvelinqangi…  A Creator being. The first to appear/emerge. Devine Consciousness. 

The Most high. 

• Niyabasaba na?... Do you fear them? 

• Mzimba … Physical body. 

• Sangoma/iZangoma (pl.)… Spiritual/physical/mental/emotional healer. 

• Siyavuma!... We agree/consent! based on ancestral consultation and their blessing being 

provided. 

• uMlahlankosi… Ziziphus Mucronata. Use to lead the deceased’s spirit to family burial 

grounds 



 37 

• uMndawe (isiZulu)/uMndzawe(isiSwati)… Northern African ancestral spirits in relation 

to Southern Africans. 

• uMndiki… Feminine ancestral spirit. 

• uMnguni…Ancestral spirits belonging to same bloodline as healer. It is a collective 

ethnic name that encompasses the Xhosa, Zulu and Swati peoples (Southern African). 

• uMsamu… African traditional shrine. 

• Vumani bo!... Agree/consent! based on ancestral consultation and their blessing being 

provided. 



 38 

Links to videos 
• Performance Segment: https://youtu.be/bmEvcKO8RSY 

• Projection 1/5: https://youtu.be/jPHi7zCDl-0 

• Projection 2/5: https://youtu.be/7qra_0WGrFk 

• Projection 3