Siphokazi Jonas seems to have made it her life’s work to prove that labels are not binding. Having tried on many a label – and various career paths – she says she comes alive by transcending the labels and allowing her careers to intersect. Jonas spoke to Masego Mafata about her journey as a poet, performer and writer.
Donning a lab coat, lab glasses and a pipette in hand, Siphokazi the scientist concocts a solution. Although this is an experiment she spent much of her high school career thinking she was destined for, she still cannot help but feel apprehensive and out of place. Trembling, she allows a few drops from the pipette to fall into the beaker. Her tremors cause the drops to fall in oscillating directions – first left, then right and then a quick left and then right again – not in a harmonious rhythm, but in a chaotic splatter. Pungent fumes rise from the beaker and the bubbles bop, not to a soothing beat but a rather anxious one, suggesting that the chemical reaction may have gone awry.*
Pictured during a performance of #WeAreDyingHere, Siphokazi is “on the ground, [with her] body on the line”, resembling the activism she associates more with her friends than herself. PHOTO: Facebook/Siphokazi Jonas
In her poem, Graduation, theatre-maker and colleague to Siphokazi, Koleka Putuma emulates the African parent and aptly summarises one of the reasons why Siphokazi sought to initially craft a career as a scientist. “You will work and send money home,” writes Putuma. In Siphokazi’s case, it became “you will work as a scientist, so you can send money home”. Her parents did not say it in as many words, they merely alluded to it by telling their daughter that she had to study something that would ensure her financial security.
After realising her burning passion for curating words and telling stories, she humbly unarmed herself with her parents’ advice and the idea that science was her only ticket to earning a living. Instead, she enrolled for a BA in English and Drama at UCT.
A career wedding; they’re all intertwined
Currently residing in the mother city, Siphokazi holds an MA in English which she uses to marry her love of story-telling and performance. Having outgrown the idea that it is impossible to make a career out of the dramatic arts and theatre, she reassuringly notes that being a performer “feels like coming home”. She eases into the chair slightly, and takes a quick pause. It is as if she has just put on an old jacket and is realising how well it fits her.
Among other things, coffee brings Siphokazi to life. It helps fuel her lively and animated nature, both on and off the stage. PHOTO: Masego Mafata
Her deep interest in performance – both theatrical and poetic – has allowed her to explore the intersections of poetry and theatre “without feeling like they’re in competition,” she says. She acknowledges that the role of theatre-maker is different from that of a poet. However, for Siphokazi, the two are intertwined. “Theatre has definitely fed into who I am as a spoken word artist. Which is why, you know, a lot of my performances are really quite animated and full of life,” she says.
People who have seen her performances can attest to their lively nature. These folks may even go as far as contesting Siphokazi when she says she is an introvert and a home-body. She has shown, however, that introversion and performance can indeed coexist. Her achievements up to this point are a testament to this. In 2016, she showcased and performed in her own play, Around the Fire at the Artscape. Her directorial debut came in 2018, in a play called The Widow. She has also graced stages internationally, most recently in the United States of America, where she has shared her poetry and passion for performance.
Performing is easier than publishing
The biggest gripe that Siphokazi’s followers have is that they cannot access her work after a performance. She has written many poems, but is yet to publish an anthology. “I signed a contract with Uhlanga in 2018 to publish, but ingaphumi, like [the work] just wasn’t coming out,” she says.
She jokingly likens being asked when the book is coming out to being asked about when one will complete their postgraduate thesis. She lets out another giggle and then, swiftly, picks the conversation up where she left off.
“As much as I’ve had work that I can publish, it hasn’t been the work that I want to publish … as my first full collection,” Siphokazi says. She explains that she, for now, hopes to self-publish a mini-anthology of poems because people have told her that they want to “own” her work. “Instead of just holding onto it, I’m going to publish those poems as a chapbook so that it’s a shorter project,” she says. As she declutters her poetry bank in this manner, she trusts that the process will leave her feeling “free to go where [I] want to creatively”.
An activist in denial
Siphokazi does not consider herself an activist, even though she has used her work as a vessel for social commentary, more specifically speaking against gender-based violence. “I feel a certain discomfort around the word ‘activism’,” she says. She attributes this feeling largely to the idea that her work does not fit the “on the ground, body on the line all the time” activism that her friends do.
As she explains this, she looks down at her shoes, the only pink pop of colour in her grey outfit today. In the grey of the room and the grey of her dress, the pink sticks out like the red September of 2019; the September of Uyinene Mrwetyana’s death. This tragedy fuelled a rage in Siphokazi – a rage she could only address using her pen, prose and prowess.
“I remember the first time – maybe about a week or more after [her passing] – we were driving past [Clareinch post office] and it was still full. It was like a shrine still full of all of the messages and I just felt a panic while driving. It was a very physical reaction. You know, and I just think: ‘You’ve picked up parcels there. You’ve dropped stuff off.’ Not to make it personal, but it just came a lot closer,” she says.
There’s a rich tone in her voice as she articulates this; a cup full of rage, another of deep sadness and serving of wanting to do something about what she was feeling. She used this mix of ingredients to create her most recent body of work entitled We Are Dying Here. “Often a lot of my work is kind of well-considered and processed. But this [We Are Dying Here] is when I was like creating from the space of rage, of not writing towards a foregone conclusion,” Siphokazi says.
Though the bodies of her cast are not “on the ground, body on the line all the time,” as she defines those of activists to be, We Are Dying Here is composed of very visceral poems that often require debriefs with audiences at the end of the show, she says. Many would argue that there is something to be said about the activist nature of work that creates a space safe enough for audiences to engage with the work viscerally and personally.
#WeAreDyingHere has undergone some adaptations since it first premiered. Costume changes and making the production available for online streaming are some of these adaptations. POSTER: Facebook/Siphokazi Jonas
What’s next for Siphokazi?
A number of Siphokazi’s older poems make reference to black women. These black women either appear as her mother, black mothers and the various roles they play in society as well as her muse; her grandmother. She admits that she loves black women and she is drawn to visceral, rural women. Having grown up in the city and spending holidays in rural Eastern Cape, for Siphokazi “the rural becomes a site of imagination, you know, unrestricted by whatever the city has to offer”.
Her grandmother – a rural, commercial farmer, mother, and entrepreneur – represents a large portion of what she is interested in articulating about black women and their multifaceted nature. She writes against the “two dimensional cookie-cutter view of who” people think black women are. It is through the image and representations of her grandmother that she is able to process and write about black women in all their multifaceted glory.
With her grandmother’s guidance in hand, she is beginning to settle and shift the gaze onto herself, as a black woman. As she gets comfortable in her skin, both creatively and personally, she is beginning to feel safe enough to write more about herself and her experiences. “I feel like [my experiences] have more weight now that I’m like almost 40,” she says. She lets out a slight giggle, realising that she’s made 40 feel much closer than it is. It is still 6 years away.
*Please note: This interview was conducted before the nationwide lockdown
regulations were implemented.