It premiered in China in 2025. It crossed continents before returning home. Yet the journey at the centre of Botswana multidisciplinary artist Lone Motsomi’s latest work is not measured in kilometres. It is measured in memory, grief, confrontation and the difficult act of turning inward.
At the heart of Kgololo lies a deceptively simple question: What if the way out of pain is not escape, but confrontation?
For Motsomi, the answer begins with the body.
The work unfolds through movement, theatre, storytelling and personal memory, exploring the ways in which experiences linger long after they have passed. Childhood wounds, absence, resentment, spiritual questioning and self-acceptance surface throughout the performance, not as neatly resolved chapters but as living histories carried beneath the skin.
The premise of Kgololo is rooted in a belief that the body remembers.
Movement becomes a language for what words struggle to contain. Contemporary physical theatre meets traditional influences, creating a performance vocabulary that speaks through gesture, rhythm and presence. Rather than offering healing as a straightforward destination, the work lingers in the uncertainty of what happens when people stop running from the experiences that have shaped them.
MotherK Masire returns to collaborate with Rametsi and Molosi after working as production designer on 2064, while director Tefo Paya brings extensive experience from Botswana’s theatre and cultural sectors, including his acclaimed solo theatre work Morwa. Motsomi says Kgololo is also a homecoming. Before developing an international screen career, she spent 13 years with Mophato Dance Theatre and later performed in Pula! The Musical on Broadway. Her screen credits include The Woman King alongside Viola Davis, as well as Shaka iLembe, G20 and Blood & Water.
The title itself carries layers of meaning. In Setswana, kgololo speaks to liberation. It is also the name of Motsomi’s late father, binding the work to a deeply personal history. Liberation, in this context, is not abstract. It is familial. It is inherited. It is intimate.
The result is a performance that asks questions larger than one person’s story. What do we inherit? What do we carry? What must we release? And how do we become free without abandoning where we come from? To bring those questions to the stage, Kgololo assembles a creative team drawn from Botswana and South Africa, artists whose work spans theatre, film, television and contemporary performance.
The production is executive-produced by South African actor and filmmaker Thabo Rametsi and Motswana actor, writer and filmmaker Donald Molosi. Producers Noxolo Dlamini and MotherK Masire join Botswana theatre practitioner Tefo Paya, who directs the production, while Mpho Sebina serves as marketing coordinator. Rametsi and Molosi previously collaborated on the UK-produced film 2064. Rametsi’s credits include Silverton Siege and Kalushi, while he is also set to portray South African music legend Hugh Masekela opposite Cynthia Erivo’s Miriam Makeba in Bill Condon’s forthcoming film The Road Home.
Rametsi says the decision to join Kgololo was immediate.
“I chose to come on board because this performance piece is breathtaking,” he said. “The world needs to see it, needs to see young African artists coming together to immortalize our story on a grand scale. Lone is a generational talent.”
Molosi views the work as an important moment in Botswana’s theatre history.
“Solo theatre created my Broadway success for 15 years, and solo theatre again will change our Botswana theatre history,” he said. “Lone’s new work, Kgololo, is an important milestone in Botswana’s solo theatre history. I decided to executive-produce it alongside Thabo because Lone’s work is masterful and important. It needs to be seen.”
Producer Noxolo Dlamini, whose credits include Sarafina!, Jiva!, Silverton Siege and G20, says what drew her to the project was not only the performance itself, but the commitment behind it.
“One of the biggest reasons I fell in love with Lone was how intentional she’s always been about her healing journey,” she said. “She truly embodies looking inward in order to find her way out. As tough as confronting traumas may be, she never runs away from the work. This piece is something the world needs to know. We all battle with the past.”
MotherK Masire returns to collaborate with Rametsi and Molosi after working as production designer on 2064, while director Tefo Paya brings extensive experience from Botswana’s theatre and cultural sectors, including his acclaimed solo theatre work Morwa. Motsomi says Kgololo is also a homecoming. Before developing an international screen career, she spent 13 years with Mophato Dance Theatre and later performed in Pula! The Musical on Broadway. Her screen credits include The Woman King alongside Viola Davis, as well as Shaka iLembe, G20 and Blood & Water.
Kgololo draws from that international experience while remaining firmly rooted in Botswana and in Motsomi’s own personal history.
By placing private memory within a contemporary performance framework, the work explores the relationship between individual experience and collective memory. It suggests that the stories people carry within themselves are rarely theirs alone. They belong to families, communities and histories that continue to shape the present.
That is part of what made the Botswana premiere significant. The performance arrived home after already finding an audience abroad, returning not as a finished statement but as an ongoing conversation. For a work concerned with memory, identity and liberation, bringing Kgololo back to Botswana carried meaning beyond the stage itself.
Following the premiere, the creative team thanked audiences, artists, partners and supporters for what they described as a formidable welcome home. They said the response affirmed the importance of creating spaces where difficult personal experiences can be explored through art and shared collectively. The Botswana premiere, they said, marks the beginning of the work’s next chapter as it continues its international journey.
