Nduduzo Makhathini - Ubizo: Solo Piano

Untitled Basement, 18th May 2023

Nduduzo Makhathini Live

Ubizo: Solo Piano

uBizo simply translates as: ‘the calling’. In Nguni worldviews, it is believed that our purpose on earth is encoded in our calling. This is displayed in our seriousness with names and meaning. Our ancestors took seriously the process of naming a child such that the ‘name giving rituals’ became a way of inviting, to the world, the spirit of the one-to-be-born (believed to be returning). This means that, the one who follows their calling and their name, in the process, also attains the deepest meaning of being. This being, underpinned by ntu-philopraxis, proposes an expanded notion of ontology that situates the spirit worlds as part of a communion of being. 

This background, troubles the notion of ‘solo’ as a kind of ‘aloneness’ — while this concert is proposed as a ‘solo-concert’, it aims at invoking wholeness of being. As such, improvisation will be employed as a tool to reveal the presence of and ‘elsewhere’, a spirit world. 

Nduduzo Makhathini