Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
WHEN Novuyo Seagirl won the Star-Brite competition in 2015, she seemed on top of the world.
The competition seemed to have shown once and for all that, despite her diminutive stature, Seagirl was an irrepressible dynamo with an undeniable voice. Here was a small woman who was already casting a large shadow on the industry even at the infancy of her career.
For all intents and purposes, she looked set to be the next big thing. The industry too was taking notice and she was on the cusp of stardom.
While most in the local arts industry were happy that Bulawayo’s best kept secret was now known to the world, there was someone who was unease with her sudden success.
The reason for this was simple enough. From the time she was born Seagirl at the maternity ward at Mpilo Hospital, Seagirl had always shared the spotlight with her Ndebele namesake and twin, Ntombiyolwandle.
George Silundika High school
Throughout primary and high school, the two had always been joined at the hip, learning in the same class and becoming engrossed in the arts at right about the same time.
“We were inseparable,” Seagirl recalled in an interview with Sunday Life. “We did everything together and I remember in our first day at school, they wanted to separate us but my mother said that these two should remain together. When we were young my aunt would take me for visits to her place but my sister was the kind of child that always wanted to be by her mother’s side. The moment I went away, she would become sick and they would end up bringing me back or bringing her to me. We couldn’t stand being away from each other. From primary school right up to high school, we were in the same class.”
The two would continue on their inseparable path as they begun to navigate the professional arts scene in Bulawayo.
“Growing up our father knew that we loved art and at George Silundika, the headmaster there supported the arts. That’s why our father ended up transferring us to St Columbus again because he thought we were now too playful. Little did he know that when you love something and its truly in you, you can’t run away from it. So, we ended up joining Bambatha Success Centre, ran by Styx Mhlanga, while we were waiting for our O-Level results. We then joined Sabela Arts Summer School ran by Saimon Mambazo Phiri and we did everything together there. We then joined Intombi Zomqangala, then at Umoja we were together again,” she said.
Seagirl recalled how for Lwandle, it therefore came as a severe shock when she saw her sister prospering and forging ahead without her, for the first time since they had escaped their mother’s womb at Mpilo.
“The only time that separated is when I went for StarBrite, that’s when we separated. I remember how she felt at the time. We had a band together with Qeqe but when I went to StarBrite, it was the first time that I had done something on my own. She felt that I had left her out,” she said.
Lwandle also recalled how an ocean suddenly seemed to have grown between the two sisters, who found their relationship drowning in the harsh currents of adult responsibility.
“When Seagirl decided to take her own path, that’s when I realised that we are now all grownup. If each of us could now have a boyfriend, then it meant we could actually do things in life away from each other. Having said that, growing up, being twins was more amazing than it is now because we were much closer,” she said.
According to Seagirl, that period marked the start of a separation of a duo that everyone in Bulawayo arts circles assumed did everything as a pair. As they became mothers and, in the case of Lwandle, married, the divide only grew wider.
St Columbus high school
“Things got worse when I had a baby first because it was my turn to feel left out. She was still living her life, going out with other friends of ours and so I felt left out. I felt she had deserted me. After that episode I realised that we are growing up and we need to start doing things away from each other. We are two different human beings in as much as we are twins. Even for our dates, I would take my twin with me. My boyfriend would be shocked to see her tag along. That’s why separating from her was the hardest step in our lives because at some point she got married and almost daily she would come home to visit but I knew that all she wanted was to be close to me,” she said.
According to the twins, they have now adjusted to the separation, something that some twins never manage to accomplish. However, the two now want to reconnect again and show that while they might have grown apart, they are still bonded together by not only blood but their love for the arts as well.
On 3 December at the Bulawayo Art Gallery, Bulawayo will witness the rebirth of the twins once again, as while Novuyo Seagirl launches her album, Love, Bitter and Sweet, Lwandle will launch her jewelry line, Imvula Collections.
“We decided to come together as twins to show the power of collaboration and the power of working together. We want to show how beautiful it is to be twins, to produce amazing work and show it to the world. This is a way of us celebrating each other and also celebrating the fact that we have been in the industry for almost 15 years now. Having worked closely in the past, this is our way of saying let’s do it again for old times’ sake. I noticed that people love her jewelry when I’m wearing it and I have helped push it out there. So, this is also us embracing each other’s work,” Seagirl said.
Lwandle said that unknown to many, she had started to gravitate to the making of jewelry using recycled material while on tour a while back. Now she is ready to show the world a talent that was hidden to a large majority of her followers.
“I have always loved jewelry myself and I would always admire the people that sell at City Hall and I would look at them and think, one day I would love to do this. I remember when we travelled to Germany on tour, ten years ago, there was this guy called Mangoma. He was making his craft and selling right in front of us and the amount of money that he made inspired me. I was envious and I thought, this thing has money and would love to also do the same,”
Bulawayo City Hall
“So, I would sit and observe how he was making his art. When we came back here, I started making for myself and people would ask where I bought my pieces from. I also made for Qeqe to wear on stage and necklaces for my sister as well, because she can’t wear earrings. So, they kept refering customers to me and in the end, I thought, let me take this seriously. I would look for zippers, pencils and other weird stuff to make earrings and over time I kept perfecting it because I didn’t want things to break after I sold them to people. But now I feel like we have reached that level of perfection,” she said.