SABC plans historic Zulu reed dance coverage

The SABC has vowed to ‘intensify’ its coverage of cultural and heritage events, and will broadcast the Zulu reed dance ceremoney for the first time in history.

Johannesburg - The South African broadcasting Corporation (SABC) on Monday vowed to “intensify” its coverage of cultural and heritage events in line with the chief operations officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng's pronouncement over the weekend.

Speaking at the Kingdom Orders on provincial districts and local municipalities on Friday, Motsoeneng said it was time South Africa took pride of its diverse cultures and traditions.

Motsoeneng then assured the Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithini, that the public broadcaster would improve its coverage of the heritage activities in the country by beaming live some of the cultural and traditional events. “When I arrived at the SABC, the broadcaster was only showing the Britain's Queen the whole day. Our King and other kings were not being shown live, but all that will change. I know that there will be a cultural ceremony in September, that event will be shown live,” Motsoeneng said at eNyokeni Royal Palace in Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal.

On Monday, SABC spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago, confirmed to the African News Agency (ANA) that the public broadcaster would cover the reed dance in September, for the first time in history. “The SABC will intensify its coverage of cultural events across the country in line with our mandate of covering events which promote culture and heritage and the Zulu Reed dance will be amongst those covered,” Kganyago said.

The reed dance is an annual Zulu cultural event that sees thousands of maidens participate in various activities, including virginity testing, at the Zulu Kingdom in eNyokeni. The event, which has become a large tourist attraction, attracted more than 20 000 maidens last year.

Asked what viewers and listeners could expect in the near future since the broadcaster was implementing sweeping changes to promote more local content, Kganyago said: “The SABC will communicate in due course the changes which will take place on its television platforms.”

Motsoeneng recently came under heavy criticism from media editors and opposition parties for allegedly interfering with the public broadcaster's editorial policy and “censoring” certain programmes and images that may be deemed to be critical of government. Despite this, Motsoeneng was earlier hailed as a hero for promoting 90 percent local content on all 18 radio stations of the SABC, a move that he now wants to implement on television.

ANA