We Sang with 140 Kids at Womad & Endured the Demands of Edinburgh Fringe and Yes 3000 People Paid to Watch Our Show at Llangollen Eistedford……
.. and we still standing. From the last time we danced alongside Jay Zee at Glastonbury, one would think our being quiet has been due to inactivity or would assume that after such a hectic period we would go on to rest but hey it has been the usual – praise to him who rightfully rechristened us to Siyaya.
We have been on our normal routine of entertaining the masses and while other raised their nations flags in the Beijing Olympics, we carried our Zimbabwean flag in front of Three thousand people in The Royal Eisteddfod in Wales, the audiences at the annual eisteddfod had not come in the evening to watch a variety of performers, but they turned up to watch Siyaya in OnkeOse and we sang and danced with pride in front of them – “listen to the voice of mwana wevhu” check out the Video
The period that followed saw us doing unlimited number of trips from our base in Sheffield to as far Malmesbury to work with young school children. Picture this – A hundred and twenty kids singing our songs from our Cd, in our mother language as well as theirs. We spent weeks teaching these kids our songs and watching them singing songs such as “Iqhiha”, “KokobaTown” and “Ngizobuya” you could be forgiven to think that we spent years and years coaching these Kids. All our effort was rewarded with what a numerous number of artists dream off – Opening the Womad MAIN STAGE where we first performed for an hour then marshalled our hundred and twenty angels onto the stage to move the crowd to tears. See Music Review.
A two day rest is all the artists got as they soon packed up for the 7 hour journey into the Scottish city of Edinburgh for the Edinburgh fringe- funny we found a lot of Faithfull’s who had been praying for our return after we subjected them to some non stop hour of dance in Thatha in 2005 and 2006. After failing to play at the Fringe in 2006 OnkeOse finally opened at venue 127 (St Johns) on Wednesday the 6th and was given a three star review by the Scotsman. We braved the bad and unpredictable British weather through out the month of August juggling our energy between the ever busy and competitive streets in the afternoon then the venue in the evening.
We are starting to enjoy the glory of headlining events and we are strongly considering amending our “booking requirements” to make headlining a mandatory exercise. Alongside Oliver Mtukudzi we got them dancing and singing along during the colourful Zimfest in London on the 30th, a good way to seal of the hectic month.
Now we smile that the month is over, but all the smiles we do on the motorway as we are now in the Scottish Highlands where we will revive our old memories in the city of Aberdeen. It is this City that the first troops of Siyaya discovered in 1995 (the first ever international tour for Siyaya by then known as NASA) and from that day they have never looked back.
On the road we will continue staying and so will be the updates. So long dear friends. Aluta continua
Siyaya Nomakanjani
Thulani Javas Sibanda
Administrator & Press Liaison
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