ARTISTS’ OPEN HOUSE ATTRACTS SHOPPERS OVER JAMHURI WEEKEND

            Boniface Maina's art was displayed at Brush tu's Open House in December, 2020

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (published December 25, 2020)

Having an Open House implies being so transparent and welcoming that you are happy to invite any and everyone into your home. Even during a pandemic, the Brush tu Art Collective was willing to declare their open invitation on Instagram to come and see some of the latest artwork Brush tu artists have conceived, mostly since March when the COVID shutdowns first hit.

For instance, Boniface Maina, one of the co-founders of the Collective (with Michael Musyoka and David Thuku) just recently had a solo exhibition at Circle Art Gallery (where masks and social distancing were imperatives). Yet he presented four of his post-exhibition paintings, each one placing Maina’s avatar in spaces where COVID hasn’t reached and life is relaxed. His only concern is that two of his paintings are entitled ‘Fantasy’, yet most Kenyans know the pandemic is neither a fantasy nor a hoax. So those paintings seem almost otherworldly since the avatar looks oblivious to the viral threat.

                                                                    Boni Maina's art at Brush Tu Open House

Among the other Brush tu artists who have been painting up a storm since the shutdowns kept them at home is Sebawali Sio who has brought several of her latest glass-on-glass paintings to display during the group’s Open House weekend.

“But we’re likely to keep the exhibition open for another week or two since many people have said they want to see our work but don’t want to be around crowds,” Sebawali tells Business Daily. That’s a good sign since there are lots of red ‘sold’ stickers on the art, but still, there are a few visible price tags, meaning works are still there to be sold.

Peteros Ndunde is among those artists whose paintings have red stickers, while Maina also had a few. (The rest of the reds are scattered all around the studio.) Fortunately, Peteros promised interested parties that he would bring more of his new paintings early next week to replace those already sold.

But while the new owners of Peteros’ works agreed to leave their art at the studio for others to see the subtle new developments in his style, Lincoln Mwangi’s clients had other plans. They bought nearly all the young painter’s paintings shorter after the doors opened for the artists’ Jamhuri weekend event. But they were also quick to lift Lincoln’s artworks off the wall and quietly disappeared, leaving just one of his paintings and a long bare wall. The artist wasn’t disappointed about the sales but he was already hearing from unhappy shoppers who wanted to see and potentially buy more of his art.

One of Brush tu regulars who did not disappoint was Abdul Kiprop. He had a whole wall-like panel filled with his COVIS Mask prints made with the printing press that the artist made from scratch. Having come to Brush tu with the intention of becoming a painter, Abdul attended several print workshops given through Brush tu by master printers like Peterson Kamwathi and Thom Ogonga. He was wholly hooked on the art of printmaking after that. But as he was taught on other people’s presses, he realized he had no choice but to make his own, which he did! Now it’s available for use by all the Brush tu artists and friends who want to experiment with printing.

That air of openness and sharing is the ethos that has been a part of Brush tu’s appeal from the outset. It is also one reason the group has had so many interns arriving from various art institutions, both local and European. Most recently, photographer and art blogger Emmaus Kimani took part in a German cultural exchange program that took him to Berlin initially for three months. “But then, when the pandemic hit, I had to remain in Germany another four months,” says Emmaus who also had a chance to visit Hamburg where he met up with fellow Kenyan artist, Nicholas ‘Nicomambo’ Odhiambo who is currently studying fine art at the university there.

Emmaus also had a display table set up at Brush tu where the public could view an abundance of his photographs printed as post cards and computer mouse pads (but equally frameable). This intrepid camera man takes photos wherever he goes, both locally and overseas. In Germany, he was big on shooting skyscapes and other artful images.

Other Brush tu artists who have works on display included sculptor Boniface Kimani, Munene Kariuki, newcomer Husna Nyathira Ismail, Waweru Gichuhi and Moira Bushkimani whose paper-cut paintings were in high demand even without price tags on them.

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (published December 25, 2020)

Having an Open House implies being so transparent and welcoming that you are happy to invite any and everyone into your home. Even during a pandemic, the Brush tu Art Collective was willing to declare their open invitation on Instagram to come and see some of the latest artwork Brush tu artists have conceived, mostly since March when the COVID shutdowns first hit.

