After the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, we headed to SABC television studios to visit the set of the wildly popular South African television show, Muvhango.

Muvhango is a ‘soapie’ or soap opera, but it is much more like American dramas that air at night. If you are wondering why were filming at a soapie, it is because the history of television in this country is fascinating. South Africa did not get television service until 1976.

This was because the government feared that television programming was potentially harmful to the government’s apartheid practices. This is one of the many ways the government controlled and censored media and the arts. Imagine the important televised events that were missed: the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination, and the Olympic Games or any international sporting event.

We were greeted by Nonkululeko, who handles public relations for the show. Then, she gave us a tour of the set and introduced us to the cast and crew. Nonkululeko is also an actress on another South African soapie. It goes without saying she is a very busy woman, so we were thrilled that she spent so much time with us despite her busy schedule.  

Christopher interviewed some of Muvhango’s actors; we tried to stay quiet as the show's directors allowed us to quietly shuffle into the production booth where they do their magic; we even got to go onto the set and observe the taping.

But the icing on the cake was interviewing the creator of the show, Duma Ndlovu. He is completely immersed in South Africa’s arts and entertainment industry and it is clear that he has a great deal of pride in this show. Duma was an inspiring man and he told us about why he chose to make the soapie specifically about the Venda culture, a South African culture that isn’t as prevalent as Zulu, Xhosa, or Afrikaans. He realized that because he had witnessed Venda culture being somewhat overlooked during his lifetime, there was a chance it may not survive the next hundred years without attention. He, then, decided to highlight Venda in his show in order to help preserve the culture.  

One amazing thing about Muvhango is that they use many different languages on the show. In order to be better prepared for our day at Muvhango, the entire ProjectExplorer team gathered in my room last night and caught an episode. This multi-language dialogue was truly incredible. For example, an actor may start a monologue in Zulu, switch to English halfway through, and finish in Xhosa. It really is beautiful. With 11 national languages, using multiple languages in the show is a wonderful convention for expressing nationality.

Well, that’s a wrap at Muvhango!

Behind the Scenes at Muvhango

Go to our final stop on day 7 >

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