NEW CRONY PRODUCTIONS WITH OLD-STYLE COMEDY

           MATRIMONY AND MAYHEM IN THE NEW CRONY PRODUCTION

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (margaretta.gacheru@gmail.com)

Crony Productions is a brand new theatre troupe that has its debut this Saturday night from 6pm at Kenya National Theatre.

Intending to be a red carpet affair, the show, ‘Willing Buyer, Willing Seller’ is a comedy starring a slew of familiar faces. They include Nick Kwach, Cyprian Osoro, Victor Nyaata, Anne Kamau, and Esther Kahuha, all of whom have one thing in common, apart from their acute ability to make people laugh. And that is they have all been key players in Heartstrings Kenya productions.

But as she spoke to The Weekender, Anne Kamau underscored an important point. Asked if Crony was on good terms with Heartstrings, she said, “We are all one family.”

COVID-19 has affected artists in every genre differently. In the case of thespians, many chose to either resort to Zoom or go into film or just to relax in lockdown until the virus cooled off. Heartstrings gave us one outstanding production at the end of 2021, but otherwise, they were invisible for most of the pandemic times.

By contrast, five of Heartstrings’ faithful cast members spent most of 2021 producing comedies in the Kisii language! “No, I don’t know the language well, but well enough to play my part,” says Nick Kwach, who joined in the initiative that Osoro and Nyaata had been carrying on for several years, namely making Kisii comedy shows that have attracted huge local audiences. “We even had people come from the [Kisii] Diaspora to see our productions,” Kwach adds.

The fourth former Heartstrings players is Sammy Mwangi’s assistant director, Dennis Ndeng’a who also admitted Kisii wasn’t his mother tongue. “But I would come up with the concept [in Swahili and English] and then our group would [collectively] devise the script,” he said.

It’s the same strategy that Heartstrings follows, and one that the other three had been comfortable with after years of working closely with Heartstrings. Only now, Ndeng’a is Crony’s director, and the new company is clearly happy with that as The Weekender saw when she attended a rehearsal of their upcoming show in one of the backstage rooms at the National Theatre.

The big advantage that the foursome had in 2019 is that all the time that Osoro and Nyaata were working with Heartstrings, they were spending time on the side staging skits and scripts in Kisii. So they had already built up a fan-base that was eager to come out to see shows incorporating non-Kisii speakers who were getting laughs and building audience attendance.

“We had great audiences all last year, and we also following the [COVID] protocols,” said Kwach. “But that’s why we went to Nairobi Cinema. We had plenty of room for our audiences to do social distancing,” he added.

Saturday night’s premiere performance will only be a one-off event, unlike Heartstrings whose shows tend to run three or four days, and perform to packed houses. But what is also exciting about this new show is that it will feature several other actors who have had a long history with Heartstrings. Both Anne Kamau and Esther Kahuha used to be regular players in Heartstrings, but for one reason or another, they absented themselves in the last few years. Both are powerful actors who bring those years of experience with them, and stand at par with equally powerful players like Kwach, Nyaata, and Osoro.

The other former Heartstrings member who shifted over to Crony is Timothy Ndisii, who will play one of the relatives of the ‘bride-to-be’ Tracy (Wanjiru Mwangi) in ‘Willing Buyer, Willing Seller’. As the story goes, she and Maxwell (Nick Kwach) meet up on New Year’s Eve, just shortly after Max has made a vow with his buddies to get married in 2022.

Tracy’s timing is perfect. She’s right there seconds after he’s made that pledge. It’s happenstance that they are all in a pub, and Tracy is primed for matrimony. She’s a charmer and they ‘fall in love’ overnight. The wedding is planned soon after she moves into his flat and proceeds to apparently take over his life. But that’s when the problems arise. Max has a mind of us own. In fact, it turns out the two have very different views on just about everything. And that’s how the hilarity ignites.

I won’t be a spoiler and give the mayhem away. Suffice it to say, fans of Heartstrings are likely to savor the comedy that they will find in ‘Willing Buyer, Willing Seller’ this Saturday at KNT.

 

  

  

MBUTHIA ON THE MOVE

January 22, 2022

Mbuthia Maina is a philosopher and a poet. But for far too long he has been a man whose sensitivity made him far too susceptible to trying out too many so-called mind-enhancing or consciousness expanding concoctions that kept him from his true calling, which was and is to be an artist.

A graduate of .. University in Philosophy and Social Science, Mbuthia's sense of artistry led him to work and stay among the artists at Maasai Mbili in Kibera for many years. There he explored art and also education, teaching children at an innovative ‘School of Ideas’ also in Kibera that he started with the late Solo 7 of M2.

But in the past year, during COVID, Mbuthia got wise enough to know he needed to start taking his artistry and his life a bit more seriously. That is when his good friend Sam Njuguna Njoroge invited him to come stay in Muthatha village with him and get to work.

