Joseph Dikgomo dances as if his entire life depends on it. And come to think of it, maybe it does. To dance is to exorcise the ghosts from his past: the family’s painful decision to pull him out of a Standard Four class because there wasn’t enough to keep two children in school, and the discomfort – when he was re-enrolled two years later – that would dog him throughout as the oldest in his class. To dance is to soothe a tortured soul that watched contemporaries go on to tertiary institutions, while the artist seemed to mark time. It is to define himself, in his own terms. That is why he dances the way he does – with passion. Traditional dance has been his international passport to the world. He has danced for audiences in South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, United States, and Ivory Coast; and performed in front of world leaders such as Festus Mogae, Ketumile Masire, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, and Olusegun Obasanjo.
Dikgomo’s tryst with traditional dance began when he re-entered primary school aged 14 in 1991. That was a period of renaissance for traditional dance throughout the country. Every school – primary, junior secondary, or senior secondary – just had to have a strong traditional dance troupe. He must have had an idea of where dance would take him when he led Ga-Kutlo Primary School to two successive third positions, in 1993 and 1994, in the Kweneng Regional Competition. At Motswedi Community Junior Secondary School, he became coordinator, key dancer, and coach of the school’s traditional dance group in Form Two. He guided the group to first position during the Gaborone Branch Competition, as well as the Regional Competition in 1996. The group came third at the National Competition.
He was a member of the Gaborone Secondary School traditional dance group that won the Branch, and Regional competitions, as well as the annual National Museum Competition in 1998. The following year, the school won the Branch Competition, but came second at the Regional meet. Ever since he came to Gaborone in 1995, Dikgomo has been a member of Mogwana Traditional Dance Troupe, one of the leading exponents of the art.
Today, he is not in animal skins. He is immaculate in a pair of jeans and a cream white jersey. He talks of his love for traditional dance, and the pain he feels at the realisation that it may soon be a dying art. He detects signs of waning interest somewhere in the body system that was at the forefront of the dance’s revival. One sign is that last year there were no traditional dance competitions for primary schools.
“I am the only remaining dancer out of the team that was in GSS. At Mogwana, my generation of dancers have quit, making me the oldest male dancer,” he says.
He identifies a number of factors that lead people to quit dancing: work commitments, rigours of study for those pursuing tertiary education, relationships, and a feeling that dance is something to be outgrown. He has to contend with comments like, “O santse o kgona go ntsha marago mo gare ga bana?” and “O santse o apara letlalo?”.
He does not take such comments to heart because he is grateful for what traditional dance has done for him; the most important being the sense of identity, and the satisfaction he derives from the knowledge that he is keeping his culture alive.
“Traditional dance fills me with a sense of pride to be a Motswana. It is what makes me unique among nationals of other countries.”
He talks passionately about the sense of national unity that traditional dance can foster. At Mogwana, they have incorporated dance movements from Kweneng, Ngwaketse, Kgalagadi, Gantsi, Ga-Malete, North East, and the North West. They are studying dance movements from Borolong, and Bobirwa with a view to incorporate them as well.
In his case, dating has not interfered with his interest because he believes in making and extracting concessions before romance blossoms. “I don’t think anybody can convince me to quit dancing,” he says. “There is a lot that I still want to achieve.”
He considers himself fortunate because most of his friends also happen to be fellow members of Mogwana. In that regard, he does not get a feeling that dance takes him away from his friends. If anything, it brings him closer to them.
Among his unfulfilled dreams is that he could be teaching traditional dance, especially to primary school pupils. “The future of traditional dance can only be guaranteed if we have dancers at primary schools. If we can’t generate enough interest in that age group, there would be no continuity.”
His idea of keeping traditional dance alive is that every village and settlement in Botswana should have at least one group.
Dikgomo is disappointed that he cannot make a living out of traditional dance in Botswana, though the art proves popular where he performs. “We are a society that still does not recognise the importance of the arts,” he says. “By now, we should be having a standing national traditional dance ensemble where you would have the cream of traditional dance that this country has. As it is now, when a national ensemble is assembled it is on ad-hoc basis. There is no programme to develop coaches. Those who dance, do so only for the love of it. Why is it that important documents like Vision 2016 do not make strong pronouncements about development of the arts? Can’t we, for instance, make a commitment that by 2016, Botswana’s traditional dancers would not be living in poverty? The thinking seems to be that it all ends after performing for the President at the airport,” he says.
Dikgomo warns that if no effort is made to develop traditional dance and take it to the outside world as a Botswana product, someone else – most probably South Africans – will export it first. He makes the point that suggests that South Africa’s famed gumboot dance was Botswana’s own phathisi that was carried to the mines by Batswana who went there as migrant workers. Recently, someone drew to his attention that a South African dance ensemble that performed in China did some phathisi and setapa dances from Botswana. “No matter how much we can beat them at our dance, if the South Africans take it to the international stage before us, nobody is going to believe that it is ours.”
Since the beginning of 2004, the master of setapa dance, who happens to have one of the most recognisable faces in the country, has been studying a foundation course on IT at the Gaborone Technical College.