For instance, Boniface Maina, one of the co-founders of the Collective (with Michael Musyoka and David Thuku) just recently had a solo exhibition at Circle Art Gallery (where masks and social distancing were imperatives). Yet he presented four of his post-exhibition paintings, each one placing Maina’s avatar in spaces where COVID hasn’t reached and life is relaxed. His only concern is that two of his paintings are entitled ‘Fantasy’, yet most Kenyans know the pandemic is neither a fantasy nor a hoax. So those paintings seem almost otherworldly since the avatar looks oblivious to the viral threat.

Among the other Brush tu artists who have been painting up a storm since the shutdowns kept them at home is Sebawali Sio who has brought several of her latest glass-on-glass paintings to display during the group’s Open House weekend.

“But we’re likely to keep the exhibition open for another week or two since many people have said they want to see our work but don’t want to be around crowds,” Sebawali tells Business Daily. That’s a good sign since there are lots of red ‘sold’ stickers on the art, but still, there are a few visible price tags, meaning works are still there to be sold.

Peteros Ndunde is among those artists whose paintings have red stickers, while Maina also had a few. (The rest of the reds are scattered all around the studio.) Fortunately, Peteros promised interested parties that he would bring more of his new paintings early next week to replace those already sold.

But while the new owners of Peteros’ works agreed to leave their art at the studio for others to see the subtle new developments in his style, Lincoln Mwangi’s clients had other plans. They bought nearly all the young painter’s paintings shorter after the doors opened for the artists’ Jamhuri weekend event. But they were also quick to lift Lincoln’s artworks off the wall and quietly disappeared, leaving just one of his paintings and a long bare wall. The artist wasn’t disappointed about the sales but he was already hearing from unhappy shoppers who wanted to see and potentially buy more of his art.

One of Brush tu regulars who did not disappoint was Abdul Kiprop. He had a whole wall-like panel filled with his COVIS Mask prints made with the printing press that the artist made from scratch. Having come to Brush tu with the intention of becoming a painter, Abdul attended several print workshops given through Brush tu by master printers like Peterson Kamwathi and Thom Ogonga. He was wholly hooked on the art of printmaking after that. But as he was taught on other people’s presses, he realized he had no choice but to make his own, which he did! Now it’s available for use by all the Brush tu artists and friends who want to experiment with printing.

That air of openness and sharing is the ethos that has been a part of Brush tu’s appeal from the outset. It is also one reason the group has had so many interns arriving from various art institutions, both local and European. Most recently, photographer and art blogger Emmaus Kimani took part in a German cultural exchange program that took him to Berlin initially for three months. “But then, when the pandemic hit, I had to remain in Germany another four months,” says Emmaus who also had a chance to visit Hamburg where he met up with fellow Kenyan artist, Nicholas ‘Nicomambo’ Odhiambo who is currently studying fine art at the university there.

Emmaus also had a display table set up at Brush tu where the public could view an abundance of his photographs printed as post cards and computer mouse pads (but equally frameable). This intrepid camera man takes photos wherever he goes, both locally and overseas. In Germany, he was big on shooting skyscapes and other artful images.

Other Brush tu artists who have works on display included sculptor Boniface Kimani, Munene Kariuki, newcomer Husna Nyathira Ismail, Waweru Gichuhi and Moira Bushkimani whose paper-cut paintings were in high demand even without price tags on them.

NEW GALLERY OPENED BY KENYAN PAINTER IN ROSLYN

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (composed December 2020)

Patrick Kinuthia opened his new Roweinay Gallery last August with little or no fanfare. 

Yet who would deny that his move from his home studio in Migaa village, Kikuyu County into the upmarket Roslyn Riviera mall isn’t a major event in Kenya’s regional art world?

Patrick isn’t a Kenyan artist who’s inclined to toot his own horn or to make a spectacle of himself. He prefers to let his paintings speak for themselves. And indeed, they have over the years when he’s exhibited everywhere from the Dusit 2 Hotel, Village Market, Sarang Art and Banana Hill Art Galleries to the Tribal Art Gallery, United Nations Recreation Centre, Little Art Gallery and Michael Joseph Centre at Safaricom.

He’s been an artist ‘on fire’ for years, painting series of subjects that range from portraits and landscapes to local market scenes and Swahili doors that he’s seen in Mombasa’s Old Town. One of the country’s most prolific artists, Patrick is probably best known for his expressionist portraits of beautiful African women, some derived from his vivid imagination, others from any number of Kenya’s 43 communities.

