Sample

The study included a multidisciplinary team of 13 participants: two traditional healers, two arts therapists, two applied theater practitioners, a neuroscience researcher, and a Buddhist monk, as well as a group facilitator, a videographer and three researchers, trained in mindfulness and arts-based research. The sampling was purposive and pragmatic, choosing researcher-practitioners who had experience in African contemplative practices and rituals with a preexisting relationship of trust with the Drama for Life Department. The therapists and theater practitioners who train at Drama for Life have skills of critical reflexive praxis that support rigorous phenomenological research, ensuring that their applicability and effectiveness are constantly examined. In their joint quests for healing and human flourishing, these researcher-practitioners are committed to the ongoing evolution of these epistemologies, understood within the context of the African philosophy of ubuntu. The diversity of the group was noteworthy in terms of race, gender identity, religion/spiritual tradition, and languages spoken.

Practice-led Research

Challenges inevitably arise when the Western scientific method is used to study practices from different cultural contexts. An African relational ontology includes both seen and unseen, living and dead, requiring an epistemology that reflects this non-materialist view (Walach, 2020). Considering Fletcher’s (2016, p. 4) cautions that “ontology is not always reducible to epistemology,” the research design focused on the most effective ways of creating knowledge—as a performative and experiential learning journey, using the methods of practice-led research (Haseman, 2006; McKechnie & Stevens, 2009). Haseman (2006) explains practice-led research as a distinct approach to designing, conducting, and reporting research. The artistic form is intrinsically experiential, and the research output includes the performance itself and the experience of the performance, both directly by those present and indirectly through recordings, in order to stimulate dialogue (Gergen & Gergen, 2003, in Haseman, 2006).

The six researcher-practitioners were invited to respond to the research question “How can African contemplative practices be used to heal the past, transform the present and for future flourishing?” They each prepared an interactive performance or presentation, drawing on their specific area of expertise.

All the researcher-practitioners present participated in the facilitated practice sessions and reflected on their experiences across the five practices. The researchers rotated roles as participant observers and external observers of the sessions, recorded and transcribed to ensure the accuracy of field notes. In addition, the writers of this article conducted an artistic audit (Haseman, 2006), contextualizing the performances within current literature, thus connecting earlier work with the embodied experiences from the performances. The research process was approved by the Ethics Committee at the University of the Witwatersrand (H19/05/07).

Umphahlo

Certain people, considered gifted, receive the spiritual calling to be a healer from their ancestors (amadlozi). Within Southern Africa, this calling, known as ubizo lomoya—the word umoya, translated as energy, breath, or spirit—requires the process of intwaso or ukuthwasa (spiritual emergence), guided by a gobela (spiritual teacher/healer), to enable the gifts of the healer to be called forth (Booi & Edwards, 2014). Endowed with distinctive gifts, healers may become izangoma (vibration/energy practitioners), inyangas (moon/earth practitioners), abaysayonis (prophets or messengers), izinyanga yokwelapha (herbal/plant practitioners), isanusi (wisdom keepers), or lingcibi (traditional surgeons) (Edwards, 2013; Gqaleni et al., 2007; Steyn, 2003). Although many modern-day Africans find ways to heed their calling without full immersion in the healer’s way of life, ubizo lomoya nokuthwasa is considered by some to be a maturing of a soul in its journey on the path of life and more than just an ancestral journey or an initiation of a healer’s path (Mkhulu Ibrahim, 2019a,b).

