MUSICAL OF THE 130TH ANNIVERSARY OF STANDARD BANK
MUSICAL TITLE: SIGNS OF THE TIMES - "THE BLUE HOUSE"
MUSIC: EFX AUDIO
Screen: Image of the station
ACT 0 - VISION
(NARRATOR) 
When we talk about vision, any normal person is captivated by the simple beauty of glimpsing. A gift that most receive at birth. However, among all those who have this privilege of vision, there are the exceptional who are exempt from the need for sight, for light or what distance allows, to glimpse what is non-existent to their eyes. Those who observe with imagination or who glimpse the greatness of a grain of sand.
It was these who glimpsed in the fertility of the lands, in the strength of the people who showed themselves to be hardworking, and in the commerce that needed to expand, the promising economic potential in Delagoa Bay, resulting from the development of trade with the Transvaal. It was this way that, believing in the potential of these investments, Standard Bank decided to establish itself in Mozambique.
MUSIC: DÁ SINAL (PLAYED LIVE)
AUTHOR – Hélio Beatz
PERFORMERS - Pauleta Muholove.
ACT 1 - THE BLUE HOUSE PREMISES
SCENE 1
SCENE - MAPUTO
[DIALOGUE]
ZEBEDEU: Here, boss, there's a spot here.... GOOOD... It's all good... it's all good (singing)
ZEBEDEU: Good afternoon, boss... can I wash it for you?
SIVE: My car is bad? So is the car dirty or are you insinuating that it's rotten?
ZEBEDEU: Hmm, boss, it's not that, boss... it's that I can "txunar" the car to make it look new. Put some polish on the tires and polish these headlights.
SIVE: Like that? My car is old? What's the problem? This bank you stand in front of isn't 100 years old? And doesn't it help to feed your family?
ZEBEDEU: 130, boss.
SIVE: Yes, 130. So what's the problem? Is this how you, young people, treat your elders? Do you look down on us? You know, my young man, with age you realize that you only truly get old when you let age affect you. Just look at your neighbors here, looking at them like that would you believe they are 130 years old? [IP1]
ZEBEDEU: ahaaa nothing boss... Zebedeu here, I'll go and park the car then...
SIVE: Park what? I'm here, I just want to charge my cell phone while I wait for my son. My car doesn't have a charger, but here it already does...
ZEBEDEU: Yes boss, I'm selling. I have a charger for iPhone, type C... I have a power bank,
SIVE: Don't want to buy anything pa... I saw in the news that your neighbors rehabilitated all of this.
ZEBEDEU: AHMM... (Surprised)
SIVE: I see you don't know... apparently you're also a seller.
ZEBEDEU: I'm glad you brought that up. Tell me one thing, Boss! Is this bank foreign?
SIVE: Wrong. This bank is Mozambican.
ZEBEDEU: Yes, boss... But how did it get here?
SIVE: That's right, there were great business opportunities, both here, with the installation of the Transvaal railway line that came all the way here, as well as in Beira. The guys saw this opportunity and grabbed it.
ZEBEDEU: Ahmmmm, is that why the bank practically has its anniversary with CFM?
SIVE: And that's why they first went to set up there on Rua Araujo, near the ...[IP2]
ZEBEDEU: Downtown? Sailors? Nightclubs, p....
SIVE: Hey kid,
ZEBEDEU: I meant the Port, boss
SIVE: I'm old enough to be your grandfather... those things happened much later... we're talking about 1892 when they received authorization to operate in Mozambique, through a royal decree...
ZEBEDEU: King Ngungunhana?
SIVE: He wena mpfana... you don't know any history? Ngungunhana was from Gaza, pa! By the way, do you know what this city was called?
ZEBEDEU: aahhhhhh Maputo, it was always Maputo, boss.
SIVE: Get out of here, pa... The Lagoa Bay, then Lourenço Marques. This Maputo thing is from now... Machel's thing.
(NARRATOR)
Eheheheh it's true. It was called The Lagoa Bay and Aranguã in Beira. And these railway lines in the south and center were what motivated the arrival of Standard Bank in Mozambique, starting its activities, first in an agency on Rua Araújo in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo.
MUSIC: MAPUTO
AUTHOR - [SHEILA JESUITA]
PERFORMERS - Onésia Muholove