But once he got commissioned by ICRAF, (now the World Agro-Forestry Centre) to paint local landscapes back in 2013, his impressionist visions of Kenya’s natural spaces have won him many more admirers.

Patrick claims he came to Roslyn Riviera for ‘convenience’s sake’.

“It was difficult for many of my clients to find my home in Kikuyu,” says the artist. “So I felt I needed to find a base more centrally located and easier for people to find my work,” he adds.

Having a gallery of his own also means he is now able to exhibit his latest works as well as some early ones. That includes remnants of series such as his ‘Gabra man’, (from his indigenous people phase), his Wangigi Market, (from his ‘African Markets’ series), and even from his more recent ‘African Garment series’ which was so well received that he decided to replicate several of them, only now as miniature works.

Occupying the space most recently held by One Off Gallery which opened and closed its Annex several months back, Patrick isn’t only planning to exhibit his art alone.

“I’m currently showing works by two local artists, Kennedy Kinyua and Njeri Kinuthia (no relation) who is a student of mine,” he says. “But I am open to the idea of exhibiting other artists’ works. In fact, I plan to give at least one wall [near the gallery entrance] to display other artists,” he adds.

What’s more, Patrick intends to run artists’ workshops in the gallery which got its name, roweinay, from the Kikuyu word meaning ‘river’. “The Ruaka river is just behind us,” says the man who has painted many Kenyan rivers, streams, and lakes. Two of them, Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru, are on display in the gallery right now.

Patrick has always been an independent spirt. He has also been keen on art from his youth. He grew up with a father who so loved the arts that he founded his own mobile cinema company and showed films all over Eastlands estates and beyond. But Patrick’s dad also appreciated the visual arts so much that he hired a professional artist from Pakistan named Rafiq Mohammed to paint advertising posters and murals promoting his Citizen Cinema company.

Nonetheless, Patrick’s father originally wanted his son to study accounting, which he did briefly after graduating from Hospital Hill School where he’d studied art throughout secondary (and primary) school. But once he made clear to his dad that accounts were not for him, Patrick went to work with his elder, painting under the tutelage of Rafiq.

“Rafiq was a meticulous portrait artist who also painted beautiful landscapes,”” recalls Patrick. “My father once commissioned him to paint all the African leaders of that time,” he adds, noting that he and Rafiq painted ‘poster art’ of everyone from Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone to sundry Chinese karate stars.

But after four years apprenticing with the Pakistani, Patrick went to study graphic design at the Kenya Polytechnic (now Technical University). From there, he got a job with Metal Box in Thika doing graphic design. But this too did not satisfy Patrick’s desire to get to work on his own. And that is what he’s been doing ever since.

Patrick admits he ‘went out on a limb’ when he opened the gallery. But being among the few Kenyan gallerist-painters, I’m inclined to believe his new initiative will succeed.

AN ONLINE AFRICAN MUSEUM COMING SOON

                                                                       Woodabe men's Courting Competition

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (composed Christmas 2020)

Photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher first met right here in Nairobi at the African Heritage Pan African Gallery more than 40 years ago.

Both artists, one from America, the other from Australia, they were equally adventurous, ambitious, and highly resourceful women. Both were also women who loved Africa and set their sights on working here, particularly with less-known African communities. So it didn’t take long for them to decide to join forces and pursue their mutual interests together.

Now, forty-five years and 17 best-selling coffee table-top books later, the two have finally started to put their life work online.

“We were actually on a book tour in Germany, speaking about our latest book, ‘African Twilight’ [which they launched in Kenya at African Heritage House just a year ago] when one professor came up and asked if we were interested in creating an African online museum that featured our photographs, videos and books,” says Carol who is back in Kenya on holiday as is Angela.

They realized the time was ripe for them to pursue the idea. “We didn’t get funding from any specific source, but the professor did fund raising and so did we,” says Carol who has been working non-stop with Angela this past year sorting through their half-a-million images and thousand hours of short videos, all focused on the ceremonies and rituals as well as the sheer beauty of remote African cultures.

“Our work has taken us to 47 African countries, to 150 ethnic groups over the past 45 years, so we clearly have a lot of material to cover,” she adds. Plus, she says their museum will feature 200 of their detailed, illustrated journals which they kept on their journeys to remote villages and which will help them put detailed captions on all their images that go online.

