Musa Motha lost his leg to bone cancer. Now the South African dancer is inspiring with every move

Rising up in an underdeveloped zone of Sebokeng, south of Johannesburg, South Africa, Musa Motha says his environment weren’t precisely idyllic. However he did have a dusty, make-shift soccer pitch straight throughout the road from his house. And for Motha, it was “paradise,” he stated.

That discipline brings again each good and dangerous reminiscences for Motha. Soccer was his favourite sport, and he fondly remembers the instances he performed for the native youth workforce.

However one sport, when he was simply 10 years previous, would change every part.

“We have been taking part in (a) match and I acquired injured on my left knee — somebody kicked me, and I fell. Ever since that day, I used to be in ache,” Motha stated.

He recalled many sleepless nights in agonizing ache. Ultimately his mom took him to the native hospital, and from there he’d go to many extra. “The docs assessed my leg and so they could not discover something. There have been no fractures in it,” he stated. “They have been annoyed — ‘what is that this,’ you understand, ‘what’s taking place?'”

Musa Motha visitng the soccer pitch the place he used to play. Credit score: Bruce Buttery

He stated the primary spherical of chemotherapy therapy didn’t work, and Motha’s physician knowledgeable his dad and mom that they’d have to amputate his leg.

“They didn’t take it properly,” Motha remembered, and neither did he. “I am a bit of boy, I imply, shedding your leg? I am like nah, it is not going to occur,” he stated.

They didn’t proceed with the amputation, however as time glided by, Motha acquired worse. “I couldn’t even get up,” he recalled. “So, it was a matter of it is both amputation or I die.”

He selected the amputation and ever since that day, he determined he was going to strategy life in another way — extra positively, he stated.

Creating area on the dance ground

True to his phrase, Motha, now 26, will be seen twirling throughout phases all over the world. He first encountered dance at a neighborhood celebration, the place he mustered the braveness to ask a pal to show him some modified strikes. “Tthen I (danced) the entire evening,” he recalled.

The following day he joined a road dance workforce. Each Sunday, they might compete with different groups in an open-air stage within the city middle.

His skills didn’t go unnoticed; he started showing in South African TV advertisements and reveals. He even appeared in Drake’s “One Dance” music video.

This was the primary time Motha says he actually needed to attain exterior his consolation zone and create a brand new mindset round dancing with a incapacity.

“Gregory was like ‘ft first parallel,’ and I am like ‘I am not gonna transfer my leg as a result of I solely have one,'” he stated. “That is after I was like okay let’s work on how (I am going) to do it.”

Dancing with disabilities

Nadine Mckenzie, a wheelchair dancer in South Africa, stated that entry is the largest barrier for entry into the performing arts.

“There should not many firms or coaching packages that cater for individuals with disabilities, particularly within the dance discipline,” McKenzie stated. “I’ve had fairly just a few experiences whereby you would be in a category with totally different our bodies and a few facilitators wouldn’t know what to do (with us), and so for these causes, they do not open these areas to totally different artists.”

Motha performing in a manufacturing with Vuyani Dance Theater in 2018. Credit score: Physician Moyo

Past lack of entry, McKenzie, who’s been dancing for 15 years, stated inclusion is one other barrier for folks with disabilities.

“There are only a few folks particularly in South Africa that really have initiatives whereby they contain dancers with disabilities,” she added. “It is one thing that is nonetheless very tough, but it surely’s slowly — very, very slowly — beginning to change.”

“It has been extraordinarily rewarding within the sense that we have been in a position to create extra platforms for artists to coach and carry out, and likewise expose extra younger folks,” she stated.

McKenzie believes Unmute helps break down a few of these boundaries by consciousness campaigns — not only for folks with disabilities to enroll, but additionally for able-bodied folks to discover ways to work with them.

Motha says his mother was paramount to his success: “The half I took from her is that we do not surrender on this home.” Credit score: Liezl Zwarts

Gerard Samuel, a professor of dance on the College of Cape City, has written extensively on the invisibility of dancers with disabilities. He informed CNN that although there was some progress in each entry and inclusion inside dance, there’s nonetheless a lot work to be performed.

“Boundaries embrace mindsets of limitation and incapacity of disabled individuals and mythology and taboos that surrounds them,” he stated. “All this nonetheless want to vary.”

He believes that training, funding and extra illustration within the media would assist foster extra accessibility and inclusivity.

Discovering his grove

With out having an instance he may flip to, Motha struggled with determining the best way to dance in modern items with two crutches. A number of it was merely adapting and adjusting, he stated.

“I lastly discovered the strategy of (dropping) one crutch after which utilizing (the opposite) one as a leg and an arm on the similar time,” he added.

Motha says he desires to “instill positivity” and assist folks with disabilities obtain their goals. Credit score: Physician Moyo

He is additionally had some assist alongside the way in which. “We’re in a spot the place we are able to be taught a lot from folks residing with disabilities,” stated Gladys Agulhas, a dance teacher who works with folks with disabilities, together with Motha. “It is time now that we have now to merge and acknowledge and respect who we’re as people. It is all people’s proper to be the place they wish to be.”

Samuel agrees that illustration wants to increase past the performing arts. “The extra we are able to see the disabled particular person in a number of features of life, be it as helicopter pilots, engineers, cooks, choreographers and professors … the higher hope we are able to maintain onto for a society the place nobody is on the margins,” he stated.

That is Motha’s dream as properly. Although he informed CNN dance gave him “a goal,” he added “I do not wish to see myself as a dancer solely.”

“As an alternative of telling a sob story, I discover that essentially the most stunning tales are after (the amputation),” Motha stated. He encourages others with disabilities that they, too, can do something: “There’s an entire lot of issues which you could overcome that really outline how sturdy you might be.”