SCENE 2
SCENE - BEIRA
DETAILS:
[DIALOGUE]
Grandma Marta: Daughter, have you seen that they were together? In Maputo, together, here, together...
Raimunda: But there they already have a view of the sea... mom, is his interview not over yet?
Grandma Marta: Waaa… calm down, daughter!
Raimunda: How can I be calm? Robertinho is my son... what if it doesn't work out?
Grandma Marta: Not work out? Does that exist? Do you think they would have the courage? With my grandson of all people? Don't you know who I am? Didn't you work here?
Raimunda: Ahhh mom, stop it. You, better than anyone, know that that doesn't work here. All of us entered by merit and our own effort.
Grandma Marta: Ohhh, they can't play with our family; 130 years can end... This bank can know me well
Raimunda: So they're afraid of Dad? But mom, where do you get these ideas?
Grandma Marta: ... But do you think Tomaginho fell from the sky into that position?
Raimunda: So it was Dad? Ahahahahah
Grandma Marta: 18 years, daughter, 18 years. But you know? You know who went to get Bernardo?
Raimunda: That too? So we're also working in Portugal... I see we even pull some strings...
Grandma Marta: Ahhh nothing… That's a heavy zone there.. Nova Mambone? Giii.-
Raimunda: But mom…
Grandma Marta: Those ones from there... they don't play with stones. They work with lightning and thunder.
Raimunda: (laughs) But these are taking a long time (showing restlessness).[IP3]
Grandma Marta: You know daughter, I'll tell you... This land here... Don't you know it belonged to our family?
Raimunda: Hummm mom? You're already making things up...
Grandma Marta: This bank first started on that Rua Araujo, right? And then? Didn't it build on that land where the headquarters was for many years? After years of negotiating, didn't they come to talk to us? Didn't they visit us there at the working hut? What do you Maputo people call it?
Raimunda: Ndomba.
Grandma Marta: That's it, on your great-grandmother's land there was her ndomba. We were taking care of everything...
The mother sings a theme from the famous traditional songbook of Beira/Sofala
Raimunda: But you know mom, on a more serious note, there are a lot of people who follow these practices and believe that going to a traditional healer solves their unemployment problems and influences other people's decisions.
Grandma Marta: Other people are who?
Raimunda: other things mom. You know that's not true so
Grandma Marta: Let's go home daughter!!!
(NARRATOR)
(LAUGHING) It's not true and we all know that Grandma Marta is a joker. Merit is undeniable at the bank... What is true is that she is right when she says that Standard Bank only got a license to set up in Beira after ending a dispute that lasted 2 years because of an exclusivity in Beira, attributed to the Bank of Africa. It finally opened the Beira agency, at a time when the railway line had already been completed to Chimoio and, from there, the bank only grew.
MUSIC: Ndinaneda Kupi
AUTHOR - CAMBEZO (BEIRA NGOMA WINNER)
PERFORMERS - Cambezo


SCENE 3 – THE NEW HOUSE
NARRATOR
It was more than 80 years that a building with a powerful Latin architecture comforted the leadership of this enormous family. Grandfathers, fathers, children, and grandchildren passed through those 6 imposing columns and gave breath to their families, between periods of social, economic, and political storms. But, like children, one day they grow up and no longer fit in their parents' arms. It was like that with The Blue House... the family grew... 49 branches across a country that was modernizing every day... and by a conspiracy between will and opportunity, the new Blue House rises imposingly exactly in the cradle of the bay that saw it born and by the arms of that nanny who allowed it to grow beautiful and healthy, the city of Maputo, in a home of the arts.
SIVE: Kid, do you know what was here before the bank came here?
ZEBEDEU: I'm afraid to answer, the boss will call me ignorant.
SIVE: Being ignorant is not the problem... the problem is when you don't want to stop being...
ZEBEDEU: Go ahead, old man. What was here in this space?
SIVE: By the way, you know who the painter Naguib is, you know, right?
ZEBEDEU: You see? AHHHHH
SIVE: Naguib had a restaurant/cafe called Café com Letras.
ZEBEDEU: Oh yeah...?
SIVE: You drank art, you ate culture here... artists of various arts passed through this space, national and international. Filipe Mukenga, do you know him? Gilberto Gil, do you know him? Did you know that the Nkhuvo band project by Stewart started here with Stélio Zoé, Nelton Miranda, Isabel Novela, Zé Pires, and Swit? Ahmmm, you're not talking anymore?
ZEBEDEU: So that's it, boss... now I understand everything... the spirits of the arts never left here... I, here, guarding the cars, attended concerts by people I only saw on television, because of the Bank... I've already heard Ghorwane, Jimmy Dludlu, Rhodália... a dream.
MUSIC FROM THE CAFÉ COM LETRAS ERA:
SWIT – Reconstruir Moçambique
AUTHOR – SWIT
PERFORMERS – Pauleta


