Nyangabgwe Hill International Cultural festival gets bigger and better

This year’s Nyangabgwe Hill International Cultural and Music festival will be bigger and better in its second year running without a mouth-watering line-up of local artist including Mafitlhakgosi, Tjilenje tje Ngwao and four cultural dance groups from South Africa.

Speaking to VIBE in a recent interview, the director of the festival Ngwisiwa Ntogwa, was over the moon as he revealed that preparations for the show are almost complete as he is busy making payments to all the artists lined up to perform at the cultural festival. Ntogwa who is a custodian of Ikalanga dance culture is the front man for Tjilenje the Ngwao group which has won many presidential awards with their Kalanga dances including Hosana, Ndazula, Mokomoto and Ntshumani.

He informed this publication that he came up with the idea of the yearly cultural festival as one way of preserving local culture more especially the Ikalanga dance and music culture which was dying a natural death due to it being ignored by the current generation. “During the music and cultural festivities, revellers are going to be introduced to various cultural dances, music and cultural attire. As if that is not enough, the Ikalanga culture will be in display as food menu from the north with form part of the integral part of the festivities.

I grew up in a family which respected our tradition hence my zeal and drive to be part of a cultural exchange vessel in the country,” he said. The venue of the cultural festival is just on the foothills of Nyangabgwe Hill in Francistown. It is all systems go as preparations at the site are almost complete awaiting the 28th of October 2017 official date.