Title: Gathering Spirit: Arriving to Self
Date: 30 March 2013
Time: 14h30
Venue: Steve Biko Centre Auditorium
Moderator: Mandla Mbothwe

As part of the Ginsberg Easter Festival, the Steve Biko Centre is proud to host a dialogue with Bulelwa Basse. Basse is the Founder of Lyrical Base Project, an arts and culture organisation which seeks to elevate the profiles of writers from marginalised communities through community-publishing projects and performance poetry (merged with music, dance, visual arts) at cultural and corporate events.

She has collaborated nationally with various arts education institutions and literary establishments, such as Kgare Ya Africa, Centre for the Book, South African Museums’ Education Department, Cape Town Language Committee, Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Artscape Theatre, Badilisha Poetry and the City of Cape Town (Communications & Events Dept), in the capacity of Creative Writing Facilitator, Published/Performance Poet, Programme Director, Guest Speaker and Events Co-ordinator.

Her writing has been published by the Poetry Institute of Africa, University of KwaZulu Natal Press, Department of Arts and Culture, The British Council, Oprah Magazine and Glamour Magazine.

Basse is passionate about aligning herself with women empowerment projects such as Bona Magazine's Women Empowerment Club, True Love Magazine's Winning Style and Move Magazine's empowerment initiatives, for which she's both hosted and performed her poetry as a motivational tool.

It is this very passion which catapulted Basse’s career into Brand Ambassadorship, where both emerging and established business began to engage her ability to creatively communicate company ideals to a cross-cultured market/audience:
Your Business Association and Indigo Brands have been such independent entities with which Basse has aligned her own public disposition.

It wasn’t long before Basse’s dynamic talent resonated with the rest of the corporate industry, where she’s emceed and performed at Transnet’s 150 years of service excellence awards ceremony, which accentuated her Corporate Emcee trademark, attracting multi-media houses (Marketing/Advertising/PR). A summation of experiences which inspired Bulelwa to re-launch her own production house.

Though Basse’s work spans across multi-disciplines: Education, Arts & Culture (Literary & Performing Arts), and Corporate Industry - the common denominator is her purpose of being in-community. And Bulelwa Basse Productions precisely allows her to resourcefully encapsulate and house all her diverse, yet inter-related pursuits.

Her creative and business path has seen her represent her country as an arts and cultural-exchange ambassador in India (Coimbatore and Kerala) and tour the UK (England). But South African stages have always been her favourite arena of her work at play:

As former Editor of Muse, an online poetry publishing and profiling magazine, Basse earned herself a performance platform on, Poetry Delight, where she's affectionately known on stage as, Miss "Sassy" Basse, following her satirical poem entitled: My Lyrical Sass, which confronts the societal nature of portraying women as sex-objects.

Basse’s stance: When the Universe compels you to live up to your purpose, there is no grey area to confuse the plot!