kagablog

June 28, 2007

By Kgomotso Moncho

Aryan Kaganof is an extraordinary man. At the Grahamstown Arts Festival, his programme - which forms part of the film festival - will premier his movie, SMS Sugar man. It’s the first of its kind, shot entirely on a cellphone, the Sony Ericsson W900i to be exact.

Other selected movies are Too Drunk to F***, Helge Janssen: Undead, Fade To Glass, Venus Emerging and Unyazi Of The Bushveld.

Kaganof says SMS Sugar man should be on circuit later in the year. He is also an artist, a musician (he is the lead of the four-piece band, Freedom Fighter) and a poet/writer. He has a number of anthologies out, including Drive Thru Funeral, Tombstones Dues, For Those Who Love To Die and Jou Ma Se Poems. He is involved in many other things which you might want to check out on kaganof.com/kagablog

# You have this other deep, hoarse voice/persona that you use when reciting your poetry. Where does it come from?

It just came to me. It’s the spirit voice I found interesting to help relate the stories around me on a performance level. I think just writing poetry is boring. You have to bring it to life somehow. When I came back to SA from Holland, I was impressed by the poetry scene, the likes of the Jungle Connection in Braamfontein, and the poetry sessions that Julius Makweru initiates. That’s how I found this voice.

# There’s always a suggestion of death with that voice. Why is that?

I think of death the way alchemists do. I believe in the death of consciousness and the rebirth thereof. We are constantly changing and for that change to take place, there has to be a death of some sort to give way to the birth of something else .

I use death in that positive way, I think it is healthy. It shows the evolution of progress. I have had so many deaths in my life. My girlfriend is pregnant now, so the bachelor in me will soon die and the father in me will be born.

# Tell me about your anthologies

The most recent one is Jou Ma Se Poems. I use this title to show that our languages are somehow interwoven. There are certain words that sound almost the same and mean the same thing between Setswana and Afrikaans. Sadly, apartheid denied us the chance to explore this. So, in the book I use the little bit of the Setswana I can speak. Our English is also unique, it’s not the Queen’s English.

My new book, that is coming out soon, is called The Ballad of Sugarmoon and Coffin Deadly. It is actually an epic poem, a 100- page long love poem. It is about how, in this country, even two teenage lovers can’t avoid the history of their blood. The moral of the story is to forgive, but never to forget.

# Anything you’d like to add?

I think what is interesting about the country now, is that the new generation don’t have a lot of burdens. They can put this country in the forward thinking mode.

When I did SMS Sugar man with a cell- phone, it was good for South Africa in that we were doing something first. We became world leaders.

I have so much enthusiasm for the future of this country because a lot of things are happening here, not in Europe. Here.

this interview first appeared in the star tonight