Off stage with Bev Sibanda

GRACE CHIRUMANZU-

Orlando Kudzai (5) from Hillside, Harare, gets down on the floor dancing like a young professional, much to the awe of two visitors in his mother’s house smiling and revealing that he saw the moves when his mum danced at a family show at Harare Gardens.

It is the only show he has watched Beverly Sibanda exhibiting her talent. Bev is his mother and it is clear he draws a lot of inspiration from her.

Orlando is the ‘man’ in Bev’s life and he is the source of her inspiration on stage.

The 23-year-old mother said, “Everything I do, I do it for my son, this is the best way I know I can give him a good life I never really had.”

Bev lost her mother when she was in Grade Two. She lived with her father who had already separated with her late mother.

Living with a stepmother, four siblings from her mother’s side and five other stepsisters never gave her the much-needed feeling of belonging.

She remembers those few years as a period of competition for the father’s love before he passed on, six years after losing a mother. The dancer thus lost two of her parents before she was a teenager.

“Life with my stepsisters has not been easy, not everyone loved me and some of them would even take my school fees for personal use. This forced me to learn to be responsible at an early age. In fact, that’s where I got the courage to be on my own with my son. I remember the first days I lived alone, I had only one blanket and not even a stove,” she recalls.

Dancing has been her passion since secondary school where she was a cheerleader. Her flexibility and energy on the stage has got some people suspecting she will be under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

The Sexy Angels leader confessed the only drink that has powered her moves on stage was an energy drink – Redbull.

“I don’t take alcohol. I only drink Coke and Redbull for energy. I have an attitude on stage; when I dancendinenge ndatove pahasha, I do it with great passion and I am good at pretending, so people get easily convinced that I would be drunk,” she said.

“I chose this profession after people encouraged me to start a dance group. I used to dance at ladies’ nights competitions in clubs and winning made me think I could actually do this as a profession and earn a living from it. I have so far secured a housing stand and bought a car.”

Her name has attracted some criticism in a patriarchal Zimbabwean society. Apparently, culture finds her dressing on stage improper for a woman and some Christians have castigated her seductive moves on stage as a sin.

But Bev does not give a hoot!

“Look, this is just dancing! I perform in clubs and normally it is not for the Under-21 and since what happens on stage stays there I don’t see any sin in that. In fact, let Christians be Christians and we shall all meet there (on Judgement Day.) People who really know me, never get to criticise me, it is those who have never come to my shows and who don’t know who Bev really is who get to judge. But I normally adopt an attitude like Brenda Fassie, I don’t care so long I am able to provide for my son knowing that I am doing nothing wrong,” she said.

A decent, calm and caring mother is what one sees in the dancer at her home.

On stage, her dancing has been described as raunchy with the act popping the other side of her that is loved by some who have watched her perform and despised by others who have heard of her.

Her licence, issued by the Censorship Board, allows her to strip on stage but not beyond her lingerie and defies her contact with patrons.

She was caught offside recently at the 2014 Harare International Carnival where, despite winning an award for the Best Contemporary Group first runner up, she was arrested for roping a patron on stage.

“I was only following the instructions we had for the Samba Night.  Normally I don’t care what the media says about me because they are people trying to sell their papers neither do I worry about being arrested but the only thing that gets me worried constantly and runs through my mind is, What would  become of my son if anything happens to me?

“I didn’t get any bad treatment from the police (while in the cells) the only tiresome drill I went through was being called several times and had to walk up and down the corridor so many times. I thought maybe it was an excitement on their part that Bev was around and they wanted everyone to see me,” she smiled.

During the course of her profession, Bev has lost some dancers whose husbands have denied them a life on the stage. Pole dancing and seductive tease is a culture taboo for women in Zimbabwe.

It has some indecent connotations that have defied the typical cultural image of a married woman or mother as docile, shy and submissive.

This is why Bev is not yet ready to get married, she reveals.

“All I want at the moment is to build my life and that of my son. My fear is meeting someone who would not love my son.

“So, I still have a lot of things to do for myself and for him before I could think of marriage,” she said.