Ukuphahla is a ritual for communicating with the ancestors (Bogopa, 2010), and a daily lineage invocation (Ngobese & Masoga, 2019), performed by a traditional healer. Mkhulu Ibrahim (2019a,b) describes it as a supplication or prayers to the unseen spirits. Gogo Moyo (2017) positions this ritual within a three-stage practice of prayer, umphahlo, and meditation, performed at umsamo (a shrine or altar) indoors or in nature. Practitioners pray to their maker (higher power or God), then phahla—burning imphepho (African sage or helichrysum) and offering ntsu (snuff/tobacco)—while calling every ancestor that they know by name and surname and other spirits that bring peace, love, kindness, and light—before introducing themselves and requesting to the living-dead to make them welcome. After this preparatory phase, practitioners vocalize thoughts, questions, or concerns, and then meditate, to allow for multisensory listening into how the body feels, the energy in the room, and any felt sense of guidance that reveals itself through emotions or thoughts. The practice can be carried out daily to maintain a connection with ancestral spirits and give thanks, or at a time when the practitioner is seeking guidance or experiencing difficulties. The benefits include a sense of connection with those who have gone before and opens the way for guidance to arise, beyond the ego-centric self (Edwards, 2011).

The two healers presented on their calling (ubizo), their training (ukuthwasa) (Video 1: Ubizo and ukuthwasa, https://youtu.be/WpkDj0sr0gI) and demonstrated the supplication practice of umphahlo, inviting the group to join in the singing, creating a visceral sense of the sacred (Video 2: Umphahlo, https://youtu.be/x1c-ttmlynM).

Mkhulu Zola offered an African spiritual and a contemporary secular interpretation of ubizo as not only a sacred purpose, but also an honoring of the talents embedded in one’s DNA, which can be put in service of others. Indeed, this potential for awakening and living a life of purpose and service forms part of many religious, philosophical, and humanistic teachings, as noted by a participant equating ubizo with the Sanskrit term svadharma, or own truth. This concept of purpose in life has recently been examined through a neuroscientific lens (Kang et al., 2019).

When describing the process of ukuthwasa, Mkhulu Zola translated the word thwasa as “dawn,” the rising of the sun.

Universal divine consciousness within you is now starting or choosing to rise, to make itself present and aware in your life experience… your consciousness is awakening…[and] you have to go into a process [to] awaken with it.

Gogo Moyo explained the ritual of umphahlo as offering access to people who wish to honor their ancestral lineage, providing a sense of feeling rooted, connected, grateful, and still, even if they do not believe in the existence of amadlozi, the living-dead.

Umgidi Wokulingisa

Umgidi wokulingisa is a stamping/dance ritual, traditionally performed to engage in dialogue with amadlozi (ancestors or living-dead) by entering a deeper state of consciousness. People who live a worthwhile life become amadlozi and are venerated for their connection with uNkulunkulu (the Supreme Being, God), as they can provide protection and prosperity to individuals and intervene on their behalf (Mkhize, 2004). There is a responsibility placed on humans to practice “their culture in order to protect the interdependence of amadlozi and uNkulunkulu by performing umgidi” (Seleme, 2017, p. 11).

An umgidi practice entails ukugiya (stamping)—an act of lifting each foot and bringing it down with force to the ground, as if jumping—and musicking (Seleme, 2017). Traditional umgidi is a phenomenon that involves participation by every member of the community for individuals to acquire and create knowledge of their identity. Its underlying ontology entails a conception of reality that depends on relations to others (visible and invisible) and to the environment (Mkhize, 2004). Umgidi wokulingisa can thus be viewed as a harmonious dance in which individuals adjust to the rhythm of their community in preserving their sense of interdependence across the three-way relationship among humans, ancestors, and the Supreme Being (Ogbonnaya, 1994).

Seleme offered the umgidi practice as a secular, drama therapy intervention (Video 3: Umgidi Wokulingisa, https://youtu.be/GvUsozwc9hU). Instead of seeking connection with ancestral spirits, each participant was invited to embody a significant other and to drum and stamp/dance like them. This sets up an inner dialogue between the self and the imagined other, gaining profound insights into the self and the relationship with the other, which was ascribed to the practice. The facilitator’s earlier research spoke of how the experience enabled access to unconscious symbols with positive effect (Seleme, 2017).

In the reflection session, several participants noted enhanced capacities for uninhibited expression, empathy, compassion, and a sense of internal strength and body-mind integration, despite coming from different cultural backgrounds.

