Mahlangu rising steadily to the top

According to Mr Mahlangu, the show is about a ship that sank 100 years ago in the Isle of White, carrying over 900 South African men.

The show is directed by Mr Mandla Mbothwe, from Cape Town.

Mr Mahlangu (35), a graduate of Moving into Dance Mophatong’s Community Dance Teacher’s Training Course (CDTTC), is a multi-talented artist who has made great strides in the performing arts industry as a choreographer, actor, singer, poet, dancer, teacher, arts administrator and composer.

Of note is his ability to compose music from raw talent. His versatility as an artist has seen him being commissioned to work with numerous multi-awarding winning artists, including Gregory Vuyani Maqoma and Victor Ntoni. His artistic talents emerged at the Thuto-ke-Maatla Comprehensive School in 1997, where he worked with the Music-active Theatre company as a singer, dancer and actor. The musical was staged at several of South Africa’s premier venues, the Market Theatre and the Johannesburg Civic Theatre.

He said he has always been a singer since he was young.

“I was raised in a Christian family. People noticed my talent when I joined a choir group at Thuto-Ke-Maatla Comprehensive School. I composed one song for the choir. My school teacher, Mr Mandla Malibe, then recommended me to the Volkswagen Music Active Theatre company, where I attended several workshops. I became the best in the auditions,” he added.

Mr Mahlangu has delved across the spectrum of dance, dance theatre and dance education, and is now the artistic director of the South African vocal music collective, Hlabelela Ensemble, based in Tembisa.

Together with his wife, they have formed a new company called Song and Dance Works.

He was also a member of the Soweto Youth Drama Society, where as an actor and an HIV/AIDS educator, he performed and conducted workshops to more than 72 000 pupils in 180 secondary schools in Gauteng and neighbouring provinces.

Mr Mahlangu added that his compositional skills were put to excellent use when he was commissioned to compose music for multi-award winning and acclaimed choreographers such as Sylvia Glasser’s ‘sessaP emit – Time Passes’, in which he also performed and co-choreographed, and ‘Blankets of Shame’. He was also involved with Gregory Maqoma’s ‘Virtually Blond’, in which he wrote text and poetry for the provocative work and ‘Somehow Delightful’, which premièred at the State Theatre and had an extensive tour of the Netherlands in 2005.

He also composed and wrote poetry for Joe Laughlin’s ‘Sonke Sisonke/Every Body’. The work had its debut at the FNB Dance Umbrella 2002, and then toured Canada.

For the past 15 years, Mahlangu’s career has been that of a competent coordinator of Educational and Artistic Programmes at Moving into Dance. He also performed and conducted workshops with the Performance Company nationally and internationally.

He represented MIDM at Danshögskolan in Sweden, where he conducted afrofusion and edudance workshops. His wide teaching experience also includes having taught edudance at the Tersia King Learning Academy in Tembisa and being an Arts and Culture edudance teacher at his alma mater, Thuto-ke-Maatla Comprehensive.