Die Before You Die

Die Before You Die is: A farewell. A resistance. An explosion. Junior Mthombeni investigates what must die in a person to truly live. Not literally, but shedding everything that no longer works, everything that holds you back. This is a celebration, a party, a reckoning. Junior dances on the corpse of his past and rewrites his own story. The name Mthombeni was given to Junior's family under colonial coercion, a name that severed him from his ancestors. Now he wants to return to Moloi, the name that was taken from him, the name that means ‘healer’, the blood in his veins, the truth that was not allowed to sound. A journey of redemption Junior travels to South Africa to reclaim his name and to Varanasi in India, the city where people go to die. Not to give up, but to free themselves from everything that binds them. Not as a tourist, not as a pilgrim, but as a maker, as a man. What must die to live? Junior leaves the past behind and creates his own ritual on stage.