The sound of drums and high-pitched singing filled Montecasino.
The closer one got to the movie theatre, the louder the sound got.
In true Zulu style, guests of the Shaka iLembe premiere were welcomed with vibrant entertainment as traditional dancers moved to the beat of the drums.
As gates to the movie theatre opened, the dancers led guests through to where the much-anticipated Shaka iLembe drama series would be premiering.
During the screening, it was applause after applause as the beauty of the Zulu history unfolded and the country’s finest actors brought on their A-game.
Among these actors were Senzokuhle Radebe and Dawn Thandeka King, who was draped in an elegant bright red gown like the princess that she is.
In the historically fused love story, Dawn acts as princess Mkabayi ka Jama Zulu, sister to prince Senzangakhona, played by Senzo.
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When Drum sits down with both these actors, they both say they were nervous before watching the first episode of 13.
“For the past week, I have been very nervous. It’s good nerves, it was a good type of anxiety so I am not going to complain about it. But it tells you the magnitude of the work,” Dawn says.
“The work, believe it or not, is spiritual,” she adds.
Known to be one of the strongest women of the Shaka Zulu era, Mkabayi narrates the series and commands respect when her face comes on to the screen.
She is her father’s favourite child. She is intelligent and bold, making it even harder for King Zulu to not be drawn to her and take her advice.
Before portraying the powerful character of Shaka Zulu’s aunt, she had heard a lot about Mkabayi being ruthless, unkind, ugly.
When she was eventually advised by a historian on set, she says she concluded that “there was nothing wrong with Mkabayi; she was just an alpha female and that’s why her father loved her so much. Her father wished that she’d been a male so she can take over [the kingdom].”
Knowing all of this, Dawn says she tapped into her spirituality and asked her ancestors to ask the Zulu ancestors for a connection with their daughter in the ancestral realm because she wanted to genuinely tell the real Mkabayi’s full truth.
To prepare for the role, Dawn kept herself spiritually clean and had regular cleansing to “keep the vessel clean so that I am a clean vessel, and she (Mkabayi) has no problems utilising it to tell her truth. And she came through”.
At one point during the shooting, she remembers having a spiritual episode and reminisced about noticing the change in her voice and demeanour whenever she was in character.
For her, that was confirmation that she wasn’t in action but Mkabayi herself.
The same would happen with Senzo as well.
He tells Drum that he never knows how to answer the question of how he prepared to play Senzangakhona because frankly, he didn’t.
Besides doing his own research of who exactly the prince was, he did not do much to bring the character to life because…
“I did not prepare for this role, I asked. I asked the man himself Senzangakhona that ‘please make me tell your story they way you want it to be told’.”
He says, the more Senzangakhona’s traditional right-hand man called ‘inyosi’ engaged with him on who he was, how he behaves and how he carries himself, Senzo felt even more closer to Shaka Zulu’s father.
“This was not even acting; it was just me retelling his story.
“With Senzokuhle, I knew how I was going play [the character], I did not feel Senzokuhle in me anymore. I was just being led by the man himself. I have never met him, I don’t know how he looks like, but I could hear his voice.”
In an attempt to elaborate further, he gets lost for words and says, “I don’t know how to explain it.”
When he watched what had come out of his acting in the premiere, he says he was affirmed that there was a greater spirit that saw it through.
“I am not a spiritual person but there are moments where I felt that we are not alone. There are moments where I felt that this production is super blessed [and] it’s not us, it’s definitely the ancestors who wanted us to do this and retell the story. The journey was definitely super spiritual.”
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For Dawn who is known to be a sangoma, getting goosebumps every time, one is set was already proof enough that there was ancestral presence, and that the production was bigger than anyone.
Personally, she was prepared for it all because she had manifested playing her character a while back.
“I manifested the character of Mkabayi. A while back, I think I was still on Uzalo then, I said, ‘if I can get to play the character of Mkabayi, if anyone could ever do another Shaka, I would love to play character of Mkabayi’. That would be the ultimate of my career, for me, that would be reaching the ceiling in South Africa, it would mean then that international doors will start to open.”
When she finally got the role, “I was so humbled by the [reminder of this] manifestation [from her sister]. I was already ready for it, I had already prepared for it, physically, spiritually and otherwise.”
She adds that “I know people don’t know what Mkabayi looks like, but I can tell you now, this is the face that they’re going to have for years to come. The face of Dawn Thandeka-King will be that of Mkabayi”.
The first episode of the drama series airs on Mzansi magic on Sunday, 18 June, at 8pm. Both the actors say they hope people watch the series with an open mind, a fresh perspective and the eagerness to learn more about the Zulu history.
