28 Aug 2026

Most people find a way out of pain with calming their nervous system, breaking circle of tension, speaking with a professional or just gentle movements and slow breathing, among the many.

But, for Lone Motsumi, an actress, theatre choreographer and performer, dance theatre has always been her way out of pain. 

Rhythm, breath, gesture and the body have always been a language for her to explain things she struggles with when words fail her. 

With a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts in Dance and Theatre Production acquired from Nanjing University of Arts in China, Motsumi brings Kgololo to Maitisong Theatre this Sunday, to tell her story.

Kgololo, meaning liberation, was created as a memory for her father, but it became deeper and personal. 

The theatre piece follows the journey of a woman returning to herself, confronting what has been carried within the body, memory, resistance, grief, pain and the things she held onto because they became familiar. 

Through movement, she gradually moves towards release, transformation and renewed sense of self.

“So, the piece became a kind of excavation. I had to go inward, into unlived and lived memories and emotions that I thought I already understood. And through the creative process, I discovered that sometimes healing is not about forgetting what happened. It is about changing your relationship with what you carry,” Motsumi shares, as she tells her story of Kgololo in an interview. 

A solo production directed by Tefo Paya, for Motsumi, Kgololo is a deeply personal journey which felt almost inevitable and she wanted to be responsible for telling the story and not place her experience into someone else’s body and have them interpret it for her. 

“I wanted to stand inside the work and allow my own body to become the storyteller. There is also something very vulnerable about being alone on stage; there is nowhere to hide, every breath, every hesitation, every physical decision becomes part of the story and I think that vulnerability is important to Kgololo,” Motsumi says. 

Although it is a story which begins with her, Kgololo is both personal and communal. Motsumi wants to share something deeply personal with hope that someone watching will recognise a part of themselves in the story as she enters the stage alone.

“I do not want the audience to feel alone in what they are experiencing,” she adds. 

Building the Kgololo script between Motsumi and her director was most challenging but also transformative. 

“My director has been instrumental in that process because he challenged me to go much deeper than what I thought I already knew about myself and about the story. There were moments when I came into rehearsal thinking, I know this part, I understand what this means. And then he would ask a question, give me a task, or push me into a different physical or emotional space and suddenly something I thought I understood became real again,” she says, adding that alone made the rehearsal room a very vulnerable space.

However, Motsumi appreciated the process of creating the script because her director did not try to control the work into becoming something that only existed in his imagination. 

Rather, Paya stretched her thinking, challenged her choices and also allowed the production to breathe and develop its own identity. 

Motsumi urges the public to attend the show and reflect on Kgololo their own experiences rather than view it as solely Motsumi’s story. Her aim is for Kgololo to act as a mirror, prompting viewers to consider their personal struggles and what they carry; be it pain, beliefs, relationships, fears and identities. She reminds audiences that liberation is an individual choice, even with valuable support; the decision to release one’s burdens ultimately lies with the individual. 

Meanwhile, tickets are currently on sale at webtickets at P200 single, P300 double and P100 for students. ENDS