Close-Range Poetry ft. Lebo Mashile Theme: Black with a touch of yellow/gold

An intimate conversational poetry performance where the poet reads their work and invites the audience to engage with both the poem and the poet. This show is a therapeutic poetry experience that dares to encourage collective healing through voice and listening. This is alternative healing.

This first instalment brings you, Lebogang Mashile, an acclaimed South African poet, performer, author, playwright, and cultural storyteller whose work has helped redefine the place of poetry in post-apartheid South Africa. For more than two decades, she has used the power of language to explore identity, memory, womanhood, healing, justice, love, spirituality, and belonging.

A celebrated voice of South Africa’s democratic generation, Mashile has performed her work in nearly 40 countries across the world and has become known for her ability to bridge poetry, theatre, music, activism, and public dialogue. Her work moves effortlessly between the intimate and the political, inviting audiences into conversations about what it means to be human in a rapidly changing world.

On strings, we have poet, singer, songwriter, and guitarist Phumzile "Zile" Zondo. Phumzile introduces a musical genre that she refers to as 'words on strings' in which you find elements of African jazz, mbhaqanga, that playfulness of traditional IsiZulu nursery rhymes with melody and poetry, all put together into a song. She has toured both locally and abroad, introducing masses to African traditional music.

Your host, Thando Fuze, is a South African poet, curator, and author, and founder of Fuuze Arts, who has contributed her fair share to the spoken word scene.