INYIKIMA
A sonic poetry performance by Sisonke Papu (KHNYSA)
Written in Makhanda nearly a decade ago, INYIKIMA returns to the city of its becoming as a live multidisciplinary performance experience where poetry, sound, movement, breath, and collective song converge.
What began as a book-length poem has, over time, become a wider sonic and embodied language. In this performance, selected excerpts from INYIKIMA are activated through spoken word, live improvised music, voice, and ritual performance, creating an intimate journey through memory, rupture, ancestral presence, longing, healing, and emergence.
This is not a conventional poetry reading, nor a traditional concert, but a living performance encounter rooted in African oral storytelling traditions and contemporary sonic experimentation. Words move into music. Music becomes atmosphere. The audience is invited into a shared space of listening, feeling, remembering, and transformation.
Led by Sisonke Papu (KHNYSA), alongside collaborators, the work draws from indigenous knowledge systems, breath practices, improvisation, and multidisciplinary performance-making to create a deeply resonant cultural offering.
Production Credits
Sisonke Papu - mbiras, flutes, keys, vox
Amandla Akhona - saxophone, vox
Wandile Hlamvana - amagubu
Xhanti Nokwali - guitar, udu, vox
Gabriel Sieff - cello, keys
About the Artists
Sisonke Papu is an iGqirha (traditional healer), multidisciplinary artist, writer, composer, and breathwork facilitator from Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. His work sits at the intersection of indigenous cosmology, sound, storytelling, healing, and contemporary performance practice. He has presented work locally and internationally, including through OneBeat (USA), Southern Guild, Hazendal’s Soil Festival, Holistic Technology Salon, and collaborative community arts initiatives rooted in youth development and indigenous sound practice.
INYIKIMA marks both a return and a becoming: a homecoming to the city where the poem was first written, and a public unveiling of the sonic world it has since inspired.
- Venue: The Black Power Station
- Location: The Old Power Station
- Ticket price: ZAR 250.00
- Programme type: The Fringe
- Genre: Poetry & Spoken Word
- Duration: 60 minutes
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Ages:
ALL AGES