Isicathamiya

Isicathamiya, also known as cothoza, imbube, or ingoma yobusuku (night song) is a contemporary adaptation of the ancient ngoma dancing from Central and Southern Africa. It developed in South Africa in the mid-20^th century by migrant Zulu communities, forced to move from rural to urban areas to find work (Erlmann, 1987). In these migrant communities, workers formed vocal ensembles and held competitions between hostels. This served as entertainment but had far more significant political, social, and emotional benefits as a “medium of expression within working-class resistance to domination and political oppression” (Erlmann, 1987, p. 3). “Isicathamiya, always sensitive to the social and political contexts of the era,” enables an embodied understanding of the history of South Africa and maintains its significance in post-apartheid South Africa (Gunner, 2014, p. 347).

The song aspect comprises a trilogy of story, information, and problem solving, while the dance entrains support, listening, connection, cohesion, and a sense of homecoming and joy.

The style is acappella, using a typical mixed-voice choral line-up…with the bass line dominant. Along with the rich, multi-layered vocal polyphony is the antiphonal call-and-response…The final section of each song, called istep (or istebhu)…added to the performance repertoire possibly in the late 1960s (Gunner, 2014, p. 346).

Ethnomusicologist, Sithole (1979, p. 279), differentiates the dance steps of the “subtle, almost silent footwork” of the urban isicathamiya form, with the “virile, fighting movements” distinctive in rural ngoma dancing, asserting that “the steps in isicathamiya have to be gentle, as if stepping on eggs or tiptoeing on forbidden ground.” Gunner’s (2014) writing of the contribution of the practice in opening to “soft masculinities,” supports Ballantine’s (1996) depiction of the practice as enabling performers to develop their agency as peacemakers. Participating in a group allowed for the creation of a place of refuge and safety, and group members spoke of the shared values of respect, equality, friendship, and sharing (Gunner, 2014).

In his presentation of isicathamiya, Mahlangu spoke of the brutality of 1980s and the impact of loss and trauma in South Africa’s history, saying

we are the ones whose wounds are very wet…I’m traumatized, but I don’t know that. I don’t even know the word ‘traumatized’…

What made me was the sound of the space. There was music all the time…We would sing and dance around the circle until we reached an altered state of consciousness.

In the ensemble practice, the singing creates a sense of solidarity and the stamping releases trauma from the body. The call and response enable a transcendence from the mind’s turmoil. Mahlangu guided the group through a dance enactment, offering an embodied experience of life “deep in the shaft, digging for gold.” Songs are not just songs; they are a story or information or problem solving, he explained—the rhythm of the song and movement helped work teams lift heavy objects and made the inhumane working, living and social conditions a little more bearable (Video 4: Isicathamiya, https://youtu.be/DR1Bk7mIQ4A).

Participants commented that, in a South Africa still laden with remnants of past injustices, healing needs to happen to let compassion resurface, for social integration to be meaningfully practiced and for collective co-regulation and cultivation of pro-social qualities.

Iintsomi

Iintsomi is a traditional folktale-style oral storytelling often held in community by elders in the isiXhosa culture. It is not a simple story narrated through the spoken word, but rather an immediate and dynamic performance that uses dramatized elements to enable the power and transcendence of hearing and telling stories. Studies demonstrate that orality is a system of consciousness, which differs significantly on a cognitive level from the dominant literary system of consciousness (Rao, 1993).

With every story and re-telling of story, people re-author their lives and their relationships, entering into the stories with their experience and their imagination (Busika, 2015, p. 7).

Creatively removing participants from a self-conscious position to a playful, spontaneous, imaginative one, encourages innovation and improvisation rather than stressing rigidity and structure (Turner, 1998). Within this flexible structure, Iintsomi employs specific dramatic elements to evoke different emotions and thoughts, while regulating and holding the participants’ emotional experience of the story, allowing for the learned social information to be retained (Busika, 2015). As articulated by Busika (2015, p. 30),

an Iintsomi is a container for the imaginative experience where there is a co-existence of the imagined world and the reality of the participant; and in this overlap, known as the metaxis, learning takes place. In the co-existence of the two worlds the participant begins to reflect on the meaning made within the Iintsomi and, once insights have emerged, begins to make inward changes.