The online museum will be launched in 2021 sometime before June, says Carol who is taking a break in Kenya until next month. Then she and Angela will get back to London where they share a house. “I stay on the bottom floor while Angela lives on the top one, and our studio is on the middle floor,” she explains.

Carol says setting up the online museum is by no means the culmination of their photographic careers. Nonetheless, the title of their latest book, ‘African Twilight’ suggests their photographing indigenous cultures which have retained their rituals and traditions, relatively untouched by modernity and Western culture, may soon be coming to an end.

“Already at least 40 percent of the ceremonies that we photographed have disappeared,” says Carol who feels as does the professor that their museum can serve as an invaluable educational resource for future generations to see what pre-colonial African cultures looked like.

Plus, she says their work reveals a great deal about the values that were and, in some cases, still are integral to each communities’ culture. We asked Carol how she felt about the disappearance of so much of what she and Angela had documented.

She admitted that she has loved her life work and embraced the challenge of identifying and somehow reaching peoples who were way outside the mainstream of what is generally known about Africa. Fulfilling that challenge and getting to know remarkable people, most of whom had never met white people (leave alone white women) before, has been thrilling for both women.

But in a sense, Carol and Angela were pioneers whose books have exposed these marginalized peoples to the wider world. That is likely to change the whole cultural dynamics of their lives.

Carol recalls meeting one Samburu elder who requested them specifically to photograph one traditional rite of passage that only took place once every 14 years. “He told us he knew that year was likely to be the last time the ceremony was held. He understood the importance of having a record of the event so future generations of Samburu youth could learn about their culture,” she adds.

Carol had already produced two coffee table-top books before beginning work with Angela, one entitled ‘Maasai’, the other ‘Nomads of Niger’ which was all about the beautiful Wodaabe people. Angela’s one solo book is ‘Africa Adorned’. But together the two have taken their photos, videos, and books all over the world. And everywhere they have gone, it is not only their images that impress. It’s also their storytelling that intrigues people like Professor…and inspires audiences to want to learn more about Africa.

 

 

 

 

KENYAN THEATRE ROUNDUP 2020

KENYAN THEATRE SURVIVED DESPITE THE PANDEMIC

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Nyanga, the runaway grandmother in her youth. The opera was written, directed & produced by Rhoda Ondeng Wilhelmsen and staged in November in her garden

It’s a pity that 2020 had to be so hard hit by the COVID 19 pandemic, especially as the year had started off so well. There were productions by everyone from Dr Zippy Okoth, John Sibi-Okumu and Sitawa Namwalie in semi=solo performances. There were also groups like Heartstrings Kenya and Dance Theatre Kenya staging shows that were well attended and assuring their audiences that they would be back later in the year with more quality productions. But that was not to be.

Instead, we got hit by the COVID 19 pandemic and the lockdowns that doused all those dreams. We had been promised by Nairobi Performing Arts Studio (NPAS) that they were soon to bring us Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Ngai hika ndeeda (I’ll marry when I want) both in Kikuyu and English, but even that hope was quashed as thespians were not even allowed to rehearse, except for those who didn’t mind meeting online via zoom to share their craft.

And of course, Heartstrings Kenya which produced ‘Good for Nothing’ with Bernice Nthenge, Paul Ogola, and Adelyne Wairimu as three of the many stars in the ensemble that never loses hope or energy under the direction of Sammy Mwangi. Yet even they were at loose ends like many theatre casts, crews and the theatre-loving public were.

The highpoint of the pre-pandemic year was February when many companies and individuals focused on love and the Valentine Day theme. For instance, that was when Dance Centre Kenya staged ‘Romeo and Juliet’ the ballet with the homecoming dancer Joel Kioko who returned to dance with his partner Annabel Shaw in the title roles. Kioko is a prodigy discovered by DCK’s Cooper Rust who supported and taught him as he ultimately reached the UK where he currently is a student at the English Ballet School. Theirs was a dazzling performance. But several other Kenyan soloists equally gave us a thrill when they staged singular performances.

Dr Zippy Okoth is one who performed her own autobiographical script, playing ‘Agatha’ (also Zippy’s middle name), a young woman who had smartened up since her precursor, the divorcee, shared all her woes from being married to an ungrateful, disrespectful, and ultimately violent man. Agatha even sang sweetly about her new-found freedom and that was a delight.