That is exactly what Mbuthia did. And in the last year, he has been developing his own style of artistry that combines painting and printing with found objects serving in ever-more original ways.

For instance, he has a technique of using plastic car mats as elements of design. Cardboard boxes also serve his design ideas well. And even auto gaskets from a nearby junk yard have come in handy in Mbuthia’s artistry. Even bubble paper, the kind used for wrapping delicate objects so they don’t get damaged, are used to add texture to his paintings, all of which are taking shape as ever-expansive sizes.

His inclination is toward abstract art; but then one can’t help but wonder if there aren’t deep stories hidden in the elements of his work. It would seem that he allows his style of printing, (which is either by hand, foot, or heavy object that he presses over the objects he uses in place of etchings or woodcuts) to dictate the way his painting flows.

It’s worth asking the artist to explain because his rationales are illuminating and ingenious[ms1] .

Mbuthia’s art hasn’t been shown often enough to speak about a steady progression of his expression. But he has shown in Manjano shows and at Maasai Mbili. He also created numerous wall murals with friends in Kibera all over the neighborhood.

One only hopes that Mbuthia is producing a body of current works that will resonate with one of Nairobi’s ever-increasing gallerists and curators.

He’s a treasure who, despite having weathered years in the wilderness, has come into his own powers. It’s about time too!

 

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 [ms1]

DEADMAN CAME ALIVE AT KENYA CULTURAL CENTRE

GRIPPING DRAMA TACKLES TOUCHY TOPICS, CORRUPTION AND POVERTY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 23 January 2022)

One thing is a no-brainer for anyone who watched the play, ‘Deadman’, including the three ‘curtain-raisers’ that preceded it, last Saturday night at Kenya Cultural Centre. And that is that Kenyatta University theatre students have heaps of talent, energy and enthusiasm for theatre, and especially for classmates like director Geoffrey Karabilo who put the whole show together

The one mistake that Geoffrey made was allowing three curtain-raisers to precede his show, one of which was a whole play, ‘Cold Mess’, which I wasn’t given a choice whether to watch or not. I had to, if I wanted to see ‘Deadman’ which was scheduled to start at 5pm but didn’t begin until after 7.

Need I say, I’m not a fan of curtain-raisers, especially as they tend to distract one’s focus from the show one comes to see. In the case of ‘Deadman’, it deserved our undivided attention since it’s steeped in serious issues, everything from poverty, philosophy, and corruption to guns, violence, revolution, and Mafia-styled criminality.

Naturally, a love affair had to get thrown into the mix as were several debates over issues like free will versus fate and gender equity. But possibly the biggest issue addressed in Jante Juma’s script relates to power, including who wields it and how? The main player in that realm is Doc (Derick Omondi), the pseudo-holy man who, dressed in his full-length kanzu, studies his Bible when he’s not receiving the day’s collections from his City Council ‘kanjo-like’ ‘Goons’ who roam around the most impoverished parts of Nairobi collecting poor people’s meager assets. His corruption is flagrant, but it sadly mirrors many aspects of Kenyan society.

The show begins enigmatically with a brief scene in which one man, (who we later learn is Daido (Matthew Ngugi), the play’s protagonist) is seated with hands bound behind his back, apparently being tortured by another guy who we subsequently learn is the chief goon, Jeshi (Michael Mwangi). One can only guess that the man in the chair is the title-character as the scene ends abruptly.

From there, Daido’s story unfolds as either a flashback, a dream, or one more enigma. He’s just received his grades, and he’s done very well. But he doesn’t want to fulfill his father’s plan for him to become a doctor like his older brother. The dad means to insult him by calling him ‘a girl’ for wanting to become a florist. But when he’s undeterred, his father throws him out. After that, he heads to Nairobi where he lands in Dandora where he quickly blends in. But he can’t adapt to the status quo, especially when the goons come around demanding tribute from the poor.

Daido’s revolutionary spirit rouses the wrath of Doc whose psychopathic character feels threatened by this young rebel. At the same time, Jeshi is plotting a rebellion of his own as he aims to displace Doc whose vicious cruelty, unpredictable character, and manic God-complex make him a volatile boss.

The villains in Deadman are numerous, ranging from Daido’s misogynous dad to Doc, Jeshi and the rest of the goons. But their characters are developed well. Jeshi iss my favorite bad-boy as he’s not just vicious, merciless, conniving, and mean. He’s also sycophantic and obsequious toward Doc who is so obsessed with power that he can’t see those planning his overthrow from within.

Daido is totally naïve about the dark forces surveilling his every move. Even when Agnes (Purity Muthoni), Doc’s cook and house maid tries to warn him, he won’t be deterred from his plan to clean up his side of the city, including the corrupt politicians. The love story between Daido and Agnes is short-lived since it only comes into being towards the end of the play. It is one of those love-at-first-sight type meetings at the dumpsite. But it is key since now she has a place to go after Jeshi tries to rape her.

