Cultural connotations of absences can also include concerted erasures of creative languages or even linguistic representations of certain realities, euphoric or traumatic, but how far can languages stretch to recreate the absent?
How does art haunt idea of loss or absence?
History infiltrates the present through memory and heritage, and any obsessive compulsions to unravel the limits to which history does infiltrate memory are also determined by languages utilised to construct such memories.
At the recent residency in Cologne, her engagements saw her work around diaspora memories of the concepts of " motherland", origins, or absences of origins, and Masello met with various artists who are essentially nostalgic and haunted by sentiments of home.
Their sentiments, communicated during practice-based research were premised on finding and articulating a shared horizon that tracks pathways from Africa to Europe, and this became visible through her performances and onsite encounters that evolved into participant-driven conversations about politics, culture and memory.
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Can such voids created by absences and erasure spawn a new framework for creating imaginative multiplicities of potential definitions and new lessons which can be expressed and documented through contemporary direct reaction?
New opportunities are arising from cross-cultural and trans-geographic interactions, these searches for histories and the immediacy of the need for filling those voids created by colonial injustices prove that an interdependency between the past and present is essentially indisputable.
During her visit as a Guest Artist in Germany and through collaborative performances with Ghanaian artists, it seems Masello had found a way of bonding solidarities between culturally diverse artists fuelled by processes and products of their art making.
And I should imagine that a poetic potential of spontaneous urban engagements with curious audiences had it own thrill, but what often distinguishes exhibitionism from true creative physical interfaces such as Masello’s performances, is the impact on the psyche of the viewer.
Often professing jarring and unsettling truths, and posing critical questions gesticulated through a vocabulary that transcends language, her work still provided a dedication to the incidental and everyday surroundings of our political realities.
Artists were addressing urban material spaces, commonly used building that often retain untold memories of the past, in the midst of interactive audiences, reshaping perceptions and channelling new meanings beyond the logic of mastery and the confines of decorum.
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Can you please give us a brief background to enigmatic person we know as Masello Motana?
I come from an artistic background. My father is still writing today. Before I was born; he focused a lot on poetry ka di70s. And by the time I was growing up in the early 80s he was writing plays and ha had his own drama troupe in Soshanguve. My sister and I would go to rehearsals with him. One day, he was trying to show an actor what to do and he kept repeating the action. I got up and walked on to the stage to show what the actor what to do and became a member of the troupe. We performed at some meetings and rallies as the situation was escalating in the townships. We even had to run for cover during a performance in Eersterus. That's the environment I grew up in. Firstly, I did not have to wait to become an artist; I just became it. Music and dancing were part of it; you had to do all 3.
Secondly; the line was blurred between art and politics but what was clear was that the artist has to serve the community. I still think of art as my father and his peers did back then.
When did the urge for creative expression start to grow during your formative years as a performer and lover of culture and heritage?
Performance came first. Identity politics came second. It was a case of losing myself to colonization and REmembering. Language was a big part of that recovery.
I left a model c school; lived for a year and then went to what some would consider a remote school in Limpopo to relearn Sepedi which i had last learnt in std2. That changed my life and outlook. I am a linguist; translator and home language coach in film and television today because of that necessary lobotomy in 2000.
I cannot stand these anthropological words we use to describe ourselves to each other. Ge e le indigenous yona, e mbora goed nie bietjie! So I prefer to say home language, that's what it is to me. I know it's not as important sounding but I am not OUTside of that INdigenous so I don't have to label it as such. One man's hut is another one's home type of thing.
How would you describe your art practice?
My art practice is about memory practice and memory. It has become about that; largely shaped by the environment I live in.
How does your choice of themes determine each characterisation (of it does at all), simply, wow do you create characters like Cyrilliana?
To create characters like Cyrilina.....well it's all got to do that with that basic mandate of responding to the environment. To use whatever tools or tricks to get a message across.
What ecosystems of knowledge influence your theatrical and literary art practice, and any special reason you were inspired by these knowledge systems?
