The GLAMOUR Women’s Month Series is an ode to women who are following the beat of their drum and doing it successfully and Buhle is one woman who is doing that phenomenally.
Buhle Ngaba is a multi-award-winning South African actor, writer and speaker. She studied Acting and Contemporary performance at Rhodes University and Processes of Performance at the University of Leeds. She performed in the 2014 world premiere of John Kani’s Missing directed by Janice Honeyman at the Baxter Theatre. The play toured internationally and for her role, she was nominated by both Fleur Du Cap Theatre Awards and the Naledi Theatre Awards for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2016, Buhle was awarded the prestigious Brett Goldin Bursary, affording her an internship at The Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK). During her time there, Buhle began to conceptualise and write her first play, Swan Song. She serves on the Shakespeare Society of South Africa Executive Committee.
In 2017, she won two South African Kanna Theatre Awards including Best Upcoming Artist for Swan Song. Buhle was nominated for a Fleur Du Cap Theatre Award (2018) for Best Leading Actress for her performance in What Remains, written by Nadia Davids and directed by Jay Pather.
In 2016, Buhle was named as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans and voted number 1 in The Superbalist Top 100 Entrepreneur List. She also received the Gauteng Youth Premier's Award for Excellence. Through KaMatla NPO, Buhle seeks to promote diversity in children’s literature, aid the development of the arts and promote storytelling. Her book The Girl Without A Sound has been published in all 11 SA official languages.
Buhle localised The New Girl Code, an initiative of serial technology entrepreneur Janneke Niessen children’s author Niki Smit, with illustrator Josselin Bill. Ngaba has been a Dove brand ambassador since 2018 and was involved in the launch of Dove’s international campaign #ShowUs; a collaboration with Dove, Getty Images and Girl Gaze. Buhle was recently awarded the Rising Light award at the Mbokodo Awards for Women in the Arts.
In a candid GLAMOUR Women’s Month series interview, the artist opens up about patriarchy, inspiring young girls, Black lives matter, self-care, and imposter-syndrome.
Which woman has positively impacted you in your career/business? And what is the one lesson she taught you?
Considering that for my 25th birthday, my mama opted to buy me a small company (literally from Shelf Warehouse Company) with the aim of my learning/growing with it and streamlining all of my art through one channel, I would say that she has most positively impacted my business by forcing me to learn how to own one. She was an advocate, sure, but also a natural born fashionista and later a motorbike riding yogi and this balance in being made her an incredible leader. I would say that the one lesson she taught me with regards to business is the importance of integrity above all. If you let integrity run through the DNA of your company from its laws of governance, to how it runs and the ethos of the workspace, I believe it makes for a creative and lucrative business.
What are the three words that spring to mind when you hear Women's Day/Month?
Mbokodo, Family, Ruth Mompati.
To you, what is the most beautiful thing about being a woman?
I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as “beautiful” because it occurs through necessity as opposed to choice, but I would say our resilience as women is astounding.
In your industry or in general, have you seen any more movement to gender equality in the workplace?
If I’m completely honest: not as much as I would like to see nor as quickly. That said, I’m incredibly inspired and excited by the work of my peers and our younger sisters, and I feel like the idea of the “workplace” and its structure is changing; we are ready to pick up the reins from this point on. The future is in good hands.
As a woman who looks to inspire young girls that look like you, what are some of the measures you think should be put in place to assure young girls have an equal say in society?
Equal education.
With Black Lives Matter being at the forefront and black people calling out racism and transformation. What do you think we can teach the next generation about inclusion and representation?
To be honest, I think that we can afford to take a step back and look to be taught by the younger generation as opposed to “teaching” them. I think that we need to realize that we aren’t at the center of what’s to come, they are, therefore they should be given the platform to begin to imagine and create it without our consistent interference.
Gender Based Violence (GBV) especially women and children abuse has been prevalent in the country for a very long time and there have been various initiatives that speak to this but the scourge of abuse still continues at a large scale, what would you advise as a solution going forward? And who should be involved?
I don’t know what the solution is. Which is not to say I have given up hope… it just means that short of forming a femme army gang to walk the streets each evening to protect us, I’m not sure how we as women can fix the violence of men. Men should be involved.
What does women’s month mean to you and what would you like to be done to push or commemorate this month?
My great aunt Ruth was one of the leaders of the women’s March. I have watched all of the matriarchs in my family carry and continue the legacies of strength, defiance and love to their graves. So, if I am completely honest, Women’s Day and Month feels like a bloodletting of women to me. That on top of how the rise of femicide each year particularly during August in SA, does nothing to shift my view. That said, nothing stays the same forever, so I have hope that one day, this month will truly be one in which we are celebrated and revered as powerful as opposed to being reduced to statistics.
As a modern African woman, who is a powerhouse in her own right, how do you manoeuvre the African expectations for what Africa believes a woman should be, particularly in countries that are rooted in patriarchy like ours?
I do what I want. I am not the first to hold this opinion, in the words of the great Antjie Krog and the poem she read at Jesse Hess’ memorial service:
“we should be
we should be
free fucking women”.
What are some of the great possibilities about being a woman in the world right now, that may not be easy to see but you feel women should take full advantage of without being ashamed or afraid?
If the opportunity presents itself to you: go with it. Don’t hesitate, don’t wonder who “might be better”, if it came to you, it’s yours. Too often, our path opens up exactly what is meant for us, but we are so busy making sure the world doesn’t fall apart, we don’t surrender ourselves to it completely. I dare us.
The imposter syndrome is something a lot of women confess to suffer from or have suffered from. Have you ever had to deal with it? What would you say to another woman reading this about not letting the syndrome run one’s life in anyway?
Imposter syndrome is part and parcel of being in the line of work I am in; essentially, I pretend to be other people as a living. Being an actor/writer/creator, I’m constantly negotiating spaces I feel like I don’t belong in and that is further exacerbated by being a woman of colour. I have had to come up with a general mantra for myself: “adapt or fly” – to me that essentially goes to say: DO IT ANYWAY! JUMP! YOU BELONG TO YOU SO YOU BELONG EVERYWHERE. I don’t always believe it, but I do try to implement that energy in thinking each day.
How has self-care contributed to the woman you are in all facets of your life? Why is self-care important, particularly for women, as most women are raised to believe that they have to put everyone else first before themselves?
I have learnt the hard way that without the soul, spiritual, physical and mental space required to create, I can’t function. Therefore, I would say that self-care is one of the most important ways of ensuring that our momentum going into the future as women is unstoppable. We are only as strong as one another.