Simultaneously, Doc’s crumbling grip on power is weakened when he has to decide who is telling him truth and who is truly loyal? Is it Jeshi or is it Agnes, the girl who at age 7, was ‘given’ to Doc after her father couldn’t pay money owed to Doc.

Deadman is one of the best university productions we may see in 2022. It’s too early to make predictions, and oGRIPPne hopes Karabilo, (who won Best Actor’s prize at Nairobi Performing Act Studio) puts the show on again.

Deadman was only performed once, but at least one house-full audience got to see the show.

  

NCAI OPENING A MILESTONE FOR KENYA VISUAL ART

NEW ART INSTITUTE OPENING A MILESTONE FOR VISUAL ARTS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 23 January 2022)

It’s only February, but it doesn’t take a prophet to foresee that the most exciting fine arts event of 2022 just took place late last week when the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) had its official three-day opening on the top floor of the Roslyn Riviera Mall.

There are many reasons for the excitement that surrounds the opening of NCAI, most prominent of which is the person behind the initiative, an artist who returns to Kenya, now world-renowned, literally. Locally, Michael Armitage is a name that grabbed social media fans’ attention recently when one story disclosed that he just sold a painting for Sh150 million!  What the story didn’t say is that he didn’t sell the painting. It was sold at an art auction where the bidding can reach astronomical heights, yet the artist him or herself often benefits very little in the process. Nonetheless, for those who don’t believe art can be a serious profession, the story was still illuminating.

Few Kenyans had seen Armitage’s art except for those who had sought it out online at Artsy or the White Cube website where the London-based gallery displaces some of his paintings. We locals had just heard that this Kenya-born artist was doing well overseas, and wasn’t likely to return home soon.

So, word that he is the force behind a new Art Institute in Kenya became big news in the Nairobi art world. BDLife sat down with Armitage a few days after the opening and found him surprisingly down-to-earth as well as keen to share his vision for NCAI, which he says is to create a not-for-profit art institution that can fill the gap between the early iterations of Kenyan art and the current contemporary art scene.

“We’d like to fill in that gap,” says Armitage who also hopes NCAI can build a permanent collection of Kenyan art, something that people like the late Vice President Joseph Murumbi wanted to see Parliament support back in the 1960s.

“Right now, we don’t have a [historical] context for viewing Kenyan art. That’s one reason we decided to feature Sane Wadu, [one of Kenya’s pioneering artists], as our first major exhibition,” he adds.

Yet Armitage explains that art exhibitions will only be one aspect of NCAI. “We will also focus on [art] education, eventually to establish a post-graduate program. But that is something we are now doing the ground work for.”

His Director of NCAI, Ayako Bertolli adds, “We are starting small, holding artists’ talks and possibly running monthly discussions of interest to artists. But we are still developing those ideas as we grow the Institute.”

NCAI’s Director of Programs, Rosie Olang Odhiambo adds that initially, NCAI will build programming around the Sane Wadu exhibition. “In February, Sane will give an artist’s talk, followed by a Children’s art workshop, comparable to what he does at his studio in Naivasha. He also might do another workshop on documentation, since he has been so good at keeping records of his art and art sales.”

The three capacious galleries that NCAI occupies at the Mall are filled with three fascinating dimensions of Wadu’s art. Beautifully curated by Mukami Kuria, the first gallery contains Sane’s earliest paintings, some in water colors, others in mixed media, and just one in oils. “We believe this was his first oil painting,” says Armitage who identified 1984 as the year Sane says he began painting. Yet that date has already been questioned by friends who think he’d started painting earlier than that.

Works in this first gallery are a revelation since they are largely figurative and even reverential, given Sane was quite religious at that time. Yet most of what the public has seen of his art is reflected in the second gallery, which contains works from a 30-year period when his art had been influenced by Gallery Watatu’s Ruth Schaffner. During those years, his painting became more abstract, less figurative, and sometimes described as surrealistic.

It’s in the third gallery that one sees Sane the archivist who kept photographs of all his Watatu shows. These are displayed under glass for protection’s sake. The most interesting feature of gallery three is Sane’s painted overalls, which he wore in the late 1970s to Gallery Watatu. They are the clearest sign that Sane started painting years before 1984.

But NCAI quotes the artist’s recollection, aiming to build a credible basis for becoming Kenya’s leading art institution, which we trust it will be. Their first show is a tour de force!  

 

 

 

 

 

WAMA WELCOMES SPECIAL NEEDS ORIGINAL PLAY

‘SPECIAL NEEDS’ ARE NO LIABILITY AT WAMA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (PUBLISHED 22 January 2022)

When Adam Sargeant arrived in Kenya 12 years ago, he already had an idea for blending his background in education, hospitality, and tourism and putting it to work in Nairobi.