I am influenced by the culture of black literary journals from different eras. The Harlem Renaissance; Drum era; Staffrider.
I am also a fan of Eddie Murphys commitment to character through humor and the physical layers of prosthetic. I love the content ya Chapelle and Paul Mooney. I love what Kagiso Lediga has been doing; a highlight of my career was working le yena on Matwetwe.
I love humour; costume and melody. Those aesthetics appeal to me and I tend to reach for them first in the bag.
Sun Ra said something about the costumes telling their own story. Razzmatazz joe, jy ken!
The musical component of your art, please tell us where was it moulded? How does music advance your dissidence?
How does music advance my dissidence? Interesting question. It will not advance your career in atmosphere of go ngcenga; but it will advance your arts practice.
Artists must distinguish between an industry and an arts practice. I grew up in a township so even if my family (mama, papa le bomalome) did not play music; it was all around me.
Who are The Vocal Museum as a performance troupe?
The Vocal Museum is a show and not a troupe so it has been played by many musicians and will continue to involve many musicians.
And what inform your performances? Is it social episodes of upheavals, protests and general discourse on issues of public concern?
All those things influence the performances of The Vocal Museum. For example; in 2022; we featured Mak Manaka reading the Onkgopotse Tiro speech at Turfloop in 1972. I wanted to reflect on 76 through its rightful Black Consciousness lineage. So ja, ho ya ka gore di ntshang.
An installation/performance exhibited in Johannesburg recently was in a gallery, why are your performances spaces designed for specific “communal experimentations”?
I will perform anywhere but the public spots are my favourite. The unintended audience is important for me as someone who claims to speak for community. This year we did a show ko Hammangwane ko Orlando on Freedom Day; the day before we popped up a theatre with a special invite to children and older people.
I don't want kids to think dilo tsa di bente(live music) is only for adults or for drinking places. It was very important for me to include the community including in the research and presentation.
The musicians and their roles within the musical venture seem also predetermined by your intended performance themes, why are you currently working with these specific musicians on the project?
You have to click with the people you work with. They have to understand your purpose and vision. We don't always get it right. Some people are more committed than others; ba bangwe ba nyaka zaka because music has been reduced to a commodity and a money maker as opposed to be a tool for social healing.
There’s a of processes of reclaiming, remembering and reviving the past through language and song, protesting the threat of the disappearance and destruction of the songs and the languages that both carry and are carried through your performances.
Question is how can particularities of such songs/languages in your VOCAL Museum be preserved?
Processes of reclaiming are me reacting to what South Africa is becoming; an imperial colony. So the Vocal Museum is an answer to your question. It answers the question of preservation directly.
In language; I need to make one thing clear. There are no languages disappearing in South Africa. If you go to Moletji; you won't find a community meeting about Sepedi disappearing. Ge o ka ya KwaMsinga; a go na batho ba ba tshwereng meeting ka gore seZulu sa nyella; or similarly a go na batho ba ba tshwereng polelo ko Malamulele gore Xitsonga sa nyella. This is a class issue. There are people who are actively practicing self erasure by insisting to cooperate with a white system at the expense of their identity. They even think it's cute; mxxxxm! Ke e goga bjana ka Mmankwesheng the way e ntshelekang ka teng.
And can you briefly describe the recent residency you attended, and the types of collaborative projects were born from the expedition?
There is a crisis of museums in Europe because batho ba utlwile ke bohodu ba yona. In the age of restitution; they have to give people's treasures back so they have a crisis of relevance and method. So I was invited to Cologne in Germany to showcase my museumology. I had an official program of 3 offerings
• The Vocal Museum Performance
• A Public Lecture on June 16 featuring my friend and mentor in radical
anarchist artistry Lefifi Tladi
• A Performance of The Diaspora Experiment
For the last show I worked with Ghanaian musicians who have been based in the NRW Province for many years and a Turkish saz and our player.
My political statement was that my definition of my continent is very different to that of colonizers. I listen to the map rather than read it.
I am looking to expand and tour the experiment in the near future.
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