Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu is a performance artist based in Johannesburg/South Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Arts degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, as well as a Flute Performance Licentiate (LRSM). She has performed in ensembles, bands, and theaters across Southern Africa and internationally. She is a full-time member of the Drama for Life Playback Theatre Company and the director of Black Petal Productions.

Her creative practice is rooted in a cross-disciplinary and collaborative approach, often materializing in experimental and interdisciplinary projects. She is the playwright of the tribute musical Divas of Kofifi and co-researcher/co-facilitator of the performance piece Dear Mr Government, published in The Routledge Companion to Applied Performance (eds. Prentki & Breed, 2021). Her collaborations include Born in the RSA (directed by Warren Nebe), the Rwandan genocide commemorative work Re/Naissance & Witness (devised by Theogene Niwenshuti), the solo dance piece Full Fat, Low Fat, Fat Free (choreographed by Kieron Jina), and Godot-Logue in Gauteng – an adaptation of Lucky’s monologue in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett – in which she explores the contemporary zeitgeist of South Africa.

Her recent works Post Vitrine Revolution and Bonolo (2023) interrogate the experience of »okayness« within the Black African [female] lived experience – seeking moments in art that are free from angst, trauma, suffering, minstrelsy, and commercialized showmanship. Lecoge-Zulu’s practice is largely centered on the possibilities generated by merging music and sound with other art forms, often in the context of social justice.

She works and plays within and across the fields of contemporary performance, music, theater, education, writing, and curation. Her approach is deeply collaborative, collective, and generative. The expressive worlds she explores and creates often engage with translation beyond text, as part of a continuous effort to transcend disciplinary boundaries.