He didn’t know at the time that his idea would materialize as a social enterprise boutique hotel with restaurant, salon, and spa. Nor was he clear that he’d be training young Kenyans living with special needs in the fine points of customer service and hospitality.

“I grew up with both my parents deeply involved in volunteerism so I think that influenced me a lot,” the CEO of WaMa restaurant told Weekender.

Sargeant only opened WaMa (short for Wisdom, Ability, Motivation, and Access) last July. But already, his staff and squad of trainees include young Kenyans with a whole range of disabilities and special needs. Some are deaf, blind, mute and physically impaired or else they are in some way mentally challenged, or afflicted with albinism. In short, in a job market where thousands of university graduates have problems finding work, the youth that Sargeant welcomes to WaMa are the least likely to find jobs anywhere.

But as a social enterprise, Sargeant’s vision is to provide opportunities for work and paid on-the-job-training for some of the most vulnerable members of society. The training itself covers a full range of hospitality roles, everything from receptionist, waiter, and kitchen staff to supervisor, room attendant, and spa therapist. But the central focus of Sargeant’s program is on customer service so that his trainees will be equipped to enter the corporate world with confidence, skill, and self-assurance.

But Sargeant says he didn’t have a blue print or standardized curriculum for his concept of training. But as he had worked for years with corporates and venture capitalists, he had a broad background in working effectively with groups. “There just came a time when I decided making profits in the corporate world wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life,” he says.

 One challenge Sargeant wanted to address in his program was building team spirit among his Wama staff and trainees. For that he enlisted Nairobi Performing Arts Studio’s Stuart Nash to help build that sense of camaraderie through performance.

“We’ve been working on the musical since last September,” says Nash who is also about to start rehearsals for Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s and Ngugi wa Mirii’s ‘I’ll Marry when I want”.

Entitled ‘Wama Mia”, it’s filled with songs by the pop group Abba. Choreographed by Flirti Carlos, the storyline itself has evolved through discussions between Nash, the trainees, and Sargeant.

“We gave them [the trainees] the basic storyline. Then it was they who improvised the scenes together with Flirti Carlos who everybody loves,” says Nash. “I just step in to assist with blocking the scenes,” he adds.

The story centres around Yvonne, an Albino girl who has just graduated from college. Like many graduates, she cannot find work. She’s highly qualified, but having albinism makes doors slam shut in her face consistently. Her situation changes dramatically once she finds a place that bears a peculiar resemblance to WaMa.  The learning process only gets more interesting, however, once she gets the job and finds she needs to learn how to get along with not only the clients but with her fellow trainees, most of whom have never associated with an albino before.

But as WaMa’s slogan is “fusion and inclusion”, Yvonne has no choice but to make peace with her peers as well as with the public. It’s a process that comes after Yvonne makes a mess and nearly gets the sack. She makes amends in an imaginative way that works for the staff, her boss, and the restaurant reporter who initially gives her place a terrible food review before she gets creative and helps train and build up skills among the staff.

“At some level, Yvonne’s situation mirrors the challenges faced by many school-leavers,” says Nash who has found the corporate world ripe with requests for public performance training from the NPAS thespian.

“We have devised a whole curriculum in public speaking within the corporate context which has both a psychological dimension and one in performance,” he adds.

‘Wama Mia’ will be presented as a ‘teaser’ featuring one or two numbers from the show during the Australia Day festivities on January 26^th at the hotel. If the weather holds up, it will be staged out on the Hotel’s spacious and grassy lawn.

The actual premiere performance of Wama Mia will be February 14^th, Valentine’s Day.

 

 

 

 

 

THEATRE 2021 ROUNDUP: COVID COULDNT CRUSH THE THESPIANS

COVID COULDN’T CRUSH THESPIANS: THEATRE 2021 ROUNDUP

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published January 7, 2022)

Despite the lockdowns, curfews, and masks, thespians were busy in 2021.

Not that many of our mainstream actors appeared on stage this past year. Many were either busy making movies or sitcoms for streaming on cable TV. Others were simply waiting out the virus until, towards the year’s end, previously consistent groups like Heartstrings and Back to Basics finally came back on stage, reminding us how much we’d missed the veterans.

There were several virtual shows, one by Oroji Otieno that had a global cast and an incoherent theme. Another was ‘Theatre for One’, featuring six outstanding Kenyan women storytellers, each giving her audience her undivided attention. And one, ‘Tales of an Accidental City’ got rebranded from being a virtual play to being a short film that just won accolades at Kalasha Film Festival.

Early in the year, we’d heard that the NBO Musical Theatre Initiative was in the process of producing several new musicals. Since then, however, they have gone quiet. Same with Nairobi Performing Arts Studio, but at least they’ve come up with new dates for staging Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s ‘I’ll Marry when I want’ in both English and Kikuyu by May, and ‘Annie’ after that.

