Ndayola Ulenga’s ‘KOKO’ to premiere through Owela’s Groundbreaking Live Art Biosphere
With a voice that carries the echoes of family lore and a stage presence rooted in resistance and remembrance, performer Ndayola Ulenga steps into history with ‘KOKO’ the first theatre work to emerge from the Owela Live Arts Collective Trust’s Live Art Biosphere (LAB). Set to run from 12 to 14 June at the Theatre School in Windhoek, ‘KOKO’ offers a moving docu-theatre experience that maps the emotional terrain of apartheid-era childhoods, intergenerational memory, and the making of Namibian identity, all told through narration, inherited songs, and embodied storytelling.
This is not the first iteration of the work, an earlier version titled ‘Stories from Childhood’ was staged in a park in Suiderhof as part of the Otjomuise Live Art Festival in October 2022.
Staging a docu-theatre piece in three parts, Ulenga performs her parents’ childhood stories from the apartheid period. The play deals with childhood joys, ethnic tensions, as well as personal loss, in the context of a township and an armed struggle. Using a non-acting approach, the performer centres narration as a method of memory work by performing the self, relying on text, music and physicality. The stories are woven together with selected songs that were prominent in Ulenga’s childhood, bridging her parents’ formative experiences with her own. Ulenga puts her own spin on these songs.
The storytelling places emphasis on walking, signaling the journeys travelled and the ways in which mobility in a context of containment was marked by survival. Making reference to walking through the Namibian streets, bushes, mountains and other landscapes, ‘KOKO’ is about home, identity and the making of the Namibian. The play borrows Actofel Ilovu’s 2023 linocut print, We are Namibians too (Maya and Paula), to draw a parallel between yesteryear and contemporary struggles in the making of Namibia.
Ndayola Ulenga - performer’s biography:
Actor and Singer, Ndayola Ulenga, was born and raised in Windhoek. From an early age, Ndayola has been passionate about the arts, training in Cecchetti Ballet at the National Ballet School of Namibia with Jenny Schuster growing up and performing in various productions. Ndayola has a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Drama and Sociology and furthered her acting studies through the Identity School of Acting. Since 2022, she has been taking singing lessons with Hermien Coetzee, and passed her grade 8 Trinity College singing exams with distinction in 2023. She is currently a licentiate student working on the Trinity College ATCL (professional diploma) syllabus. She has been singing professionally for the past few years and has performed at several events and venues in Windhoek. Ndayola intends to complete her Trinity teachers diploma and continue furthering her career as a performing artist. As an actor, Ndayola wrote and acted in her one-woman show titled Stories from Childhood for the Otjomuise Live Arts Festival in October 2022. She has also acted in three of the 2022/2023 round of Multichoice NBC local Namibian films, currently available for streaming on Showmax.
In 2023, Ndayola co-founded NU Theatrics, through which she successfully directed, co-produced and acted in the company’s maiden production of The Wasp by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm.
This is not the first iteration of the work, an earlier version titled ‘Stories from Childhood’ was staged in a park in Suiderhof as part of the Otjomuise Live Art Festival in October 2022.
Staging a docu-theatre piece in three parts, Ulenga performs her parents’ childhood stories from the apartheid period. The play deals with childhood joys, ethnic tensions, as well as personal loss, in the context of a township and an armed struggle. Using a non-acting approach, the performer centres narration as a method of memory work by performing the self, relying on text, music and physicality. The stories are woven together with selected songs that were prominent in Ulenga’s childhood, bridging her parents’ formative experiences with her own. Ulenga puts her own spin on these songs.
The storytelling places emphasis on walking, signaling the journeys travelled and the ways in which mobility in a context of containment was marked by survival. Making reference to walking through the Namibian streets, bushes, mountains and other landscapes, ‘KOKO’ is about home, identity and the making of the Namibian. The play borrows Actofel Ilovu’s 2023 linocut print, We are Namibians too (Maya and Paula), to draw a parallel between yesteryear and contemporary struggles in the making of Namibia.
Ndayola Ulenga - performer’s biography:
Actor and Singer, Ndayola Ulenga, was born and raised in Windhoek. From an early age, Ndayola has been passionate about the arts, training in Cecchetti Ballet at the National Ballet School of Namibia with Jenny Schuster growing up and performing in various productions. Ndayola has a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Drama and Sociology and furthered her acting studies through the Identity School of Acting. Since 2022, she has been taking singing lessons with Hermien Coetzee, and passed her grade 8 Trinity College singing exams with distinction in 2023. She is currently a licentiate student working on the Trinity College ATCL (professional diploma) syllabus. She has been singing professionally for the past few years and has performed at several events and venues in Windhoek. Ndayola intends to complete her Trinity teachers diploma and continue furthering her career as a performing artist. As an actor, Ndayola wrote and acted in her one-woman show titled Stories from Childhood for the Otjomuise Live Arts Festival in October 2022. She has also acted in three of the 2022/2023 round of Multichoice NBC local Namibian films, currently available for streaming on Showmax.
In 2023, Ndayola co-founded NU Theatrics, through which she successfully directed, co-produced and acted in the company’s maiden production of The Wasp by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm.
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