Mbongeni Ngema’s memorial service to be held on Wednesday

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The Ngema family has announced that a memorial service for veteran playwright Mbongeni Ngema will be held next Wednesday at the Durban Playhouse.

In a statement, they say his funeral is to be held next Friday at a venue still to be confirmed.

Ngema died this week after a car crash involving a truck on the R61 at Bizana in the Eastern Cape.

The family and Ngema’s company, Committed Artists, have also expressed gratitude to the public for the outpouring of support they’ve received.

Sports, Arts, and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa, who visited the family home in Durban yesterday, said Ngema should be given a befitting funeral.

Mbongeni Ngema | Government officials pay respects to late playwright’s family:

Ngema’s body has been transported from the Eastern Cape to his native KwaZulu-Natal after his family completed the identification process at OR Tambo Memorial Hospital in Mbizana.

Tributes 

Ngema has been applauded and acknowledged for the role he played in developing the music industry and promoting unity through the arts.

Self-taught artist

Leading figures in the entertainment industry say Ngema was largely a self-taught artist, having dropped out of school at the age of 12.

Edmund Mhlongo, founder of Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre says Ngema had a unique combination of talents.

“He was a unique director who could sing, dance, and write and who could choreograph. Ngema did not go to school to be educated as a theatre director and writer. He learnt a lot of things through hard work and through reading and he became the master of one of the greatest world theatre directors Jerzy Grotowski.”

Ngema worked with well-known theatre luminary, Gibson Kente, as a singer and trainee actor.

In 1981, Ngema created Woza Albert to highlight the apartheid brutality against black people.

Acclaimed producer Anant Singh who adapted Sarafina! the play for the silver screen says Ngema combined music and theatre into a unique form of storytelling.

“Ngema was very special and creative and hugely talented and I think he was one of the creative people in our country during the period of the 80s where he did shows like Asinamali and Woza Albert. I think when he began as a musician, he could be embraced into the stage and how to put these forms together of music storytelling. And then the theatrical performance was really groundbreaking at the time. His inspiration was people like Gibson Kente, but really he took it to a new level.”

Ngema’s works include Sarafina, Asinamali and songs such as Stimela Sase Zola:

Durban’s City Hall

In 2001, during the African Renaissance festival, Ngema’s name was set in the paving stones at the foot of Durban’s City Hall — the city of his birth. He shares this honour with the likes of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Miriam Makeba.

Gabi Le Roux, general secretary of the South African Musicians’ Union, has told SABC News that the film Sarafina – starring Whoopi Goldberg – helped raise international awareness of the South African struggle in the 1990s.

Le Roux says Ngema’s legacy should be that the South African struggle is not over yet.

“To regenerate the awareness and to make people understand that our freedom is not yet complete. Until such time people are much more equal than now, and the job is not done yet. Hopefully, one good thing to come from his passing – if there is such a thing – would be to revive some of that awareness around the world: that the job is not yet complete. Our people are still suffering through massive inequality.”

In his lifetime, Ngema was honoured with nominations for prestigious Tony and Grammy Awards, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award at Simon Mabhunu Sabela Film and Television Awards.

Renowned producer, Duma Ndlovu pays tribute: