Motsomi: The Agoji warrior in The Woman King
Thalefang Charles | Sunday July 10, 2022 06:00
Most humans when they have a problem, dancing is the last thing they can think of. But for Motsomi, she says, “when I was sad, or have a problem, I would literally go into my room, and I would dance my life out”.
Motsomi (28) is that dance virtuoso that few years ago was the lead character in the ILoveBotswana ensemble that performed a highly rated theatre production titled Pula on Broadway, New York City. She has now relocated to the ‘Big Apple’ after her biggest gig as one of the Agoji warriors in the highly anticipated Viola Davis film titled The Woman King.
The Woman King is a historical epic, which premieres in theatres on September 16, 2022. It tells a story of the Agoji, a real-life army of women warriors who defended the powerful West African kingdom of Dahomey for many years but whom history has largely forgotten.
Motsomi is one of the Agoji warriors alongside stars like Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega, and Thuso Mbedu. Recounting her dance journey that led to securing a role in the film, Motsomi looks back with pride and satisfaction of what dancing has done to her life. Oozing with confidence like a saved soul finally seeing light at the end of a tunnel, she testifies saying dancing has literally saved her life. “Dance, even though it was not taken as so not important thing back then, it has literally saved my life. “There were days in my life when I was really suicidal and wanted to do crazy things, because I wasn’t coping when I was a child, but dance has rescued me.
I didn’t have the sound, the breath, the voice to even say anything about what I was going through,” she confessed. For many years Motsomi was trapped and drowning in her own personal battles, but like a caged bird that found her freedom in a song, she found her liberty in dance. Dance has always been her release, her “therapy, her “everything”. And she does not remember when she started dancing, because as far back as she can remember she has always been dancing. “I grew up knowing that I am a dancer,” she says.
When she meets old family friends who marvel at how she has grown to a young woman, they usually recall at how she used to love to dance as a toddler and that is how she has learnt that she has been dancing since she was a baby.
As a child that lost both biological parents at an early age, and was raised by a strict grandmother and uncle, nurturing dance talent was not easy. Growing up in a society that looked at dancing as “bo mmasekanta” with no future, both the grandmother and uncle wanted their child to stop wasting time with dancing and focus on formal education. Aspirational question of “What do you want to be?” was her hardest. “I knew exactly what I wanted to be.
I wanted to be a dancer, a performer basically” she remembers, but she could not say those out loud because they were not regarded as proper professions. So she quietly went out to find her dance. The journey took her to many talent shows - auditioning for kwaito outfits like Eskimos and Mapetla looking to join them as a dancer.
But it was the strictest person in the family that she found comfort in opening up and letting her know that “all she wanted to do was dance”, and that was her grandmother. “One time I told her that I had entered this dance competition and I have advanced to final rounds but I don’t have any more nice clothes. The next day we went out to a Chinese shop at BBS Mall where she got me a pair of sneakers, pants and a top. And said, ‘Go and do what you said you wanted to do’,” recalls Motsomi.
She credits the grandmother as the main person that was able to nurture her dance talent because she allowed her to be. She finally met Mophato Dance Theatre while she was enrolled for an Interior Design course at Limkokwing University.
Although her uncle discouraged her for going to dance classes because he felt like it was an excuse to go and do bad things, she immersed herself into Mophato. And it was through Mophato that opened the world she always subliminally knew existed but did not know how to get there - the world of theatre. It was through theatre that she finally found a new way to express herself, tell her story and she never let go. The Mophato gig led her to the Moving In Dance (MID) academy in South Africa where she did a short stint there before returning home because she had funding issues.
But it was a blessing in disguise as upon her premature return, Andrew Letso, Mophato’s choreographer was busy assembling an all-star cast for iLoveBotswana Ensemble to perform at Broadway. She got the leading role and performed it like her whole life depended on it. When the difficult hiatus of the pandemic cleared in 2021, her best friend in South Africa, Noxolo Dlamini, sent her a casting call heads-up about a US film to be shot in the country. And that is how she became an Agoji warrior, her film debut. “They wanted someone with basic martial art skills, so I went for training before sending my portfolio video, which they liked and I got a role as Agoji,” she says. “It was a beautiful unfolding experience for me.
I learnt that everything is possible. You can never know who is looking out for you. My friend [who suggested that I try for a role in the film] reached out because she has been looking at my Instagram. “The challenging part was understanding how film works, but on my execution of the role as Agoji, that came effortless because it brought me so much joy”. Motsomi says she lived her character.
She says: “Those Agoji warriors were powerful, fearless, strong women back then. They used their strength and masculine energy. Everyday when I returned home, I still carried that character. I felt I could do whatever I wanted to do. It made me so powerful. “It didn’t feel like I was working at some point. It was just a spiritual experience for me. It moved me in so many different ways. I finally had the courage to say things that I was dealing with personally in my life. It transformed me mentally and my traumas I have been through,” she says.
Playing Agoji also taught her to be resilient and patience with self. She says but this was just the beginning of great things to come. The Woman King allowed Motsomi to meet the talented cast including the amazing stuntwoman Jénel Stevens who was doubling as Viola Davis. When Motsomi relocated to New York, where she is working on her dance career, she reached out to Stevens and she became her mentee. Stevens is known for her roles in Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Breaking In (2018). “Jénel is going to be mentoring me in the US, and helping me to find more jobs here, and to introduce me to the world of stunts,” says Motsomi.