Name: Lesego Mathabe
Birthday: 28 February 1993
Nickname: Le’sexi/Eggs
Secret super power: I understand 90% of the maths in Big Bang Theory because I have a double major degree in physics and maths. Lame but simultaneously cool.
Feel good food: Malva Pudding!
Favourite Bulls Player: Rosko Specman
Q1: How did you get into dancing?
LM: My mom was home early one day when I was about 12, and I came home after school with a bunch of friends to hang out. I guess this made her realize I wasn’t really safe by myself and the next day she took me to a local sports and arts facility. We went one floor up, she asked me if I wanted to go left or right. I chose left and that was a dance studio! Thank goodness because to the right was a music studio and I am not musically inclined at all.
Q2: What style do you enjoy and are there any styles you struggle with?
LM: No brainer, my favorite style is Latin. I have an involved (read as difficult) relationship with all hip-hop based styles.
Q3: Talk us through your training sessions?
LM: I have a main/head coach who I see two or three times a week, sometimes a bit more, for a private lesson. Then, weekly, I attend a group Latin class. When I can, I take a beginner ballet class and varied open choreography classes. I work out five days a week on-season and I practice five days a week by myself. The rest of my training is fluid, in the sense that it’s in the form of a show I’m preparing for, or a new coach I have access to for a limited amount of times or sometimes what country I’m in or if I’m having a travel-intensive week.
Q4: What does it mean to you when you dance on Loftus Versfeld?
A: For me dancing at Loftus used to be a personal glory and achievement, but it’s become bigger than me. Now, what matters is when a little girl who looks like me and is possibly growing in a life that may look a bit like mine when I was younger, tells me I inspire them, that’s what it’s about for me. I am honored to have a platform where my dancing can be about more than me and I have the opportunity to play in a part in representation.
Q5: What do you do besides from being a Vodacom Bulls Babe?
LM: I am a full time dancer. I used to work in an audit and assurance space, and prior to that I worked in an astronomy research faculty ? but I quit both at different points to pursue dancing full time.
Q6: Do you believe dance can change the world for the better and if so, why?
A: Oh absolutely. I think it is important to remember that everyone, regardless of profession, relies on artists for storytelling. And only our stories, records and cultural influences live on beyond our physical time on this earth. Beyond enjoyment, dancing reminds you to be fierce in who you are and reminds us all that, in our primary form, we’re all really not that different.
