Siyaya delivers pure happiness

Entertainment
If there is such a thing as a recipe for pure happiness in a Fringe show, the Siyaya theatre company of Bulawayo found it in ThaTha.

If there is such a thing as a recipe for pure happiness in a Fringe show, the Siyaya theatre company of Bulawayo found it in ThaTha.

EDINBURGH

From start to finish, this celebration of Southern African dance and song was driven by an energy that never let up, from gumboot dances to rain-making rituals to the gorgeous harmonies of Zimbabwean reggae.

The show title translates as “please take” and the whole cast gave their all, as they beat out the pulse of the songs with hands and feet and sang as if they were filling the Usher Hall.

If there was one performer who stood out it’s Makhula Moyo, a dynamo of joy, who  leaped around the marimba and stamped through traditional dance fusion in jeans and a T-shirt.

Benhilda Ngwenya shined too – the perfect diva, slicing her hips through twists and radiating attitude in beads the colour of the Zimbabwean flag that flew when she moved.

It was not too different from other African dance and music extravaganzas the Fringe has seen in previous years, but it was definitely a rainy day show if ever there was.

An audience favourite in 2007, fresh from Africa, colourful, climactic and bursting at the seams with energy, the spectacular celebration of song, dance and life in Africa returned to Edinburgh.

Travelling around Africa, treading over borders, crushing language barriers, “ThaTha-Please Take”.

—  edinburghfestival