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SA dancing troup Umoja packed a gun, held drunken orgies: sent home early from Canada

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Original Post Date: 2008-03-14 Time: 00:00:00  Posted By: JoAn

Submitted by Adriana Stuijt:

Canadian gun-control laws prohibit foreign visitors from bringing hand-guns into the country – yet a member of the SA dancing troupe Umoja pointed a handgun at the head of show creator Thembi Nyandeni during the tour, which was cut short by a full month by the Canadian organisers because of the shockingly bad behaviour by cast members…
lick here for a Sowetan picture of the Umoja cast:
http://www.sowetan.co.za/thumbnail.aspx?type=mm&id=76702

The Soweto newspaper summarised the shocking revelations revealed by the show creators Thembi Nyandeni, Todd Twala and producer Joe Theron during a conference in Johannesburg yesterday.

Among this shocking behaviour were frequent drunkenness and drug use, cast members threatening Nyandeni with a gun to her head; one cast member falling down drugged/drunk during a performance; drunken orgies and fights amongst the unruly cast; and even one attempted suicide…

Click here for a Sowetan picture of the Umoja cast:

http://www.sowetan.co.za/thumbnail.aspx?type=mm&id=76702

Nyandeni said she had to cave in when the whole cast threatened to boycot the show after she had (temporarily) withheld part of the money for three members as punishment for misbehaving.

“They (she did not name ‘them’ ) put a gun to my head saying they were in solidarity with their three colleagues and would not perform.

“It was blackmail. I had to reinstate them to avoid an embarrassing situation,” she said.

She didn’t explain where the cast-member may have obtained a gun, presumably a handgun, as Canada has rather strict gun control-laws for foreigners.

How did the cast member manage to get a gun into Canada?

Foreign visitors to Canada cannot bring any handguns into the country for their own protection – only for target-shooting competitions for which they must be registered in advance and show verifiable documentation when entering the country:

http://canadaonline.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=canadaonline&cdn=newsissues&tm=42&gps=116_1284_796_393&f=10&tt=14&bt=1&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.cfc-cafc.gc.ca/factsheets/visitin_e.asp

The producers stunned the media on Thursday March 14 2008 by sketching a pattern of ‘highly unprofessional behaviour by the artists’ and which led to their Canadian promoter cancelling the tour a whopping four weeks before its scheduled time.

“One of the cast members tried to commit suicide by drinking a laced substance after a dispute with another artist over a boyfriend who is also a cast member.

“These kids were sleeping around among themselves, which is against the rules of Umoja.

One senior member who is a veteran artist we employed only five months ago as a narrator for the Canadian cast beat up another cast member,” said an irate Nyandeni.

“The problem is that these kids are unruly, they insist on sleeping around and drinking alcohol in large quantities in our presence.

“When we confront them and discipline them, they turn around and claim that we are exploiting them. They can call me a strict Mzalwane (born-again Christian), but as long as they are in Umoja we will mete out discipline.

“Umoja, like any other company, has rules, and we are not going to tolerate a situation where there is drunkenness and drugs are abused,” said Twala.

He apparently did not mention the rather important fact that at least one cast member had been armed with a hand-gun, at least nothing in this regard was recorded by The Sowetan newspaper.

Nyandeni, who was the tour manager when the incident took place in Canada, said what happened was shameful.

She said it was the first time that an Umoja cast had ‘faced such a challenge’.

“One of the cast members fell on stage because she was drunk or had taken something.

“I'm not going to allow a situation where the Umoja cast embarrasses the country with such bad behaviour abroad.”

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Default.aspx?id=127724