Fortunately, there were a handful of other musical productions that couldn’t wait for COVID’s end to stage their productions. All but one of them was engineered by a woman. The first was by St Mary’s school. Under the direction of Jackie Kasuku, 40 secondary school students gave an ambitious performance of Lin Manuel Miranda’s ‘In the Heights’. The second was ‘Subira’, which was scripted, directed, and produced by the Ugandan playwright Judith Adong; it costarred Nice Githinji in the title role with Gilbert Lukalia co-directing. Beautifully staged with marvelous voices, the production suffered from poor (or lack of) editing. It should not have been a four-hour event.

Next came Rhoda Ondeng Wilhelmsen’s opera, ‘Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother” which didn’t have that problem. Her concept, the story of her adventurous, brave, and iconoclastic grannie was first made into an opera by her old high school music teacher and then adapted for the Kenyan stage by Michael James. Nyanga was the high point of the year as far as the staging of a professional production.

But the show that stole Kenyans’ heart, musically speaking, was ‘Simba Bazenge’ by Kenya College of Accounting (KCA) University. Ogutu Muraya’s Sheng adaptation of the block-buster hit, ‘The Lion King’ was the surprise musical of the year. It revealed Ogutu as not just a masterful storyteller, but an outstanding stage director.

The other professional show was Cooper Rust’s annual production of the ballet, ‘The Nutcracker’, which, like the opera, doesn’t quite fit into the musical theatre category. But the show tells a beautiful children’s story that’s traditionally told at Christmas. And in addition to being staged at Kenya National Theatre, Cooper offered a free performance to 1000 children at the Carnivore.

The real theatrical action this past year was at Ukumbi Mdogo where there were new productions staged practically every weekend. Most of them were original scripts, often directed and produced by the playwright him or herself.

That was true of ‘Men of Ambition Part I’ which was written and directed by Bryan Orino. It was also the case with ‘Trilateral’, the show just recently staged, directed, and scripted by Aditi Mahaga. The problem with that approach (as we saw with Subira) is that nobody was around to critique or edit the writer whose script might have been tweeked just a bit to improve the quality of the production.

Nonetheless, there was a lot of youthful energy and enthusiasm bundled up in plays like Youth Theatre Kenya’s ‘Athena, On Trial’, Kenyatta University students’ ‘Contract Love’, Igiza Arts’ ‘Obnoxious Obviously’, and Millaz Arts’ ‘Black Out’ which was restaged with ‘Man of Ambition’ at the best Kenya International Theatre (KIT) Festival that Kevin Kimani put together in the last six years.

Special kudos must go to Liquid Arts Production for not only being the first theatre group to venture forth and stage a live performance this year at Ukumbi Mdogo in February. They also put on no less than four productions, nearly all of which were scripted and directed by Peter Tosh.

Finally, Ogutu Muraya didn’t just direct a marvelous musical, ‘Simba Bazenga’ in 2021. He also directed two amazing women actors, Esther Kamba and Wanjiru Mwawuganga in the Maabara Showcase.

Sadly, I missed  ‘Sound of Music’ which I gather was grand, but which shut down early due to COVID.

 

 

LIZA MACKAY: FORMER DANCER-NOW PAINTER OF DANCE

 LIZA, ONCE A DANCER NOW PAINTS THE DANCERS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

For many years, Liza MacKay was best known for being Nairobi’s leading modern dancer, instructor, and choreographer. She taught dance at Alliance Francaise and choreographed musicals for Phoenix Players like ‘Sweet Charity’, ‘Joseph and his Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat’ and even Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew.’

But back when she’d completed her A-levels at Kenya High, Liza didn’t go study theatre or dance. She went to perfect her skills as a painter at St. Martin’s School of Art and Sussex University in the UK.

That’s how she came around to teaching art at ISK for a quarter century up until a few years back.

It’s also what brought her back to being not just an instructor but a practitioner of painting.

Nonetheless, her upcoming exhibition at Red Hill Gallery will be all about the career that brought her tremendous joy for many years, and that was dance.

Having taken ballet lessons as a child, she came back to studying dance while still in art school. That led to her dancing professionally with UK companies like ‘Moving Vision’ and the ‘Dance Theatre Commune’.

But when she got a call from one dance instructor in Nairobi, suggesting Liza come home to take up her teaching job at Alliance Francaise, Liza confessed she’d been missing Kenya terribly and quickly flew back to teach dance and to choreograph shows for James Falkland and others.

She also performed in everything from Brecht’s ‘Mother Courage’ to Baudelaire’s poetry, accompanied by Job Seda aka Ayub Ghada, and Alliance Francaise’s former director, the late Pierre Comte.

But since she stopped teaching both painting and dance, Liza has come back to fine art.

‘Choreography’ is what she’s entitled an exquisite collection of figurative paintings of a dynamic dancer in motion. Mind you, painting provides a two-dimensional perspective but dance is all about movement of human bodies in 3D.

