PERFORMANCE OFFERINGS
The various performances below are the offerings made by all collaborators to the project,
and contribute to the final edited video piece 'Sound and Soil'
I am a Naro SAN healer and leader and my journey in life is to be a pathfinder and seeker of cures and remedies from plant and vibration frequencies, in this way I find not just a healing for myself and my generational trauma but for many others. As a healer I’ve traveled Africa and few other countries studying how to better diagnose illness correct and help where I can in life, I practice Ayuvedic way of making treatments as well as homeopathy and electromagnetic therapy but mostly I rely on my SAN mouth Bow therapy and how vibrations can harmonize a body or plant into a healing state. My life and journey as a San healer have taken me into many lives of others and the responsibility of telling their stories to help others. The intentional methods I use is the most important agreement I create between the people I serve, I work with the pace of the moon full moon, half moon and new moon to seek correct diagnoses. The Sound & Soil journey has been very important for me to have been part of such culture exchange project. We journeyed into a world where most only hears stories and see social media posts. This time I’m happy that I have seen something as beautiful as this project bring a diverse group of women together to remember cultures and mercies through the journey of mycelium. Sound & Soil has truly blessed the children of the soil Naro SAN and NAMA
Q7 Beckett
Assistant Professor of Digital Art & Design
Mount Holyoke College
In my work with Sound and Soil, I worked as a team with Jemima Kola to document the creative output of Sonya Rademeyer and Kagiso Kekana, the traditional step dance of the NAMA Group, and the conversations and stories of San, Sangoma, and Inyanga Healers. Full authorship remains with this community according to Indigenous Research Methodologies. In this supporting role, holding space for this work from behind my camera, I was able to listen. And in listening I found community. By telling our story to someone we enter into trust. And true community, the kind that we call home, requires the discovery of a story that is shared. My homeland of the Southern United States carries some parallels to the conversations held during our residency. It is a land scarred by the actions of our past - actions of great civil injustice and violence which carry implications for how we live today - but it is also home to a culture of deep care and intersecting identities. As we acknowledge this history of racial injustice and oppression we must continue to make a meaningful effort to repair this injustice through listening and through actions of care. In this project, we were able to directly acknowledge our histories, allowing nothing to pass in silence, to begin building a space for Community in the future. I am proud of this work and stand with this entire community as a family. With lots of love, Dixon
Marianna Dixon Williams
Kagiso Kekana
Ke Mary Tlou letebele. La hloka kgomo la ja Motho. I am an Inyanga by calling and my spiritual name is Mkhulu Mahlaba. I have spent a week in Jakkalswater I’m the Northern Cape in the heart of Namaqualand, with the project members of the sand and soil. The initiative of the project is about interconnectiveness of Myerlleum. I came in as an African healer and contributed through discussion and interviews during my time there. However, being a healer has its perks. Through sounds and dance, one gets to be in contact with the ancestors because “ubungoma” means “ People of the sound of music”. And it is through that music that we are able to have an encounter with the ancestors. The place that we went to was well chosen because it is rich in the ancestral history of the Namaqua people. A group of dancers got invited to be a part of the project and it was through their dance that the spirit of the Nama ancestors awoke in me. With the realisation of what was happening, they acknowledged our presence and as well as the initiation of this project. That in itself is a culturally healing not only to present but the past life , and the land of South Africa as a whole. Having a first hand experience of not only present people of Namaqua , but also the past ones has been truly awe-inspiring and memorable . The stories shared , the dances, the people and the environment was healing to me too. I certainly hope to be blessed with another opportunity to step on these lands in future. In closing, as a country, we still have a long way to go. But with such projects and initiatives , we are headed in the right direction.