Sitawa Namwalie also told a marvelous story entitled “Taking my father home’ which was also scripted by the performer-poet who gave us ‘Cut of my tongue’ and ‘Silence is a woman’ in preceding years. Both she and Zippy were accompanied by subtle music that never drowned out their artful acting.

But despite the physical constraints on the theatre, many thespians found ways to keep themselves working and occupied with creative activities. Some put their focus on vocal performances. This was true of Maimouna Jallow who had been working with fellow writers and storytellers in years preceding 2020 so she was prepared to premiere the three-part Kenyan audio melodrama, ’An Accidental City’. Maimouna scripted the story; she also directed and produced with her online ‘Positively African’. That is where the episodes can be found online.

Mumbi Kaigwa also found a poetic way to utilize her voice as you had been invited by the award-winning Kenyan author, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, to produce the audio version of Yvonne’s latest novel, ‘The Dragonfly Sea’. It was a rare opportunity because not enough Kenyan writers are creating audio versions of their texts. But Mumbi captures all the emotive inflections that are embroidered beautifully in the book.

Other groups have been involved in teaching in 2020. The most notable was NPAS since Stuart Nash organized with the Ministry of Sports, Art and Heritage to offer free online acting (with Fanuel Mulwa), singing (Hellen Mtawali) and producing (with Nash) classes initially mainly for Kenyan teens. One might imagine that kids having no school would jump at the chance. And they were, but so were older Kenyans. So Stuart ultimately opened the sessions to youth aged 12 to 25. That allowed Geoffrey Karabilo, 25 to win an all-expenses paid trip to Zanzibar this month when NPAS held its fifth and final ‘Monologue Challenge’.

Finally, the most exciting production we actually see recently was Rhoda OndengWilhelmsen’s Kenyan opera, “Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother’. Rhoda scripted, directed, and produced her brilliant and beautiful opera. She merits high marks for so doing.

                                                           Nyanga with Rhoda Ondeng Wilhelmsen's orchestra 

And lastly, George Orido performed the impossible task of assembling his 2020 Sanaa Theatre Awards last Sunday night at Kenya National Theatre.

 

 

 

 

 

GLOBALIZING KENYAN CULTURE: JUA KALI & THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONTEMPORARY KENYAN ART (1960--2010)

 Globalizing Kenyan Culture: Jua Kali & the Transformation of Contemporary Kenyan Art: 1960-2010 (luc.edu)

This is my DOCTORAL DISSERTATION for which i received a Ph.D in Sociology form Loyola University Chicago. For it and for the years of study and research, I  am now entitled to be called Dr. Margaretta. It was worked for out of love for the artists of Kenya and East Africa. 

The dissertation was also transformed into a book which I retitled 'Transformation of Contemporary Kenyan Art: 1960-2010'. It's available on Amazon. 

Much has happened since 2010 and another book must be written to encompass the immense growth and development in the Kenya art world, some of which is revealed in this blog. 

HAND-WOVEN SCRAP METAL SCULPTURES AMAZE

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (published BD Life 18.12.20)

^{Dickens Otieno was meant to be an engineer, according to his father’s dream. But this Kenyan sculptor has taken after his mother, a gifted, hard-working seamstress, instead.}

^{Dickens studied engineering for a time at Kenya Polytechnic, but he gave it up to be a full-time artist. Nonetheless, he’s found that study useful as he creates sculptures requiring internal ‘engineering’ in the form of metal wire frames that serve as skeletons to give his jackets, trousers and gowns the regal statuesque stance that enhance the dignity of each design.}

^{Currently, having his first one-man exhibition at Circle Art Gallery, Dickens has balanced his show between his shapely tapestries and his sculptures, some the size you might want to try on, others, miniatures that might otherwise appeal to little people. Either way, what’s most remarkable about his art is that he creates his own ‘fabric’ by hand, out of aluminum (and occasionally laminated paper) which he first shreds and then meticulously weaves into elegant garments or floor-to-ceiling wall hangings.}

^{Dickens’ tapestries might call to mind ones more monumentally made by the acclaimed West African artist, El Anatsui, since both men work and weave in scrap metal. But Dickens is no imitator. He’s been creating scrap metal ‘fabric’ for nearly two decades, long before he’d ever heard of the Ghanaian artist.}