Liza has her own unique techniques for conveying the vitality of the dancer, who in this case is her former colleague, Adam Chainjo, who came to teach dance to deaf students at ISK.

“We’ve remained good friends, so when I thought of painting a subject close to my heart, I thought of dance. I wanted this show to make the connection between these two [artistic] aspects of my life,” Liza tells BDLife as she puts finishing touches on paintings that she’s produced during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Combining photography, painting, and even photoshop, Liza’s one-woman show is all about one dancer who we encounter, first in a portrait that she painted of him, then on a beach at the Kenya Coast on a sunny day when the water is crystal blue and the sky is shimmering with heat and ethereal blue light.

And finally, her most recent version of the dancer is most ambitious. She initially took a series of photographs of Adam in specific poses that she wanted him to hold. Then she photoshopped them to create a variety of effects, all aimed to emphasize both the dynamism of the dance and the graceful elegance of the dancer.

When her exhibition opens early next year, Liza has arranged for Adam to come and dance while she tells a bit more about his story as well as about her art.

Liza will be adding more paintings to the collection that I saw tucked away in her home. But thus far, it’s her portrait of Adam that I feel is the best reflection of her skill as a first-class portrait painter who manages to convey the essential life force of her subject with sensitivity and clarity.

Her studies of mobility and grace of the dancer are also interesting; the paintings of Adam on the beach are presented as if his form is a beautiful still life, bronze and sun-baked in the sand.

Her choice to slice several poses of the dancer to create a semblance of cinematic movement doesn’t quite work for me. My eye is more inclined to look for the original dancer and try to piece his body back together again. Instead, Liza’s intent is to convey a feeling of dynamic movement that’s accelerated by her slicing and reshaping of body parts.

But whether her dancer is slightly distorted or presented in elongated ballet-like forms, it’s the elegant anatomical accuracy of Liza’s presentation that makes her paintings feel almost super-realistic.

This will be the first one-woman exhibition that Liza has had in several decades. Clearly, it is long overdue. We hope it will signal more to come from this multi-talented Kenyan woman.

 

KAREN COUNTRY CLUB SUPPORTS KENYAN ART

ELITE CLUB FEATURES KENYAN ART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted January 16, 2022)

Karen Country Club doesn’t have a reputation for being an active, well-curated art gallery. Because it’s not, really. But thanks to Tom Siambey, practically all the club’s walls are covered in works of Kenyan art.

That includes walls in the foyer, conference rooms, staff offices, and corridors leading to a dining room, ladies loo, and spacious living room where a series of paintings, entitled ‘Badai ya kazi’ by Edwin Jongo are part of the club’s permanent collection.

“We showed one painting by Edwin that club members liked a lot. So they asked him to bring two more pieces based on the same theme,” Siambey tells BDLife. “After that, the club decided to buy all three paintings since they mirror what goes on in that members’ room,” he adds. 

The first one, which hangs over a fireplace, has several men casually seated with drinks to go round. The second is of a mama sitting alone reading the newspaper (Business Daily), and the third portrays two young boys playing checkers as they pass the time together.

But Jongo is just one of the 15 Kenyan artists whose works have been on display since early Decmber at Karen Club. Selected and hung by Siambey, who takes care not to call himself a curator, the works are an eclectic mix of paintings, collage, and photographs. Many of the works are painted in acrylics on canvas, although there is lots of mixed media work on display, including Jongo’s badai ya kazi..

What’s most distinctive about Siambey’s selection of works is its diversity. Some of the pieces are by better known Kenyan artists like Simon Muriithi, Mary Ogembo, Ron Enoch Luke, Kamau Kariuki, Tom Mboya, and Coster Ojwang. Others are by artists who aren’t nearly as known, but who Siambey has seen and appreciated their artistry. “I give artists a chance to exhibit who haven’t had so many opportunities to show their art before,” says Tom who has been bringing art to the Karen Club since 2016.

“Before that, I was often exhibiting Kenyan artists’ works at Village Market,” he recalls. Among the most notable names he curated back then are Peter Ngugi and Anthony Okello, both of whom are now affiliated exclusively with One Off Gallery. He exhibited works by the acclaimed Ugandan artist, the late Jak Katarikawe, and he even exhibited the art of Lydia Galavu before she became the lead curator at Nairobi National Museum.

Since 2016 he’s focused all of his energies bringing art to Karen Club where he has found a surprisingly receptive audience of mainly Kenyan art lovers. For instance, a few moments after I’d walked past Ron Luke’s super-realistic portrait of a wildebeest looking you straight in the eye, it was bought by someone who Siambey calls one of his good clients.

Apparently, this sort of spur-of-the-moment sale is not uncommon at the Club. It could be one reason why quite a few of the artists on display reached out to Siambey to ask if their art could be featured at the club. In the past, it was he, the intrepid art connoisseur, who would go trekking to artists’ studios to find new works to show. Today, he still does that but he also gets a lot more calls from especially young artists, asking if he can exhibit their art.

