Isaiah Shembe

In 1911, Isaiah Mdliwamafa Shembe founded the iBandla amaNazaretha (or Nazareth Baptist Church), a controversial religious movement rooted in Zulu tradition. Shortly afterward he acquired the farm that became his holy city of Ekuphakameni. Shembe provided his followers with a rich liturgical tradition based on modified forms of traditional Zulu dancing and established an annual pilgrimage to the sacred mountain of Nhlangakazi . Peter Larlham, described these pilgrimages as a performance or theatrical event in his 1985 study of South African performance.