Diphala makes controversial appearance at Kuru

GASEBALWE SERETSE
Staff Writer | Wednesday August 25, 2010 00:00

Speaking to Showbiz in an interview yesterday one of the attendees, Armstrong Tingwane, expressed reservation about the group's participation.

'Diphala's participation has defeated the purpose of the festival because one of its primary objectives is to showcase the San culture, which is largely marginalised.

Diphala have a lot of platforms where they can easily showcase their talent as opposed to sharing with the San the only major platform they (the San) have, ' he said adding that he also did not like the way the group stole the limelight from San groups.

Another person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also shared Tingwane's sentiments.

'We were supposed to be celebrating San culture so what were those dancers from Gaborone doing at the festival?' she said adding that she was also of the view that the group could have at least attempted to perform a San dance style.

However, one of the event organisers, Kuela Kiema defended Diphala's participation.

'One of our primary objectives is to have the San interact with other cultures in Botswana; so we saw nothing wrong with that.

You could even see that the revellers loved Diphala because they offered a different dance style, which added variety to the event,' said Kuela who also happens to be a San activist.

He further asserted that since the Kuru San Dance Festival is competition-based, he believes that there is no way the San dancers could have been intimidated by the participation of Diphala.

Diphala, which is mostly made up of University of Botswana (UB) students offered phathisi and setapa dance styles, which are not usually performed at the event.

The applause that the group got from performing these styles, which are mostly popular with Tswana-speakers in the country must have not gone down well with the detractors. Diphala were not available for comment at the time of going to press.