Among the artists whose works we haven’t seen before are Frank Langi who came straight to Nairobi from Kisumu’s Mwangaza Art Institute, Glen Ochira who’s a second year Design student at University of Nairobi, Anthony Chege whose big monochrome portrait of wildebeest during the annual Migration is another super-realistic eye-catching piece, and Shadrack Musyoka who came recently from Nakuru and quickly shared his art with Siambey.

There are also several new women artists whose art got into this show. Fridah Ijai is from Kenyatta University, Catherine Mavalya teaches at Alliance Secondary, Safiyah Shah is actually studying to be a medical doctor, and Catherine Mwangi’s ‘Faces’ greet you first upon entry into Siambey’s selective world of Kenyan contemporary art.

There is one painting in the exhibition by a non-Kenyan. Isaac Karim Wabo is actually a Ugandan. But Siambey couldn’t resist putting Wabo’s portrait of a beautiful young woman into the show. She could easily be described as an African Mona Lisa with her enigmatic smile, penetrating eyes, and the chiaroscuro lighting around her face.

There is no uniformity of quality in Siambey’s show. Some of it is brilliant, some is not. But it’s still worth coming to take a look at.

 

 

 

ALAN DONOVAN BRINGS AFRICAN ART HOME IN TIME

 BRINGING AFRICAN ART HOME AFTER 25 YEARS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted January 11, 2022)

Four months before Alan Donovan passed on peacefully on December 5th at his home at African Heritage House, he was boarding a plane headed for Los Angeles where he had big plans.

Accompanied by Kenyan photographer Paul Ekhaba, Donovan was intent on selling his LA condo and bringing back to Kenya all the African art, artifacts, and textiles that he had accumulated there over the past 25 years.

“It was as if he was tidying up various loose ends of his life, as if he knew his end was drawing near,” his long-time friend and driver, Tom Otieno tells BDLife.

Donovan’s traveling companion Ekhaba confirms that sentiment. “Throughout the trip, Alan was giving me instructions about what to do with his things after he was gone,” he recalls.

Not that the 83-year-old’s powers were waning. On the contrary, ever since he’d regained consciousness after being in a coma for four straight months, Donovan looked super-energized to take on multiple projects that he seemed in a hurry to complete. One of them was bringing back to Kenya all the African art he had left both in Europe and the US.

His LA collection might not compare in size or scale to the Africana material culture that one can find in many major art or ethnographic museums like the British Museum. Having done an inventory of everything he was bringing back with him, Donovan counted just over 150 items.

Relatively few of those were from Kenya. But it’s still significant that they included early paintings by Ancent Soi and Jak Katarikawe, fabulous clay vessel by Magdalene Odundo, and sculpture by Elkana Ong’esa which Donovan acquired in the 1970s when Elkana exhibited at African Heritage Gallery. He also brought back beaded Luo chairs and Pokomo handwoven mats.

“Alan also collected a beautiful assortment of Turkana ivory lip plugs, which he left behind because he got them before the government put a ban on ivory,” says Paul. “He was waiting to find out if the Kenya government would allow him to bring them back, so they are still in storage,” he adds. “The only other items Alan left behind were several that he was donating to his alma mater, UCLA

Donovan also brought back his collection of Maasai and Bakuba spears as well as a wide assortment of necklaces that he’d designed out of semi-precious stones, aluminum, resin, amber, and Egyptian facience.

Otherwise, the vast portion of what he brought back was from West Africa, and more specifically from Nigeria where he first landed in Africa as a US relief worker during the Biafran war in 1967. These included everything from Yoruba Ibedji dolls and talking drums, a Gelede masquerade mask (in three parts), Orista-ita religious mask, Shango priest’s Agbada robe and sculpture, Igbo Ikenga sculpture, and paintings by everyone from Bruce Onobrakpeya, Twins Seven Seven, Asiro Olatunde, and Niki Seven Seven Okundeye to Joseph Olabade, Jacob Afolabi, and Chief Muraina whose paintings were the first African art Donovan ever bought.

But Donovan also brought back art and artifacts from Benin (Dahomey lost wax figurine and brass Jigida pendant), Cameroon (cast brass king sculpture and feather headdresses), Comora (Lamp), Congo (Royal Bakuba cloth), Ethiopia (Silver crosses), Ghana (Ashante gold boxes, fans, and handwoven Ewe cloth), Madagascar (Handwoven raw silk Lamba mena), Mali (Mud cloth tapestries), Mauritania (Tie-dye textiles), Niger (handwoven raffia cloth), South Africa (Zulu hats), and Zimbabwe (handmade brass lamp).

On his way back from the US, Donovan and Ekhaba stopped off in Paris where the former co-director (with Kenya’s former Vice President Joseph Murumbi) of African Heritage Pan-African Gallery had supplied several Parisian art galleries with African art. From there, he retrieved a number of paintings, textiles, and unusual items such as three priceless self-portraits by the acclaimed Mexican artist, Frida Kaylo.