^{There are similarities between the two. But what makes Dickens’ art so special is the precision with which he creates his metallic ‘threads’ and perfectly aligned weaves. Having started his career with limited funds, he began by working with materials most accessible to him, namely used beer and soda cans which are still his basic tools of trade. It is these that he first flattens, then carefully transforms into his sculptures and tapestries. For his paper sculpture, he also recycles, using glossy magazines or newspapers which he first paints, then laminates and finally slices into sturdy paper threads and weaves similarly to what he does with his slender scrap metal ‘yarns’.}

^{All the works in his Circle Art show were created this year, specifically during the lockdown when he either stayed close to home or worked some days in his studio at the GoDown’s new artists’ studios in Kilimani. Having opened November 26th, Dickens’ show will run up to December 22nd.}

^{In the meantime, at the opening, Dickens admitted to one of his admirers that he preferred creating formal wear, anything from ladies evening gowns to military men’s uniforms. These were the sorts of clothes that he grew up watching him mother make. She, like he, was meticulous about her creations. Pointing to the sewing machine at the entrance of the exhibition, Dickens says he personally never works with a sewing machine, despite his stitches invariably looking straight and tailored. “The sewing machine was my mother’s. It’s here because I think of this show as an installation dedicated to her,’ says the artist, implying the machine is there to pay homage to her legacy.}

^{Dickens’ mother passed on before she could see her son’s arts travel to exhibitions all around the world, everywhere from Nottingham and Paris to Cape Town and Dubai. In fact, Circle Art has enabled him to show his work at world-class Art Fairs as well. At the same time, he’s been invited to art residencies in Lamu and Italy.}

^{One of Dickens’ pieces that l found most fascinating is a ‘triptych’ of three tall, thin tapestries which he calls ‘skyscrapers’ since they hang side by side, each with square open spaces carefully aligned. “No, they do not each stand alone,” he tells BD Life. “They are one piece, but like skyscrapers in big cities, they stand side by side.” The window cut-outs add interest to the piece that hangs about seven feet from top to bottom.}

^{In recent times, all of Dickens’ tapestries have grown more monumental, especially as his audiences have expressed interest in those that fill whole walls. Some of them combine laminated woven paper squares or circles, which he’s stitched inside his metallic fabrics. Others mix colors geometrically while there is two that seem to tell stories with the shapeliness of his color contours.}

^{Either way, Dickens’ exhibition is a triumph for the artist whose humble beginnings, working initially in Nairobi’s Industrial Area, hasn’t stopped him from pursuing the work he loves best. What’s more, he’s carrying on a tradition established by his mother, only making his art of stitching, weaving, and structuring a genre all his own.}

MA RAINEY’S NETFLIX DEBUT

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published Jamburi Day December 12, 2020)

In just a week’s time, the long-awaited movie, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ comes out on Netflix for all of us quarantined folks to enjoy. It’s long-awaited for several reasons. For one, it’s the last film made by the award-winning iconic (Black Panther) actor Chatwick Boseman to appear in before his untimely death last August. In ‘Ma Rainey’, Chatwick, playing Levee, a sassy young trumpet player, nearly takes away from the real star of the film, Viola Davis (‘How to get away with murder’) who leads in the title role.

What also makes the film so special is it’s the latest play-transformed-into-film, scripted by great African American playwright, the late August Wilson, whose ‘Pittsburgh Cycle’ charts the 20^th century of Black-Americans’ everyday lives in a decalogue of plays, one for every decade. What also makes Wilson’s Cycle so exceptional is that it tells ordinary people’s stories from a uniquely Black-American perspective. “They wholly ignore theatre’s dominant White gaze,’ explained one young female playwright who added that Wilson’s plays “liberated” Black writers and widened their vision of creative possibilities.

The other remarkable fact about ‘Ma Rainey’ -- apart from Viola Davis’ extraordinary make-over into a beautifully fat Blues singer who wore a ‘fat suit’ with pleasure, poise, dignity and a non-nonsense attitude that kept both her arrogant white manager and Levee, in line – is Denzel Washington’s role.

For while he and Viola both earned countless accolades for their Broadway performance in another one of Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, ‘Fences’, following the play’s success, the playwright’s widow, Constanza Romero, asked Denzel, (now 65), to adapt all the Cycle plays to film. He agreed, and that is how he produced both ‘Fences’ (2016) and ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ (2019). (Next, we understand, he’ll produce Samuel L. Jackson and his own son, John David Washington in Wilson’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ which is set in the 1930s).

‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ is set in the 1920’s when Ma was among the first Blues singers to be recorded. Blues music had been around since the late 19^th century. It was born in the post-slavery South and is emotionally expressive of the melancholy and soul of the Black experience. The film takes place in a Chicago recording studio, up North where millions of Black people came to escape racist Jim Crow laws and hopefully find jobs in urban factories. 

Ma knows she essentially a ‘cash cow’ for the white music establishment, which is why she takes no nonsense from either her manager or her band. A big chunk of the film revolves around band members who are in the studio’s back room rehearsing and chattering, telling stories and hearing Levee’s dreams of reaching the top of the music game with what he calls his ‘new’ style of trumpeting. His arrogance is only matched by Ma’s and triggers a few volatile scenes made all the more remarkable knowing that Chatwick, like Wilson, will soon leave us, having suffered quietly with colon cancer.

The film has already earned Chatwick post-humous awards.

 

 

KIBERA ARTISTS CREATE ‘CHOKORA FASHIONS’ AT DIGITAL MEDIA FESTIVAL

Maasai Mbili is an artists’ collective that normally operates in Kibera. But for the recent Digital Media Festival, they created an installation at Alliance Francaise highlighting life on the street.

Specifically, their installation was a three-dimensional space known in Swahili as a kibanda, which is a shop found primarily in so-called slums. In this case, their kibanda belongs to ‘Kwa Viduka’ who specializes in creating ‘chokora wear’.

It was not the first time that Maasai Mbili (M2) have created such an installation, specifically one that recreates common features of slum life. “A kibande can be selling anything,” says Gomba Otieno, one of the two founding artists (and former signwriters) who launched Maasai Mbili back in 2008.

“It can be where you find anything from fresh food and hot tea to mitumba [second-hand clothes] or what we call ‘chokora wear’,” adds Gomba whose loyalty to Kibera, to art and to slum life has made him one of the most eccentric and ingenious artists in Kenya.

“We’ve taken our art everywhere from Berlin and Bayreuth to Vienna and Denmark,” he recalls. In some cases, the focus has specifically been on ‘chokora fashion’ as it is at Kwa Viduka at Alliance.

For instance, Gomba with Kevo Stero Irungu have held other ‘chokora fashion shows’ like theirs at Alliance, where models like Tola and Jano construct and then model chokora fashions right before an audience’s eyes. In so doing, they illustrate exactly what chokora fashion is.

It could be simply a pair of second-hand pants with patches or paints added. Or a pair of cut off jeans covered in a brightly patterned sliced-seamed skirt or any other sort of mitumba mix and match that the customer prefers.

The point is, says Gomba, chokora is a word that has two meanings in Sheng (Swahili slang). The root word means to dig, which is what ‘chokora’ street children do when they dig into city dumps in search of items they can sell. But ‘chokora’ can also refer to the way people dig into piles of mitumba clothing as they look for the jacket, sweater, shirt or pants that they want.

So chokora fashion is what starts with a mitumba which then gets made over [often with another mitumba piece] in ways one isn’t likely to see in downtown shops or city malls. That’s because the finishing touches on the new chokora fashion will be the designer’s made-over mitumba.

Gomba explains that chokora fashion is not for Kenyans obsessed with international brands like Gucci or Dior. But it’s definitely a style of slum fashion that produces fascinating ‘looks’.

Some of them could be seen during the Digital Media Festival in the Virtual Reality (VR) video entitled ‘African Space Makers’. M2 is one of the six ‘out of the way’ art spaces featured in the VR.

In it, Gomba and Kevo take us first to Toy Market where there are mountains of mitumba and we see the way people literally dig into them to find the precise item that suits their taste. Then we’re taken to see their M2 studio in Kibera and finally into a parking lot where a chokora fashion show is taking place. All the clothes worn by the models are chokora styles.  That means some are layered with skirts on skirts draped with torn jackets, others are patched and painted, while others are straight from the mitumba heaps, washed, pressed and worn under a chokora-labeled shirt.

So with M2 having received a significant place in the longest of the three virtual reality films in the festival, it was no wonder that they were selected to lend a lot of color and interest to the festival and to cover two of AF’s ground floor walls with not only ‘Chokora Wear Kwa Viduka’, but also works by other members of M2 like Mbuthia Maina, Anita Kavochy, Kevo, Gomba and several M2 newcomers.

