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Dance & Culture
At the young age of 14, Mulalo Gumani of Tshakhuma was an established and well-known dancer with the versatile Zozo of the Sengere Superbeat fame.
With his unique dancing styles that attracted many of their fans to their shows, he formed part of a formidable dancing crew that backed well-known rhumba star Zozo.
This paper recently met him on a busy corner in Thohoyandou, where a sizeable crowd was watching him perform. “I have loved music since I was very young, and when I met Zozo, I knew there and then that my time had finally arrived. We travelled the whole country, doing live shows and I would watch Zozo’s brother doing his magic, and fans went mad for it.”
He said that he told himself that he would also do it one day and started practising different moves with a bottle, “until I mastered the trick”.
Gumani, now 26, said that after he left the group, he found himself in poverty and without any income. “I thought of ways of making an honest living and the bottle magic came in handy. The first day at Thohoyandou shopping complex was a mess for me, with the bottle falling during my show, but I did not give up as it was the only way I could make a few bucks to survive. At the end of the day I had enough money to take some groceries home.”
He is now a household name and wherever he goes, be it in Thohoyandou or other towns in Limpopo, a large crowd of fans ususally attend his shows, providing enough money to feed himself and his family.
Asked about his trick of balancing a beer bottle on a piece of wood, Gumani said it was his secret that he would not share with others, for fear of competition. “This is my livelihood and I cannot share it with others, but my advice to my fellow countrymen is that South Africa is full of opportunities. Make use of any simple skill that you have and you won’t go to bed hungry ,” he said.
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Mulalo Gumani of Tshakhuma
By: Elmon Tshikhudo
Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.
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