by Thinus Ferreira
It was South African choreographer Bontle Modiselle, who was singing and dancing under the Spotty dog costume, who is the winner of the third season of The Masked Singer SA, and she tells me she loved what the costume and mask of Spotty offered.
Spotty, aka Bontle, was finally unmasked as the winner for season 3 of The Masked Singer SA on Saturday night on SABC2, with Primedia Studios and the Rose & Oaks Media production company already working on season 4.
I sat down with the choreographer and dancer to find out more about Bontle's dogged determination to try and win The Masked Singer South Africa, her costume, the clues, and how much personal flair she could bring to her performance and singing.
What message do you have for that young person who saw you take the Spotty head off and is so inspired by you, want to be like you, and wants to pursue a career in singing, dancing, entertainment or the arts?
I committed to this as a career - not a hobby or a side hustle. I genuinely believed in it. And I'm glad I did, because I had a point of reference in the Somizis of the world, in the Lorcia Coopers of the world, because they were my first reference of people who did it.
Because I had them as a reference, I know that I'm a reference to a child that I may never meet, but hope to meet someday.
In whatever way I influence them, I hope that my story reaffirms their dreams, however it looks.
And however strange or unpopular it may seem, if your heart says this is the thing to follow, you should really commit to it. You should nurture it. You should respect it because there are people who will help you along the way.
I didn't do this alone. I respect this industry. I made a commitment to leave it better than how I found it, because I know there are kids who come after me. It can be a little hard and unkind but it's a beautiful story to tell and to live.
The Spotty costume is quite wide. How long did it take you to adjust to what your bigger world and bigger character is, wearing the suit and being able to manoeuvre and do movements inside it?
Very quickly. The first time I put on the suit, I had worked through a lot of my movements.
I wanted to feel what my limitations were because of the size of the suit just so I could get my head around how much freedom I would have in this space.
I use my body all the time, right? So needing to adapt and to adjust to this new world wasn't too hard.
What was hard about it was realising how little air I actually had in there and how little I saw. I'm seeing through the mouth of Spotty, not even through the eyes and it's a tiny opening through the mouth where I'm actually able to see.
So I'm not even seeing quite clearly. And there was a fan in there, which is great. So there was some ventilation in there.
I'd say the hardest thing outside of not being able to see through it, was the weight of that jacket. It was insanely heavy.
So yes, the suit wasn't too bad. But the jacket itself was probably about, I mean, that's a heavy leather studded jacket of, I don't know, 20 kgs, I would imagine. But yeah, it was a beautiful thing to adapt and to adjust to.
Maybe sort of like a sexist question, but the male contestants are taller and it feels as if they're also more manoeuvrable, just because of what the male gender is. Do you feel the women taking part have a higher bar and have to put in even more effort in performances?
I mean, I've never really considered that.
I've never thought about that. I will say, bringing it back to my Spotty mask, I really enjoy it.
I don't think Spotty is gendered, the first time you see Spotty. So I liked how gender neutral Spotty was. There were a lot of things that drew me to Spotty, where my body wasn't in question.
It wasn't about how great, or how sexy, or how... There was none of that.
It was just really down to how would that mask perform. So I don't think I ever considered the type of work, the level of work.
I loved what Spotty could offer, and I felt that we could offer a lot to Spotty to make Spotty come alive.
In terms of the songs, I don't think you guys have input in terms of what the song is. But how much are you able to customise, or bring your own vibe, or your artistic flair in terms of your vocal performance when you record it? Like, what's the limit?
There were no limits.
We have so much room. So, I think what informed a lot of the song choices were the conversations.
The first conversations we had, where we sat down, we spoke with the creative team and they kind of wanted to know what our history was. What did we grow up listening to? Who are our favourite artists? Just so that there was a little more context.
So if they selected a song for you, it existed in your world. You're not getting a song that is completely out of your reach or something you're totally unfamiliar with.
I think viewers don't realise it, but when you look back, the clues are, for a lot of the contestants, actually quite personal and sort of family matters and things like that. Are you guys volunteering what you are willing to give in terms of clues, because it's quite revealing on a personal level?
It is revealing on a personal level!
So we had a conversation with the creative team again. So when we get into the conversation about music and what you grew up listening to, we also get into conversations about maybe how you grew up, what your family dynamics were.
And of course, you divulge to the level at which you are comfortable. And so when they have that information, they don't exploit it, quite honestly. It doesn't feel like an exploitative moment.
In fact, I think they try to marry maybe information that the public maybe might know and maybe offering something new as well. But again, it doesn't feel exploitative. It feels very creative.
I think they marry both worlds of giving the public information that they knew but also introducing information that they might not have known and making both of them blend together.
For celebrities who might be chosen or might be considered for season four, what does it really take in terms of the time commitment of having some of your senses cut off?
You've got to commit a lot of time and you've got to know that you are going to commit a lot of time to a production like this.
From the time that you are picked up, you're really spending hours in studio. So yes, the moment that you step on stage, it is a 2-minute performance that you're putting on.
But what it takes to act out that 2-minute performance is a lot.
You might take a couple of hours in studio recording until you're done recording to your satisfaction and you feel good by the time you leave the studio.
Then when you get to record on the stage and getting those performances, I mean, you've got one shot and one opportunity, but the work that it takes to get there, is a lot.
And you've got to be okay with that. I guess some personalities could maybe get impatient with time and feel like they need to be somewhere. But when you commit to a process like this, you must know that you must offer your time and be okay with it.
I also guess you're going to explore, I guess, different versions of yourself.
You might be the type of artist where, I don't know, you're so used to being seen as a validation of how you're able to perform and what it is that you can do physically to impress. Now there's none of that.
The Masked Singer SA cuts all of that off. Your sight is limited. Your hearing is limited. Your worldview is completely warped. You are isolated. There are so many things.
But you can always flip those things and keep working it in your favour.
You actually realise how much you value the things and where you come from. You come to really appreciate them when you come back to your own world.
There's so much, but it's a beautiful process. And the best way to get through it is to give it your all.