Ishlahla Sobuntu is a musical theatre play that is highly energetic with indigenous instruments/talk/music/dance/
It is a story about 2 special girls who meet at this weekly public tv show where there's a debate between two groups of rural & urban youths. These viby discussions are backed by a panel of elders & audience interaction, exploring OUR TRADITIONAL VALUES; how the traditional Zulu raised their girls & boys with sound values to keep the rythm & shape of a people. The show debate warms up between Rural & Urban Youth, a Panel of Elders play indigenous instruments while interjecting with monologues, narration & songs which carry clues that lead to answers.
Over time, the 2 girls from rural & urban become good friends. When the rural community finds out that the urban girl is still a virgin, they encourage her to join the young maidens who attend the Royal house lessons of wholeness under the hand of 'Iqhikiza'(Matron of Honour) & prepare for the King's Reed Dance. The urban girl falls more & more in love with the simple rural lifestyle. She even changes the way she dresses, she attends all the Iqhikiza lessons including the music lessons of Umakhweyana (A female healing instrument that is played with a bow & calabash placed on the left breast to sooth & heal the heart of a woman who doesn't always have a voice). She is taught to release her emotions by playing her Umakhweyana by the river & tell all her troubles to the waters & let them go(.....SHOW THIS......)
There's Resentment on the urban side, the girls become jealous of their friend who now spends no time with them because she is taken by the traditional lifestyle; and worst of all, she now has a rural suitor who is known in the village. The urban girls gang up with her urban suitor & set a plot to trap her; by nviting her on a movie outing & party afterwards. She falls for the trap.
(....SHOW THIS....)
At the party, they spike her drink with a dangorous drug, she looses herself & end up dancing the whole night to the loss of her virginity at the club.
(....SHOW THIS....)
When she sobers up in the morning, she realises what had happened to her and her devastation throws her into the valleys where nobody could find her. She's there alone with her Umakhweyana Instrument which becomes her only trusted companion that could understand her aching heart. Lamenting the loss of her 'holy sacred robe'(virginity). Now she can't join the Maidens at the Royal house.
Her rural friend is even more hurt about this because she is a helpless witness to her innocence. She decides to alert the Elders and Indunas, & they relate the unfortunate experience to the Queen Mother, who in turn alerts the iNkosi(King). This becomes priority news of the village.
(....SHOW THIS....)
They hold IMBIZO around a tree....and inside of the powerful Zulu Idiom that says 'Injobo Enhle Ithungelwa Ebandla'(meaning, there is no problem that cannot be solved at IMBIZO, around a tree where the community is gathered with one intention to find solutions for the sake of peace within the community. Even the deepest embarasing secret of a man can be resolved at IMBIZO)'
ANNOUNCENT & EXCITEMENT ABOUT THESE NEWS).They come up with a new law which changes the tradition. It is agreed that 'no child deserves to be thrown into the gabbage'....they pass a rule that the Royal house will now allow all young boys & girls to attend the Royal grooming with Amaqhikiza. Even those who had lost their virginity will be welcome,
(....SHOW THIS..)
BUT 1st, the Royal house and all the elders must 'bless the community river & bring them all to be purified in the water.
(....SHOW THIS....)
The play ends with a beautiful mystical Purification River Dance. This becomes a historical event of the century because it is the 1st time that the Royal house accepts boys & girls who have lost their virginity; and give them a second chance in their development.
(.....THE FINALE)
The end is a celebration in music/song/dance of the entire community!!!!!!!!!