Philly’s ‘Sistah Mafalda’ doesn’t just stilt walk, she stilt dances

Meet Mafalda Thomas-Bouzy, a cultural dancer, storyteller, and stilt walker known as “Sistah Mafalda.”

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Mafalda Thomas-Bouzy was on a cultural exchange in Tobago studying folk dance when she was taken to the island’s hills to meet a stilt walker.

Known as a moko jumbie in the West Indies, the stilt walker demonstrated his craft for Thomas-Bouzy and then urged her to try.

“My heart and soul was just willing and excited,” she said. “I walked like I do with my own two legs on my first try.”

From 10 feet up in the air, Thomas-Bouzy could see over the treetops and look down at the village below. In that moment, she understood why the mokie jumbie, a tradition believed to have originated in West Africa that roughly translates to healer and spirit, was considered a “keeper of the village.”

“It was like being on the top of a mountain,” she said. “You can see far down the road.”

Thomas-Bouzy saw far down her own road, too, and brought a pair of stilts back with her to Philadelphia.

That was 22 years ago. Since then, Thomas-Bouzy, now 59, has performed on streets, runways, and weddings. But more importantly, she’s teaching stilt walking to children, so they can become moko jumbies, too.

“In concrete jungles, kids need a way to look down the road and see a brighter future, and stilts can do that,” she said. “It gives them a super power, it gives them a responsibility, a position, a role to protect their city, to look out for their community, and to be a keeper of the village.”

Thomas-Bouzy grew up roller-skating in the streets of Jamaica, Queens, and listening to the music of the conga drummers in Spanish Harlem. Marriage brought her to Philly in 1982 and she eventually moved to Coatesville, where she raised her three kids. She currently resides in Southwest Philadelphia.

In her early 30s, Thomas-Bouzy took an African dance class with her children and developed what would become a lifelong passion for cultural dances of the African diaspora. She’s trained and taught around the world, from Senegal to Brazil, from France to Mali.

“I was gathering stories. I had to feel it to know what I was talking about,” she said. “I’ve traveled to these places and I can tell you what the sky looks like, what the onions being pressed smell like, and I’m able to teach and tell the stories behind the dance.”

For 20 years, Thomas-Bouzy ran a drum and dance troupe called the Kuumba Performers. She’s taught a variety of dance classes throughout the region and is one of the performers featured in the mural on the Philadelphia International Airport’s parking garage, How Philly Moves.

She’s held several residencies, including one at Villanova University where she taught rhythm and dance to honors students, so they “got a chance to use the other side of their brain.” And she served as an artist-in-residence in Chester, teaching kids and community members how to make stilts, and then, how to use them.

Thomas-Bouzy uses traditional wooden stilts that are four-and-a-half-feet tall and have tire rubber nailed to the bottom for shock absorbency. When she puts them on, she rises a towering 10 feet in the air.

She already knows you’re wondering if she’s ever fallen.

“Yes, I have fallen, but I have never broken a bone or a fingernail,” Thomas-Bouzy said.

She performs her stilt walking under the name “Sistah Mafalda” at schools, birthday parties, weddings, and community events. She doesn’t just stilt walk, she stilt dances.

“I have this dual training, so for me it all connects,” she said. “It’s so infectious when people see a stilt walker that can move a crowd with rhythm and dance.”

Recently, she made her first appearance in the South Street Headhouse District’s 90th Easter Promenade, revving up the crowds.

“They were dancing and stepping,” she said. “I was showing the (people dressed as) bunnies how to hop. I was telling them ‘You got to be a rabbit!’”

Thomas-Bouzy has even taken her stilts on the runway, voguing at events for fashion show producer Harvey Star Washington and at a charity fashion show in New York City.

And while she performs under the name Sistah Mafalda, around her Southwest Philly neighborhood, where she teaches kids to stilt walk at rec centers and parks, she’s simply known as “Mama M.”

Thomas-Bouzy has also instilled a love of music and dance in her own three children (her son, Dom Thomas, is a drummer who’s played with Jill Scott) and her three grandchildren.

“They all know the voice of the drums,” she said.

But sometimes, Thomas-Bouzy said, “it’s lonely at the top.” She’s been divorced twice and worries about how much longer her body can take the physicality stilt walking requires.

“It’s just like when the clown takes off the mask, when they go home they deal with their own things,” she said. “Physically, how can I continue with all this energy … it’s like an athlete, you need to know when it’s time to retire.”

That’s why it’s important for Thomas-Bouzy to teach others her craft. She’d love to open a school one day, to train the next generation of moko jumbies.

“I’ll still be involved, just like dance,” she said. “I’ll still be teaching it even if I’m in a wheelchair.”

Those interested in connecting with Thomas-Bouzy may contact her at mafaldatdance@gmail.com.

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