Bongani Nicholas Ngomane: The TUT Dean’s Concert became a powerful journey through memory, music and legacy, carried forward by a new generation of artists.

The Journeys That Carried Us: A Stage Filled With Memory

Some performances entertain us, while others remind us where we come from, who carried us and what responsibility we have to carry the story forward. The 2026 TUT Dean’s Concert, The Journeys That Carried Us!, presented by Tshwane University of Technology’s Faculty of Arts and Design in partnership with the South African State Theatre, managed to do both. Staged at the Drama Theatre on 9 September, the concert brought together music, history, memory and a new generation of artists in an impressive celebration of South African identity.

The sight of students occupying the stage in numbers alongside a full orchestra immediately created a sense of scale. Beautiful projections transformed the backdrop, while music, dance and theatrical elements gave the concert a visual and emotional richness. When Shosholoza filled the theatre, it became more than a familiar song. Hearing it carried by young voices reminded us that music survives because each generation finds a reason to sing it again. Two saxophonists later brought another exciting musical texture to the stage, with the audience clapping and responding enthusiastically.

The concert was particularly powerful in the way it allowed history to live rather than simply be remembered. Conceived as a journey through South African memory, it reflected on significant moments in the country’s history while allowing young artists to encounter that inheritance through performance. This was not history presented as distant dates and facts. It was history given bodies, voices, instruments and movement.

For me, the emotional centre of the evening was the tribute to the late Mbongeni Ngema. When his brother, Nhlanhla Ngema, performed Stimela SaseZola, the atmosphere in the Drama Theatre shifted. Ngema’s artistic legacy remains deeply connected to a South African tradition in which theatre and music carry resistance, memory, pain, humour and hope. Hearing his work performed by his brother made the tribute feel deeply personal rather than ceremonial.

The audience’s response said everything. When the song ended, the theatre erupted in cheers and calls for more. People continued singing and applauding, seemingly unwilling to allow the moment to end. It became difficult to separate performer from audience. For those few minutes, Ngema was not simply being remembered. His work was alive again through the people singing it back to the stage. It was a beautiful reminder that artists may leave us, but powerful art refuses to disappear with them.

Equally significant was seeing TUT students at the centre of such a major production. They were not simply learners demonstrating classroom exercises. They were young artists occupying a professional stage, supported by an orchestra and engaging a real audience. This is where the partnership between TUT and the South African State Theatre becomes meaningful. Young artists need classrooms and lecturers, but they also need professional stages, audiences and opportunities to discover what their training becomes when it meets the real world.

The Journeys That Carried Us! ultimately became more than a Dean’s Concert. It was an intergenerational conversation between those who created before us and those who will carry South African creativity forward. From Shosholoza and the orchestra to the saxophones, projections and the unforgettable celebration of Mbongeni Ngema, the evening demonstrated how music can preserve memory while simultaneously creating something new.

As I watched the students confidently occupying the Drama Theatre stage, I found myself thinking about how often we ask what the future of South African arts will look like. Perhaps, on this evening, the answer was already standing in front of us. They were singing, dancing, playing instruments and creating behind the scenes. They were receiving an artistic inheritance and performing it forward.

The applause eventually stopped and the theatre emptied, but the concert left behind a powerful thought: we never arrive anywhere alone. Someone sang before us, created before us and opened doors before us. The responsibility of every new generation is to decide what it will do with that inheritance. At the TUT Dean’s Concert, the next generation did not simply remember the journey. They showed that they are ready to carry it forward.

Bongani Nicholas Ngomane
nicholasngomane87@gmail.com
072 700 6030
SA Theatre Reviews
http://www.satheatrereview.co.za

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I write to document our artistic journeys, honour those who paved the way, and amplify the new voices shaping the future of South African arts.