Tributes pour in for late Alex dramatic arts doyen Selaelo Maredi
Poet Refilwe Pieterse says she is alive today courtesy of the wise words and sound advice of Ntate Selaelo Daniel Maredi.
Alex arts creative, poet and writer Refilwe ‘Fifi’ Pieterse has described the passing of Selaelo Daniel Maredi as an ‘insurmountable loss to the theatre industry and African wisdom’.
“South African theatre and African wisdom is poorer following the passing of the doyen which finally took his last bow on August 17 at his Alex home,” said Fifi, as she is popularly known in the industry circles in the township and worked closely and collaborated on numerous occasions with Maredi.
Maredi (85), will be buried at his birthplace Uitkyk No 3 in Bochum, Limpopo, on August 26. “He was a playwright par excellence and an iconic world theatre practitioner after he distinguished himself during his 14-year exile in the United States of America where he was immensely decorated for his outstanding work and dedication, not just to the industry, but to humanity as well as he was involved in protest theatre against apartheid back home,” Pieterse said.
“We called him Ntate Maredi and he called me Maya Angelou, and this was inspired by my working closely with him in his numerous theatrical plays. Ntate Maredi is the first Off-Broadway theatre practitioner coming from Alex and maybe South Africa,” she added.
She described him as not just a theatre director but also a father to the fatherless. “From 2018 to 2019, I faced severe depression where I almost lost my life but through his words of encouragement, I managed to pull through.
“He used to walk from his house at 15th Avenue to come and see me at 13th Avenue though he struggled to walk that far, and he was also there to give my younger brother a manly lecture which contributed to my younger brother’s success today,” Pieterse said.
His words could easily bring the formless into form and he had this narrative that there’s life in words and that life can give light when the voice knows how to transport and translate the message.
“I took his poetry teachings for two years like a sponge, and I allowed him to engrave it in me and through this every script I hold, every word I read I only feel poetry, it has been good but also a struggle to work in non-poetical work in theatre but yah, I learnt a lot.
“Through working with Ntate Maredi, we are doctors of the mind, we are beautiful mothers and fathers, we are true African leaders, we are healers, teachers, visionaries, inventors, businessmen and women and we are the future. We will forever remember Ntate Maredi for dignity and dignifying Africa,” she concluded.
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