Phinda Mzala Entertainment Project artists displayed a thrilling dance show at Lesedi Theatre on March 18.
Although the show focused on dance, it encompassed a bit of drama and poetry to narrate the storyline.
The show, themed Construction Projects, depicts the working environment at a construction site and activities that occur in nearby areas surrounding the site.
It describes the unnecessary conflict between construction workers, taxi drivers and street vendors.
This is followed by a reunion through a love scene between a construction supervisor and a street vendor. A poet recites a poem on gender-based violence, love and peace as he narrates the story.
In the opening scene, viewers can see the street vendors set up their stock near the taxi rank to sell to construction workers.
Their engagement shows the audience that the people are familiar with each other because they see each other every morning and afternoon.
As the construction workers pass by their stalls and taxi drivers play card games, the women are trying to make small talk with them, asking whether they are not buying today.
As the show proceeds, a girl on her bicycle goes to district workers at the site ignoring the warning signs. Their supervisor chased her away warning her that she will get injured.
She returns to the taxi rank only for the workers to become irritated. It leads to the confiscation of her bicycle.
From there, an altercation arise after the street vendors criticised construction workers for confiscating her bicycle.
The supervisor falls in love with the street vendor and peace is restored.
People from Benoni, Katlehong, Soweto and Vosloorus among others attended the show to enjoy poetry, pantsula and contemporary dance as well as isiZulu and Setswana traditional dance.
The organiser of the show and founder of Phinda-Mzala Entertainment Project, David Mahlaba, said he appreciated the attendance as he did not expect such a huge turnout.
“Most of the support we get is from the township and a lot of people are not familiar with theatre.
“Remember our show was in Joburg theatre, which meant they had to catch taxis to come here. If we had enough funding, we could have hired a bus,” said Mahlaba.
He said the dancers are happy with the experience, especially the pantsula dancers because he recruited some of them from the streets. They used to dance on the road near traffic lights, he explained.
He said there is room for improvement as they want to take the show to international theatres.