ACT 2 - VALUES
SCENE 1 - LEGACIES
NARRATOR 
Legacy is one of the main characteristics that must be taken into account when you want to classify the good functioning of the relationship between companies and their employees. If this relationship doesn't go well, the progenitors, former employees, are the first opposition to this continuity, encouraging their own to seek other opportunities. But, when it is successful, these progenitors become one of the main links for attracting followers of that institution, contaminating even individuals who do not have previous family experiences in that institution with this admiration. Leaving legacies is hearing the artist's voice echo for decades through their work... for 130 years this voice has sounded sometimes loud, other times very low, but it has sounded and made itself heard... look... Ghorwane is an example of this echoing of voices over decades and decades.
Mr. Sive, elderly, conservative, and quite controlled, despite being quiet, is someone who is finally waiting for someone from his family to become a bank employee, while Grandma Marta and her daughter Raimunda are from a family with members of several generations who were part of this legacy. Raimunda's anxiety has a good reason: she doesn't want the family's long legacy to be broken. But, what do these two families have in common? These are two families who are at the bank door waiting for their children to leave a long admission process, to be employees for the bank. What is shown between these two families is that, despite The Blue House being about the passing of testimonies, being a descendant of a bank employee or former employee does not make you more privileged than any other applicant. Meritocracy is in practice. 

MUSIC: ROBERTO CHITSONDZO
XIZAMBI/VANA VA NDOTA AUTHOR - Roberto Chitsondzo
PERFORMERS - [Roberto Chitsondzo]
SCENE 2 – ACCELERATION
(DIALOGUE)
SIVE: Kid, do you know what legacies are?
ZEBEDEU: Boss, you're going to call me ignorant... I do know.
SIVE: We are all ignorant about many things, kid... what does it mean to leave a legacy?
ZEBEDEU: It means to teach.
SIVE: Hmm... it's the mark you have to leave through your actions, works, ideas, and values in the lives of other people, even after you've separated from them. Have you ever thought about that?
ZEBEDEU: Ahmmm, so what? But me, like this, washing cars, guarding cars, what kind of legacy am I supposed to leave? Soap?
SIVE: Ohhhh man, your values are just yours, they don't cost you anything. If you washers were associated, paid dues, and showed organization, with a well-defined plan. Don't you think the bosses at The Blue House could help you?
ZEBEDEU: Boss, you're tripping... us like this, no one trusts us...
SIVE: Oh man, you have to see the SIGNS.... you here play a double role. You wash cars and maintain security in the area... if you show organization and seriousness, they'll listen to you... Go ask inside if there isn't something called an incubator. Do you have a cell phone?
ZEBEDEU: I do...
SIVE: Give it here, I'll show you the signs... [Showing on the cell phone]... you like Facebook, TikTok... go to the incubator's website and you'll see everything.
[The LED screens show images of the activities of the Incubator]
(NARRATOR)
Well, that's exactly it... it's a case of asking each one of us here: "What did you do today that you can be proud of?" The Blue House does that every day... fostering employment through entrepreneurship. Currently, more than 5,000 people, especially women and young people, have already been impacted by the various projects of the Business Incubator.
MUSIC: VUMELA
AUTHOR - [MIngas]
PERFORMERS - Mingas



