Mogorosi prepares for all-embracing ululation

Gothataone Moeng | Friday February 21, 2014 16:02

 

Back in 1995, studying towards a degree in Filmmaking as one of the first Batswana sponsored by the government for the programme, Mogorosi realised that there was a need for a hands-on arts education in Botswana.

“I liked the school where I studied and the many other places I went to. But I felt that they needed to be much more hands-on,” he says.

Almost two decades later, Mogorosi is, in May this year, poised to unveil Mogolokwane Arts Academy, a school that will offer short practice-led courses in Film, Music, Theatre, Dance and other areas of the arts. Aptly named for the Setswana word for “ululation,” Mogorosi says the academy will offer much more than just training.

“It’s a place where we are going to celebrate artists - those presently working, yester-year’s artists and those of the future. A place where talent will be nurtured; a place where people are going to work together to train and enhance their skills. In a way you can say it’s an enhancement institute; a place where you can train regardless of your educational background,” he told Mmegi.

It hasn’t been an idle 19 years. Mogorosi says he has been consumed with ensuring that he is equipped to train potential students at his institution, tagging another two years of studying Dramatic Arts at Wits University in South Africa onto his filmmaking degree.

“You can’t just say you want to start something. You yourself have to learn. You need to be a student first. I studied film for seven years and studied theatre for two years. I observed the best practice in different schools to see what I could apply in a practical manner in Botswana,” he says.

The years he spent at Wits University’s Theatre Department were not just devoted to his studies within the university. As the idea of Mogolokwane was still unfurling in his heart, Mogorosi says he studied even more outside the university, trying to understand how institutions work.

“I went to the Market Theatre to see how their labs work. I spoke to people from (the University of Cape Town), asking them how institutions function, how they work with professional artists outside their institutions. I have always been attracted to people who are hands-on, so the idea is that Mogolokwane is a place that is practice-led, not theory-led,” he explains. 

But getting academic qualifications was not the biggest hurdle Mogorosi had to face.  Attempting to start an arts academy in Botswana was always going to be accompanied by lack of funding and of trying to find a suitable location for the school. 

After all, the Botswana Society for the Arts (BSA) has been trying to get their Botswana National Arts Institute (BNAI) off the ground since 1996. The government has already granted BSA 10 hectares of land in Gaborone, as well as P10 million towards professional design fees, tax concessions and a design concept. BSA estimates that it will need more than P40 million for construction of the theatre, a foyer and a cafeteria, dance and drama studios, as well as recording and photography studios.

On the other hand, Mogorosi estimates he will need P6 million for the first phase of infrastructure development. Five years ago, he met Letsweletse Mmope and the answer to his location problems. Mmope owns property in a place known as Bojanala Waterfront Park that he had developed as a place of entertainment and tourism. Formerly a brick-making industrial yard, Mmope developed the place and ended up with infrastructure that included a restaurant and a performance stage.

 In the last years five years, as partners, Mogorosi says both he and Mmope have been ploughing what money they make into renovating the buildings and landscaping the area to allow for both indoor and outdoor performances. Five years later, with the place still not up to his exacting standards and funds constraining him from fully realising the vision he had for infrastructure development, Mogorosi says he has decided to take the Setswana way of completing projects one brick at a time.“I think I have been over-thinking things.  When people come here and see this space, they get very excited,” he says. “They see amazing space they have not seen anywhere else. But all I see is something that still needs work. Now I remember that our parents, when they built their houses, they built them brick by brick. I am beginning to learn to apply the lessons that I have been taught by my parents and my aunt that one small thing can create a bigger one.”

He has divided the work that he wants to do on the structure into two phases. Phase One, which he predicts will cost about P6 million, includes development of a 300-seater theatre in which both film and theatre workshops will be held and an open restaurant that will also accommodate performances. Still within Phase One will be development of a photography and film studio. In the longer term, Phase Two will include construction of classes at so high a cost that he declines naming it. Although the plan is to complete Phase One this year, the structure is a working structure as it is and workshops can start, Mogorosi says. Over the last couple of years, the space has been used to host workshops and an African Market. It has played host to Inside Out - monthly themed site-specific performances and installations by a group of visual artists, actors, poets, dancers and actors who are part of Tshedisa Artists Residence.