“There are always new people coming to us, and we welcome them,” says Gomba who explains that while it wasn’t easy, but M2 managed to raise funds to buy their Kibera studio, which is one reason why they are happy to share what they have.

“We like to show people that artists don’t need to be poor,” he says, noting that he never intends to move out of Kibera. Even if he became a rich man, he says, Kibera is where his loyalty lies and he’s happy to demystify the meaning of slum since for him, it is home.

 

GRANDMA’S OPERA COMES HOME TO KENYA

Nyanga (Lyndie Shinyega) and her sister Okoko (Mary Gichu) in the opera "Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother'

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

 Opera was something Rhoda Achieng-Ondeng was destined to do from the time she was seven years old when her Scottish school teacher spotted her vocal talent and sent her straight on stage with a song that this professional soprano still recalls.

Rhoda also remembers the sweet songs that her maternal grandmother Nyanga would sing when, as a child, she’d sit at the ancient storyteller’s feet, listening as she told of how she had run away from home as a young girl, was ‘found’ by Canadian missionaries who turned her humble life upside down.

It’s the ‘runaway’ grandmother’s story that Rhoda first wrote down with a view to its one day becoming Kenya’s second indigenous opera. The first was ‘Ondieki the Fisherman’ composed by her former English teacher, Francis Chandler.

“It was Mr. Chandler that I sought out when I finally decided it was time for Nyanga’s story to become an opera,” says Rhoda who has been a professional opera singer since she left University of Oregon with two master’s degree in Music.

She spoke to BD just before re-staging excerpts of the full opera, ‘Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother’ last Thursday, November 26, in Lavington at her Baraka Opera Trust Performing Arts Centre which she built since returning to Kenya from Norway early this millennium.

“We were to perform another set of excerpts December 8th in Kisumu County at the Ciala Resort,” Rhoda says, adding she and her opera were invited by Kisumu County Governor Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o. “But sadly, the performance and the entire Festival was cancelled,” she adds.

Surprisingly, Rhoda chose not to take a major role in her opera, appearing gracefully at the outset and the end, singing Nyanga’s song. One reason for this is because she wanted to look after every aspect of the production, from the chamber orchestra and conductor (Levi Wataka) to the vocal training of scores of singers (by Ciru James). But she left all the other show details with Michael James who, like Rhoda, has been back and forth between Kenya and Europe for many years.

“Mike actually accompanied me on piano when I sang at Starehe Boys and I was schooling at Limuru Girls,” says Rhoda, who married Norwegian Ingvard Wilhelmsen and has lived abroad ever since. “But I try to come back to Kenya every year,” she adds.

“I’ve always wanted to return and introduce Kenyans to opera,” she says, knowing that opera probably seems alien, even elitist to many.

“But that is why I want to demystify it so people can see opera as a vehicle for sharing Kenyans’ stories.” In this case, she says Nyanga is in English mixed with bits of Dholuo and Kiswahili.

Having auditioned many Kenyans for the show, she’s found the vocal talents of young people tremendous ‘Every character was cast with an understudy,” she says, noting that her grandmother was played last Thursday by both Lyndie Shinyega and May Ombara (her understudy).

Serving as both opera producer and director, Rhoda has staged extracts of Nyanga twice before, once November 6th at her Centre and again November 8th when she involved award-winning writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor to help her lead a program to discuss “Music Meets Literature’.

“We always practice social distancing during our performances, but it’s also helpful that we have had them all outdoors,’ she adds.

Rhoda has previously kept a relatively low profile when she’s been back in Kenya. Yet she still gets recognized for the first-prize performances she gave during past Schools Drama Festivals. It was in 2014 when she set up the Baraka Opera Trust to begin to realize her dream of bringing opera home to Kenya.

Before it was cancelled, December 8 was to be a special occasion since ‘Nyanga’ was to be part of the larger Kusi Festival which would have embraced an array of artists from East and Central Africa.

“The Festival was created by President Paul Kagame [of Rwanda] who wanted to create an event where ideas from all over the region could be shared,” Rhoda says.

“Normally the festival moves from country to country every year and this is Kenya’s year.”

Rhoda hopes to take Nyanga around to other parts of the country on her mission to familiar Kenyans with opera. But that plan is on hold for now.

“Opera is costly and since we always pay our musicians, we are fund-raising, even now,” Rhoda admits.

‘We also want to illustrate high professional standards by our actions since that’s what we know Kenyan artists deserve.”