MUSIC: NWETY (DUET WITH ONÉSIA)
PERFORMERS - Mingas and Onésia
SCENE 3 – SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY [IP5]
(NARRATOR)
Here is an example of legacy... an example of values passed down from generation to generation... someone is proud every day of what they have done and what they do...
[when surprised by Grandma Marta dressed up to play tennis with a racket...]
RAIMUNDA: Mom, mom (at the same time getting tired of laughing)... where are you going like that?
GRANDMA MARTA: I'm going to play tennis... I always wanted to learn... I played a little there at the Nautical Club in Beira.
RAIMUNDA: But mom, you're no longer old enough to be doing these games, where are you going to play?
GRANDMA MARTA: You see? Already! Your problem is that same thing. You look at the old person and think that's it, they have to be put aside until they wither away.
RAIMUNDA: but where are you going to play? Here at home?
GRANDMA MARTA: Standard Bank...
RAIMUNDA: At Standard Bank, Mom?
GRANDMA MARTA: Did you see the news? Here at the school next door they are going to install their court to collect talents...
RAIMUNDA: Are you a talent, mom? It's for children, mom.... ahahah
(NARRATOR)
Ahahahahah... Dona Marta is right, a sedentary lifestyle has serious consequences: cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, and even consequences that impact mental health. That's why the blue house moves with the strength of a 20-year-old. In sports alone, it also gets involved in football and athletics which involves amateur professionals with the blue run. It gets involved in health by promoting access to quality health care in communities with difficulties. Mosquito nets, blood donation programs... well, it gets involved in education, it gets involved in the environment and even in culture, with the Acacias Jazz Festival... in which Onésia Muholove has already been a part.
MUSIC: NDZILO TA FULENE
AUTHOR:
PERFORMERS: ONÉSIA MUHOLOVE
SCENE 4 – CITIZENSHIP
SPOT: OBRIGADO 

