Andrew Kola: The boy that Jesus forced to dance
Thalefang Charles | Friday March 24, 2017 15:28
Most of his dance troupe members had graduated to high school and so he needed new members to carry the dance baton forward.
In that list was a young boy who liked to dance, but only out in the dusty streets of G-West after school. Although the boy liked traditional dance, he despised wearing matlalo- the troupe’s costumes. Matlalo (animal skins) were just uncool for him. But Jesus had chosen him and it was non-negotiable. There was no way out as he was ordered to report at the rehearsal after school. He had to learn to love matlalo.
That is how Andrew Letso Kola, artistic director of Mophato Dance Theatre remembers his introduction to dance. It was an order from Jesus Mosokwe, also known as Ras Jesus of Stepping Razor reggae band after a recommendation of Kola’s younger sister. Just like how the biblical Jesus chose Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, to be one of his first disciples in the ‘fishing of men’, Ras Jesus chose Kola to be his disciple in the traditional dance gospel.
Kola did not disappoint. As matter of fact he went even higher, perhaps beyond Ras Jesus’ expectations. He delved deeper into dance.
Today sitting across a large bench at the Main Deck Restaurant in Gaborone wearing a green souvenir T-shirt with large letters of ‘Berlin’ written across his puffed up chest, Kola has transformed the local dance scene.
He has just returned from a blockbuster production tour in Berlin, Germany representing Botswana. Kola was the choreographer of the highly acclaimed #ilovebotswana ensemble that enthralled the 2017 ITB Berlin.
The show was so good that President Ian Khama even invited the whole ensemble for a rare feat of a Sunday lunch at the State House just to tell them how “proud and happy” he was after watching their Berlin performance.
It is not everyday that artists get a Sunday lunch from the President just to thank them for a job well done. The lunches are only popular with winning athletes.
For Kola, it has come a long way since the Ras Jesus’ order to dance. He says, “We come from days when dancers used to be paid with a plate of food and an HIV/AIDS T-shirt”.
“After Diphetogo, I continued with dancing. It was mostly traditional dance during those years,” Kola recalls.
The dancing took a more focused route after he was recruited by Mmoloki Matho and Fani Khupa into Mogwana Traditional Dance Group in 2000. Kola admits that it was during Mogwana days that the art of dancing began to dawn on him.
He says, “Mogwana sent us to the Music Camp and I learnt a lot about dancing and music as an art form at those workshops”.
He said it was the Music Camp workshops that began to open up his dancing creative vaults and passion. The passion won him a six-month residency scholarship at the Moving Into Dance company at Newtown, Johannesburg in South Africa.
When Kola returned from Johannesburg amassed with fresh skills he caught up with his dancing friends and was eager to share with them all the lessons he got from Moving Into Dance. He started imparting the knowledge to his dance mates including Tumiso Thomas, Phenyo Modimowagae and Edward Mphakela.
“In 2010, the boys and I decided to start a troupe and that was the birth of Mophato Dance Theatre,” he says.
The following year, Mophato Dance Theatre, with their relatively new contemporary dance style, impressed at the My African Dream (MAD) talent show. MAD gave Kola and his troupe a big break that later saw them perform around the world and with exciting collaborations with international artists.
From there Kola had to raise the bar
“It had gotten to a point where we thought we needed to create our own production,” he says.
In 2012 Kola and Mophato produced Kgosikgolo that won an award at Dance Africa Festival. Dance theatre was a path that he thrust into with passion.
“I have great passion and interest in our own history so I began researching for local stories that I could tell through dance,” he says.
He choreographed productions that were telling local stories including, Right of Passage, Inyaya that later inspired Borwa.
At the 2016 Maitisong Festival, Kola choreographed Pula that catapulted him to being the new prince of contemporary dance in Botswana.
Pula was a captivating production inspired by the drought that ravaged the country. Gaborone Dam was dry and rain was not falling so the production took us back to our beliefs before we came across Christianity and prayed for rain.
During the debut of Pula, after his amazing dancers bowed down to the crowd’s standing ovation, Kola took the microphone and gave a speech that was an impassioned plea for support in the arts.
“If these dancers could do this as their day job, their nine to five, we would be able to beat this. We would be able to do amazing productions that could sell the country. We need your support to make these artists work for the arts,” he pleaded then.
Kola’s Maitisong plea was not in vain. Those that believed in him and his ideas awarded him a tender to choreograph the Botswana Tourism Organsiation (BTO) #ilovebotswana ensemble that would travel to Germany to perform at the ITB Berlin.
“It was a great opportunity for me and I am glad I won the tender,” he says.
Kola brought together a team of 30 extremely talented contemporary dancers in the country – the best of the best. Where he could not find a fitting talent he scouted for it through open auditions. He put the team into two months of fully supported daily rehearsals.
“Finally, I had a team I could work with from morning to the afternoon. I had no excuse because BTO gave us all the support we required,” he says.
He led the team to Germany and met with the leading German production managers and worked together to produce the best show ever staged by Batswana anywhere else.
“The ITB Berlin production displayed the possibilities of working with real talented production managers. It involved perfect sound, top notch lighting and precision of every act. Everything had to come together flawlessly ” Kola narrates.
Kola acknowledges President Khama’s contributions in the arts. He believes that Botswana is sitting on an art goldmine with the President’s Day Competitions.
“I think the President has done a lot in the arts. He changed the way the people view the arts and entertainment. Because of his President’s Day Competitions, today young school children know that excellence in the arts pays in hard cash,” Kola says.
Today’s children need no Jesus’ whip to force them to dance because dancing no longer pays in free lunches and T-shirts. It is more than an after-school hobby. That is why it has become almost a privilege to be a member of Mophato Dance Theatre. Only a few that make the cut during regular dance classes get the opportunity to be in the group.
At the end of the interview, Kola settles the restaurant bill for the meal and walks out confidently. Heavyset in his new green hugging Berlin souvenir T-shirt, it is like he is demonstrating that dancing is no longer just entertainment for free lunches and low quality T-shirts, but it is paying work that Jesus must be proud of.