Mkhulu Mahlaba (Mary Kekana)
It was in 2022 that Sonya Rademeyer and Kagiso Kekana attended one of my talks on the interconnectedness of traditional healing practices. I was approached for the Sound and soil residency early 2023, which I accepted. I doubted my abilities as a person who draws conclusions regarding human existence through observation of plant life, yet I understood the theme of how the mycelium network can be seen as a metaphor for interconnectedness. The doubt rose from the fact that I do not regard myself as a healer nor an artist. With great reluctance I decided to participate, and within the first few hours of spending time with Sonya I realised that I wanted to express myself through the written word. For the 8 days we were in the Northern Cape, I connected with our larger audience through the Sound and Soil blog. I used my emphatic abilities to convey the journey of healers in a space where most will find themselves lost, through written and sometimes spoken words. I also captured the history of the space we found ourselves in to convey the complexity of the human relation to soil. The Sound and Soil residency brought me into contact with not only the exploration of the belief systems and spiritualties of different races within the South African context, but the realisation that when we view pass all the lines, rules and regulations, which is also present in the spiritual world, we can be one uniquely powerful living organism as the mycelium in nature shows. For once we allow our individual natures to connect with the resonance of another; we can slowly start to rectify the pain we have caused one another.
Anneline Mohammedt
For the Sound and Soil project I was very fortunate to have worked with Dixon Williams to document everything that took place. Coming into the project I didn’t know what to expect, but I believe that this was a good thing as it enabled me to help document the project with untainted openness and curiosity. It was amazing to witness the space that the project created for everyone and how people felt comfortable enough to share their life experiences and truths during that short time together. It is an incredible privilege to be part of the Sound and Soil project and I look forward to seeing where this road of deep listening and healing leads.
Jemima Kola
Dina Christiaans: Afrikaans: Die ritual is gedoen: Sonya het haar romp in stukkies lappies geknip, om ondergronds terug tebetaal, dit beteken, as iemnd ondergronds of bo grond n plant of kos ondergrons tepluk, dan betaal jy met n stukkie lap. Die betalling beteken om meer vrugbaarheid te bring in die grond, en dit beteken ook dat jo siel oop is en jo liefde en respek vir die natuur dan ontvang dit terug, en dit maak dat die plante vrug albei goed groei. Die natuur haal ook asem en weet wie dit mt liefde die plante aanvat. Ons het gestap en een ry spore gevorm, ek hetin Sonya se spore geloop om nie baie spore te nalaat nie, beteken om di natuur ni te steur nie. English (translation): The ritual has been completed: Sonya tore her skirt into smaller cloths as payment to the earth. The meaning in doing this is as follows: if a person takes from a plant (either from above ground or underground), payment is with a piece of cloth. This way of performing payment increases soil fertility, and Nature is able to receive it because of one’s openness of soul, as well as love and respect for Nature. This in turn allows for the healthy growth of plants and fruits. Nature also breathes, and is aware of who touches [her] plants in love. Our walk was created using only one line of footsteps: I walked in Sonya’s footsteps so as not to leave multiple spoors, in order that Nature not be hindered. Sonya Rademeyer offering to our collective Mother a pathway of single spoor tearing of red Stapelia flower of blood the stench of lure silence in this duality collective stepping memory is aching tears are falling burying cloth of trauma within hands of love the seeing night owl sacrifices the red of her own blood.
Dina Christiaans & Sonya Rademeyer
I have experienced deep gratitude during Sound and Soil, here on this land that still holds deep trauma. The crossings and intersectional spaces have, at times, opened the scars of deep wounds that are rooted in the historical injustices of our collective past. I have been deeply humbled by the coming together of this body of healers and artists. Wading through the collective trauma, we have pushed forward to connect with one another - and our pasts - much like the sentient process of Mycelium. In much the same way that Mycelium collects nutrients in the darkness of the earth to supply plant material which, in turn, feeds and nurture us, we too have reached down towards the depths of our differences in the darkness of not-knowing. Yet, though grace, have somehow intuitively grasped at the potential of new connections that can be born beyond the darkness of inter-generational pain and cultural differences. As a visual artist of colonial-descent, I have sought to be very, very mindful of my position to these lands where the San once hunted - and were hunted - in the past. It has been a careful journey, slow in movement, requiring an approach of embodied humbleness. Much like Mycelium, it has been a pathfinding happening in darkness, whilst feeling forwards in blindness and empathy. I pay my respects to the ancient being of Mycelium, linking long-forgotten memory to land locked in the granite boulders of this place. And ask forgiveness.
Sonya Rademeyer
Nkosenathi Koela
Earth - Home - Abate - My Child.
Sound of stone and rock.
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