MOSA 
MUSIC: NATUANANO
PERFORMERS - MOSA Group


SCENE 5 - GENDER EQUALITY
Screen: Images of the bank's female employees fill the screen in the form of a gallery.
Poem: Ode to the Mozambican Woman
Author: Severino Ngoenha
There is an ancient substance that crosses the centuries without belonging to any.
It does not affirm itself - it remains.
It does not impose itself - it founds.
It is a presence that is not spoken, but that organizes the world as one who embroiders chaos with invisible fingers.
On the margins of history, where names fade,
there is a figure that never ceased to be.
Not at the center of statues, but in the rhythm of clay,
not in treaties, but in the gestures that sustain the day.
The woman - or rather, that which time could never erase -
knew how to exist in tension with reality.
She did not live in victory, but in constancy.
Not in palaces, but in kitchens, in markets, in the backyards where life is decided.
It is in this place that philosophical reason hesitates,
because there is no system there, but wisdom.
There is no discourse, but survival.
There is no proclaimed freedom, but assumed responsibility.
The African woman is not explained.
She is prior to the concept,
and perhaps that is why she has so often been forgotten by it.
Western philosophy, busy separating subject from object,
passed by her without seeing her -
because she was at the same time subject and world,
action and consequence,
logos and flesh.
In Mozambique, where the land bled for ideals that were not fulfilled,
she remained.
Not as a symbol of a nation,
but as the condition for the possibility of living.
She did not wait for revolutions to be new:
she was born new every day,
within the same pains,
with the same clothes,
with the same silences.
While official discourse stumbled over promises,
she built a parallel order -
made of persistence, of resistance,
of uncodified wisdom.
And even today, when everything wavers,
she is what remains.
Not as a last resort,
but as the first foundation.
She does not seek recognition.
But if philosophy wants to rediscover its meaning,
it will have to pass through her.
MOSA Group leaves the stage.
MUSIC: Wansaty
AUTHOR - [Rhodália]
PERFORMERS - Onésia
2nd model parade while she sings.
When the music ends, the screen is completed with images of all the female employees and with the models on stage.
ONÉSIA SAYS THE PHRASE:
More and more companies are looking seriously at this issue of gender equality. The Blue House once again stands out by being the first bank to have a woman as PCA. [IP7]
SCENE 6 – EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT
(NARRATOR)
At The Blue House, safety is a very serious matter. When I say this, I mean very serious. Sometimes it can even sound like paranoia, but, as the colleagues at John would say: "better safe than sorry", or rather it's better not to be lax... At The Blue House, it's with everything: natural disasters, health, accidents, well, everything everything everything. But what is most striking is that this safety is extensive to the safety of employees, customers, partners, that is, of society.
[DIALOGUE]
ZEBEDEU: The old man seems fine but he's not very well... what's going on.
SIVE: What do you know? You don't know anything. Besides being a car washer and vehicle security, are you also a psychologist?
ZEBEDEU: I'm a psychiatrist... (he started to laugh)
SIVE: You see who's provoking? Now you're calling me crazy...
ZEBEDEU: No, boss... I'm a psychiatrist. You know, boss, that some physical conditions are aggravated by psychological suffering caused by social problems?
SIVE: You're a strange kid. You don't know about general culture, not even your own culture, but you're here giving a show of scientific knowledge....
ZEBEDEU: Well well boss, it's true... I was at university, but life got hard and since there are no jobs... I had no choice.
SIVE: You could become an artist...
[General astonishment among the artists on stage] WHAT... noooooo
SIVE: Just kidding, just kidding... don't get mad.
SIVE: but it's true, I'm not well at all... I'm very worried. Generations and generations have passed that we have been trying to get in here at The Blue House, but without success. My granddaughter who is in there is our purest hope.
ZEBEDEU: But why do you want it so much? Are there no other places to work?
SIVE: Of course there are... but the safety, culture, and organizational environment make all the difference. Did you know that for more than 10 years the Bank has been developing a Graduate Development Program, which has already opened the doors to the corporate world for hundreds of young people. Some of them have even reached positions of relevance in the organization such as members of the Board of Directors. Did you know that...
... – they continue to talk.
(NARRATOR)
It seems that Mr. Sive is, in fact, seeing the signs. You can't deny that anyone would be proud to be part of a family that for four consecutive years has been considered one of the top 10 in Mozambique, 16 times, since 2014, the best Investment Bank in Mozambique and, recently, elected the best bank of 2024 by the prestigious magazine The Banker? [IP9]



ACT 3 - SIGNS OF THE TIMES
SCENE 1
At this precise moment, both Mr. Sive's grandson and Grandma Marta's granddaughter run out of the bank happy with life because they managed to get into the bank.
Screen: As they are in different locations, we will divide the screens into 2, with Mr. Sive's grandson celebrating at the headquarters in Maputo and Grandma Marta's granddaughter celebrating at the Beira branch
Luísa: I made it, grandpa, I made it...
SIVE: congratulations, congratulations.
They hug.
Simultaneously in Beira:
ROBERTO: Mommmm
Raimunda: congratulations, congratulations.
Grandma: They hug.
MUSIC: Parabéns – [Wazimbo]
PERFORMERS - Wazimbo


(DIALOGUE)
GRANDMA MARTA: Did you see, daughter, how your son celebrated?
RAIMUNDA: He has to celebrate mom. He was telling me about so many things that only those who are attentive to the signs can see.
GRANDMA MARTA: But I am attentive, nothing gets past me.
RAIMUNDA: Mom, I'm talking about things...
GRANDMA MARTA: daughter, I know everything. Now watch how we celebrate...
Music: Mbhole Mbhole Na Yona -
AUTHOR - Djaaka
PERFORMERS – Pauleta Muholove
SCENE 2 – A DIGITAL BANK
GRANDMA MARTA (Typing on the cell phone): hello, hello Sive...
SIVE: Helloooo, how are you my deaaar,
GRANDMA MARTA: Dear, dear what, you lightning marrabwa... send money
SIVE: waaa? Let us celebrate, my love...
GRANDMA MARTA: Love, what are you doing? Celebrate by sending value. Don't you use QuiQ QuiQ... then do Quiq... we want to celebrate too. (hangs up)
Narrator: ehhh so you know each other???
GRANDMA MARTA: YIwe, you're very nosy... are you listening to other people's conversation??? Scoundrel
(NARRATOR)
Ahahahah, so Mr. Sive and Grandma Marta have something in common, they met a short time ago at the Heart Campaign event and it was love at first sight. But currently living far apart, The Blue House makes this distance feel little in daily matters. The couple knows things: in their day-to-day they use Quiq for payments and for their businesses they use NETPlus. It is the digital fluidity of The Blue House that can be well equated with the fluidity of this new generation that makes us know their works through this accessible digital world.



