TELEVISION presenter and poet Lebo Mashile and contemporary dance icon Sylvia "Magogo" Glasser are taking their collaborative stage production Threads to the Grahamstown National Arts festival, which starts on Friday.

TELEVISION presenter and poet Lebo Mashile and contemporary dance icon Sylvia "Magogo" Glasser are taking their collaborative stage production Threads to the Grahamstown National Arts festival, which starts on Friday.

Mashile, right, said yesterday that the prospect of being on the main stage of the festival was terrifying, as many eyes would be on her as a dancer and poet.

"I'm looking forward to it as we have reworked the play, with Jerry Mofokeng coaching me on acting while Greg Maqoma came in to help with dance skills.

"The dance sequences and the poetry have remained the same. We have reworked the play since its first performance last year, and this has allowed me to build my body's endurance as a performer and for it to be a tool. I now understand that my body is an instrument that I must use to tell a story of 50 minutes on stage," said Mashile yesterday.

It is, however, not the first time that Mashile will perform at this festival, having debuted there as a stage performer last year when she had a part in the stage adaptation of K Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams. She played Mmabatho, the only female character in a story that dissects contemporary South African masculinity.

In October of last year, Mashile wrote and performed in Threads in this ground- breaking piece of work.

This fusion of poetry, music and dance was created in celebration of Moving Into Dance Mophatong's 30th anniversary.