The negotiated invitation to listen to the Iintsomi is held in the call and response participatory ritual, beginning with the words “Kwasuhkela ngentsom” (the invitation) and the participants responding with “Cosie” (we receive the invitation and are ready to hear). The climax and denouement are based on the storyteller’s improvisatory skills and interaction with the participants. The end is marked by the words “Kwaphelaphela Ngentsomi…Cosie.” “Iintsomi seldom display a sense of completeness or closure,” giving participants space to reflect and find within themselves ways of understanding experience and dealing with disorder (Busika, 2015, p. 40).

Participating in the embodied experience of Iintsomi allowed participants to engage cognitively and intuitively in an inner process of contemplation. Engaging improvisation and the imagination, the participatory aesthetic of the Iintsomi provided a way for participants to identify with a story, a character, and their own anxieties, fears, and longings in the metaphor of the story and at a distance; creating a space where mindfulness, learning, and resilience-building were facilitated through narration, embodiment, and reflection, where participants listened, shared, and supported each other, tapping into their inner resources, imagination, creativity, authenticity, and reflection.

Busika framed her use of Iintsomi as a way to build resilience with children.

I found Iintsomi as a medium through which distancing can happen, where children can share from a point of safety…to give voice to that child…to know that they hold agency, even though their circumstances are difficult…I try to allow children to have community amongst themselves, listening to each other and formulating empathy.

Busika facilitated Iintsomi stories, games, a praise poem process followed by a group reflection using movement, poetry, and sounds (Video 5: Iintsomi, https://youtu.be/1npVmgsTguQ).

In reflection, one participant was reminded that:

it is important to continue thinking like a child when you want to unlock creativity. Children never judge themselves…Children believe they can do anything. And when you believe, you really can do anything.

Two participants shared poetry, the first referring to the sense of personal potential held within the praise poem partner activity:

The person in the praise poem sounds like me

but a version of myself I’d like to be.

What I can’t see in myself yet, the other captured in a vignette.

Resilience is a process of scaffolding

from the self that one perceives,

to the highest potential or ideal.

The next offered gentle appreciation of the experience of creating community:

Ah, let’s rejoice in being with each other

How splendid it is to dance in each other’s hearts

And rest in the tenderness of each other’s eyes.

The session was a powerful reminder of the rejuvenating and restorative power of play—holding deep and profound human experiences.

Djembe Drumming

Both the skin of a drum and nighttime dance ceremonies are known as ngoma (Janzen, 1992; Mans, 1997). This word has a meaning similar to vibration or resonance, which allows the transmission and receiving of messages. It is also the root of the word sangoma, someone who can receive messages from the ancestors. A drumming practice is carried out with a sense of moving into conversation and enabling the drummer’s intention and words to be transmitted through the vibration of the drum. Nzewi and Nzewi (2007) differentiate between two conceptualizations of drumming as (a) excitation to produce psychoactive effects and (b) contemplative drumming to produce a transcendental state. This allows for a conversation to be held between the drum and the drummer and within the drumming circle, which Núñez (2016, pp. 228–229) defines as a form that “engenders community through sacred space” and a process that “expands awareness, elevates consciousness, commune with Spirit, and restores balance…through the constructive amplification of life-force energy.” Diallo and Hall (1989) similarly assert the sacred, healing remedy of drumming for both physical and psychological imbalances, facilitating communication and harmonizing forces of the visible and invisible worlds.

Kgotle led the drum circle, explaining how, “when we play together there is a conversation happening, because we send our thoughts and feelings to the drum.” (Video 6: Drumming, https://youtu.be/BPlIVK9pKu8). In this way, the drumming supported emotion regulation, the release of stress and trauma from the body, and the building of community. After the introduction, the group took the drum circle to the fire and experienced a deepening sense of connection and social cohesion.