MUSIC: UM COPO
AUTHOR – Suraia Eduardo
PERFORMERS – Suraia Eduardo


SCENE 3 – DREAM
(NARRATOR)
The signs of the times have been distributing themselves among all of us for a century. We don't even notice because they are each one of us, in the past, in the present, and in the future, from north to south, in the stories of the elders and in the dream of every child. The Blue House is like music, it is composed of these same, sometimes dissonant and imperceptible, harmonious or silent signs of the times.
MUSIC: SONHO
AUTHOR - Deltino Guerreiro
PERFORMERS - [DELTINO GUERREIRO]
FINAL SCENE
Spot: 130 years Signs of the Times
(Narrator) in a more formal tone (for the closing)
On August 20, 2024, Standard Bank marked 130 years of presence in Mozambique. This milestone gives the institution, formerly called Standard Totta, the status of the oldest and one of the most systemic banks in the country. Its operation is governed by the highest standards of good practice, which corroborates the adequacy of its name.
A banking entity that has gone through multiple transformations and has accompanied the crucial periods of Mozambican history, consistently remaining among the main ones, finds in the "Shield" an identifying symbol of unquestionable property.
Indeed, the trajectory of the Bank and that of the country developed in parallel, and the temporal indicators manifested themselves ubiquitously: in the extractive industry (mining, oil and gas), in renewable energy, in energy and transport infrastructures, in agribusiness, in telecommunications and in all sectors that drive Mozambique's progress.
In each relevant stage, each strategic perspective, each challenge, each decisive moment, each conquest and each risk deliberation, the signs of the times were invariably present and continue to emerge daily, being observable in multiple contexts.
Final Music: Malala
AUTHOR -Jimmy Dlulu
PERFORMERS - [To be defined]
We need to convey this message in a positive way. This way is pejorative. The objective here is to reinforce the bank's purpose "to connect dreams to make Mozambique grow"
We will not pronounce the "P" since the audience is quite sensitive
This part must be reviewed. It is too heavy and conveys a message that connections work at the Bank and that witchcraft is also very present in our lives.
Review the phrase so as not to give the impression that connections work, that is, that parents open doors for their children. We suggest putting it positively, emphasizing the inspiration that parents have been for their children
Enrich this scene with information about more of the Bank's social projects, available here Social Responsibility | Standard Bank Mozambique
Identify a less "aggressive" poem, one that does not place women above men. It should value women without offending men
We were not the first. Review
Emphasize well-being, in line with the narrator's speeches at the end of this scene
Talk about the awards in a generic way and show them on the screen

ELENCO

MÚSICA

TEATRO

DANÇA

Onésia Muholove - Voz
Pauleta Muholove - Voz Wazimbo - Convidado EspecialDeltino Guerreiro - Convidado EspecialCheny Wa Gune - Convidado Especial
Stélio Zoé - Bateria e Efeitos
Nelton Miranda - Baixo
Djivas Madeule - Guitarra
Nelson Pimenta - Percussão
Ebenezer Sengo - Guitarra 
Tony Tembe - Coros 
Gigi - Coros 
Filipa - Coros

Zé Pires - Teclados, produção  e direcção geral

Horácio Guiamba - Narração ﻿

Arejústel Ananias Santinho Mulimela
Custódio Jossefa Sitoe
Anneliese Erwin Huber
Leonor Newasse Paulo Moiane
Alexandre dos Santos Chilaule - Coreógrafo 

Sinais do Tempo - A Casa Azul

Criado e Dirigido por

Zé Pires

ELENCO

MÚSICA

TEATRO

DANÇA

Produção

Elenco Técnico