The question is now what will happen to all of these priceless works of art? And what will happen to all the projects Donovan had started, including the Donovan-Murumbi Pan African Research Centre which he renamed Gurunsi Memorial House, after the black and white houses once built in Northern Ghana and Zimbabwe.

According to Tom Otieno, who Donovan made Executor of his will, the projects will continue according to the vision that Donovan had shared with Otieno and others, including members of the Trust that he had established before he passed.

“Alan had wanted African Heritage House to remain open for business, even after he was gone, so we continue,” says Otieno, a man who had worked closely with Donovan for nearly 20 years.

LIN QI ENCHANTED BY DESERT WALKS WITH HIS CAMEL

 CHINESE TREKER ENCHANTED BY DESERT WALKS WITH HIS CAMEL

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Lin Qi believes he inherited the travel bug from his family.

“My grandfather was a doctor who Mao [Tse Tung] sent to work in Somalia,” says the 37-year Chinese traveler who just got back from a trek up north to Lake Turkana and back.

“My father was in the military when Deng Xiaoping was in power and China briefly invaded North Vietnam. And my mother was also a medical doctor who got stuck in Nepal for three years during a civil war that blocked her passage home,” adds Lin who has been in and out of Kenya since 2011.

“That makes me the third generation in my family to be sent by my government to work overseas,” the trained engineer says proudly.

Initially arriving in Kenya to work for a Chinese government-backed aviation company, Lin came to manage a special technical vocational training program, designed in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Education. It had involved training teachers and installing electronic equipment (like 3D printers) in vocational training centres across the country.

“That was just the first phase of a three-part program,” says Lin. “But I resigned in 2015 to get married and follow my wife [a Japanese diplomat] to New York,” adds the tallest Chinese person (1.93 metres) I have ever known.

Since marrying Kazumi, Lin has moved from Nairobi to New York (several times), and then to Gabon, Haiti, and currently back to Nairobi while his wife works at the United Nations Somali Mission in Mogadishu.

But migrating with his wife hasn’t quite satisfied his wanderlust. The travel bug that he got from his family burst out in a big way in Japan on the island of Shikoku where Kazumi was born and raised.

“I walked around the whole island on what the Buddhists call their Shikoku Pilgrimage,” says the tall, lanky Lin. “In 38 days, I walked 1,200 kilometres and visited 88 Buddhist temples,” he adds.

But since he came back to Kenya in 2021, he’s been enchanted by the idea of traveling up north with a camel and walking across the Chalbi Desert.

“Initially, it started as a joke, but then when I found I could buy a camel, I went up to Elementiata where Dr Piers [Simpkin] has a herd of 140 camels and bought one of my own,” says Lin who discovered his affinity for deserts while hitchhiking from Cairo to Khartoum in 2016.

His original plan had been to travel from Mali through the Sahara, but he decided it was too dangerous to risk. Then, his next idea was to walk from Rumuruti north to Turkana. But since his camel came from Gilgil, he had to start his walk from there.

“It took us ten days to walk from Elementiata to Rumuruti,” Lin recalls. He was unphased by the time lapse, especially as Piers and his Samburu herd manager, Prame, were so helpful in charting out the best route for him to walk. Piers also provided Lin with a Samburu assistant, Martin, who helped him take care of Kipesh, his new camel given the Samburu name by Martin and Prame.

Lin was clearly looking for an adventure and he got one once they’d reached Baragoi. “I knew we were reaching a dangerous patch with the Samburu fighting Turkana, and Samburu fighting among themselves. So, I hired two armed men to accompany Martin and Kipesh while I led the way,” says Lin who met groups of raiders on either side of their walk. But with his smiling, non-confrontational style, his height, and his well-armed friends right behind him, Lin navigated his way through that first potentially volatile situation.

But then, when they reached Marsabit, Kazumi called and said he was urgently required to complete paperwork in Nairobi.

“I had to leave Martin with Kipesh and took four matatus to reach Nairobi. But two days later, I got a call from Kenya police. Twelve men, four with guns had robbed Martin of everything, including Kipesh!” says Lin who felt losing the tent, the food, even the water, meant nothing compared to losing his camel.

But a few hours later, he got another call. Kipesh had escaped! She was being kept by villagers. The phone rang again after two hours with more news that the raiders had returned, shot several people and grabbed the camel again.

But Kipesh apparently had a mind of her own and escaped again. This time, Lin was able to drive a pickup quickly to a KWS animal safe hold to collect his exhausted, emaciated and slighted wounded camel and take her back to Piers.

“It was miraculous,” says Lin who is thrilled his camel survived and his trip ended so well. It didn’t fully satisfy his wanderlust however, and he’s already planning his next adventure which is likely to involve another desert sojourn.