Culture Spears brings live to Tsodilo Hills cultural night
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Tuesday November 28, 2023 06:00
As it is a norm, the legendary local traditional music and song group led by Kabelo Mogwe, Culture Spears, gave the audience a memorable and splendid performance.
Their performance started after the night's speakers. After treating guests to a few songs and dance performances, Mogwe held a dance competition where different local traditional groups that came to perform danced to Culture Spears songs. Amongst those dances included the Sebirwa, Seperu, Herero and tsutsube dances. After a few dance competitions where he invited different community cultural groups, he called all interested revellers on stage for a song and dance. His long performance had set the parting mood to a number of revellers.
He paved the way for other performers to outdo themselves since they had big shoes to fill. However, before Culture Spears performance, Nature Boy BW opened the night's performances with an energetic performance. Tshetlha ya Dikgwa cultural group also treated the audience to a beautiful performance. In one of their performances, one of the members recited a poem about the Tsodilo Hills and how they became a source of income. Different local groups also had the chance to entertain revellers. The night's MCee, Obzah Modidima's jokes got everyone laughing their lungs off.
Giving her speech at the event, the deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Masego Mooketsi applauded the Tsodilo Trust for hosting the event. She said even though the trust did not have enough funds, it made sure to wisely use the little it has to come up with such a beautiful event. She also thanked the sponsors for ensuring that the event succeeds. 'I hope all government officials here will come back here and address your grievances when making the next NDP 12 budget. I was told that the Tsodilo Heritage Walk met with different leaders from nearby villages where you came up with management strategies where you intend to eliminate risks that could affect your heritage sites.
I encourage you to be independent and run your heritage sites and events independently while following the museum guidelines and protocols,' she said. Mooketsi further said she learnt that there were 4, 500 rock art paintings found at 400 locations.
She said that was a big job that needed specialists who could sell their history to tourists and could be traced back. She added that taking care of heritage sites was a big job that needed people to work together. She asked them to work with researchers so that they help document their history adding that their heritage sites were very valuable. For his part, Kgosi Kelebetse Keasheta applauded the organisers for hosting the event despite not having enough budget. He said it was through their persistence that the event happened and the cultural night was a success. He called on more companies to come on board and support the event.