MICERE MUGO, A CHARISMATIC FREEDOM FIGHTER WHO RESISTED TO THE END

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted August 2, 2023) Celebrations, tributes, and performances in remembrance of the life and rich legacy of Professor Micere Mugo were held over the past fortnight all around Nairobi, As I write, BD Life only attended one, last Monday at the Kenya Cultural Centre’s Ukumbi Mbogo. That one was coincidental with the celebration Pan African Women’s Day and the concept of ‘Love as a Practice’ which correlates at several points with the philosophy of Utu/Ubuntu, a notion so important to the understanding of Micere. Organized by the team of Irene Asuwa and Ruzuna Akoth from the Feminist Conversations Kenya, the women in attendance were not all drawn from the upper escelons of Nairobi society. There were several feminist scholars, academics, and activists among the room-full of Kenyan women and men. In the main were mostly grassroot women from the heart of Eastlands, from Kayole, Dandora, Eastleigh, and Buru Buru. Apart from the former Presidential candidate Martha Karua, there were no big-name women leaders in the hall, only women leaders of grassroot organizations like Ukombozi Library, Social Justice Centre, Ecological Justice, and Cheche Books and Art Centre. But we were all attentive when Irene and Ruzuna ran a video featuring Micere speaking about her own ethical upbringing. It was wonderful listening to this charismatic professor who I had the good fortune to listen to at University of Nairobi before she had to flee the country for her life. Micere was explaining how she was raised by a father who brought his daughters up to know themselves as fully entitled to be treated on equal terms with boys and men in every walk of life. She spoke almost reverently about the way the children were taught never to impose their will or wishes upon any of the workers they had on the family’s land. “We were not poor. In fact, my father had more than 150 workers on his land at a time. But he also taught never to treat them, or anyone, like a lesser being,” Micere explained. She further shared how she was brought up to treasure humility and to always practice it. She was also brought up to know she could do what was traditionally seen as men’s work just as easily as men could learn to do women’s work. “The chores were all shared equally so that girls learned to do boys’ work, and boys could learn women’s work as well,” she added. Her upbringing clearly had an impact on her expectations and dreams. For example, even as she came home from Canada after living overseas for many years, (becoming the first Kenyan woman to earn a Ph.D in Literature in the process), she rapidly rose from being a lecturer at University of Nairobi to become a professor, and eventually the Dean of the Faculty of the Arts. During the three hours program held in her remembrance in the US (and which was featured on local TV and YouTube), many speakers shared their experience of Micere’s many initiatives to assist those in need and less fortunate than she. Micere was also a great African revolutionary at heart. It was in that spirit that the Traveling Theatre from the Social Justice Centre based in Kayole came to the National Theatre to stage an incredible play, scripted by David Tafari. Based on a true story, the 1945 massacre of women protestors who were adamant about not being party to the destruction of the Aberdares rain forest. This was before the Emergency was declared by the Colonizer in 1952. Some say the women’s intense resistance to chopping down the forest in order that coal mines be dug, roused awareness and anxiety among the Brits. It showed the Brits a level of powerful grassroots resistance that they hadn’t anticipated. The dramatic portrait of the women outwitting the oppressive rules established to more effectively exploit Africa’s lands, air, and laborers, offended the women greatly. They were not only being told to go dig the trenches but also to chop down the trees. Their resistance to these so-called rules revealed a revolutionary spirit and militant solidarity that couldn’t easily be broken. The colonizer finally gave up on ‘politely’ making the women comply. It was then that he sent in his Home Guards to ‘teach them a lesson’. More than 100 women were slaughtered and hundreds more badly beaten, maimed for life. It was only after that eventful day in 1945 that men were brought in to do the dirty work the women had resisted. The lesson in all this is not that the job got done by men. It was that the revolutionary spirit lives on, proving as Micere believed, that equity and social justice are real possibilities. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STORYTELLING SOSA ENCOMPASSED THE ARTS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted July 31,2023) Christine Mungai is a creative force to be reckoned with as everybody saw in this past fortnight when her vision was realized in the form of an ‘experimental’ show, directed by Mugambi Nthege, entitled 'Storytelling Sosa'. [Sosa being that extra dab of ugali or rice that you ask for when the food is too yummy and you need a ‘top up’ to complete your delicious meal.] Her concept has to do with combining several creative processes in one production. She starts with storytelling, which she describes as ‘’a longform magazine style of writing’. After that, she adds animation, video, data presented in graphic forms, and finally, photography. I would personally add stand-up comedy and spoken word rap since the show’s presenters, June Gachui and Elsaphan Njora are masters in both fields. June is well known for her humor in ‘Because you said so’ (BYSS) while Elsaphan is someone like June of many talents, including his gift for rapping, rhyming, and taking command of the Louis Leakey Auditorium’s front-stage at Nairobi National Museum last weekend. Both artists did what they do best that night which is improv’, (that form of theatre that’s liberated from a written script). Their job was to moderate the whole show, which they performed well. But their interludes were witty and grabby of our attention. We didn’t want to let them off the stage. But then they went on to introduce the Sosa storytellers. They included Christine Mungai herself, together with Lilian Majanja, Wanjeri Gakuru, Paul Otieno, and the queen of storytelling Aleya Kassam. Each explored the theme of ‘Home’ from their own unique perspective while situating it in a broad historical context. Opening the storytelling was Christine who shared ‘The Parable of the Monkeys’ based on her personal experience of witnessing the way monkeys have gotten so familiar with humans, they are now invading people’s kitchens and eating everything in sight, as if they had divine rights. She was also able to place her parable within a larger social framework which enabled her to interrogate the issue of racial bias, algorithms, and even the use of AI as a means of replacing human beings, especially those who don’t have easy access to WIFI and the internet. Her presentation was compelling, thought-provoking, and far-sighted in her views on the future prospects of how the rule of machines and AI could bring new challenges to those seeking equity and social justice. The other political story was by Wanjeri Gakuru entitled ‘Siku za Mwizi Aeibaini’. It was one that made us cringe at the horror she revealed the way Kenyans stand by as they witness the impunity of mob justice. They watch yet do nothing to protect or prevent the harming of those who often are the vulnerable in society. She took us back to colonial times when the British colonizer mistreated his African employees. He was especially brutal during the Emergency when people were raped, beaten, castrated, and of course, they had already been robbed of their homelands. It is that same sort of insensitive cruelty that we see in mob justice. Wanjeri’s storytelling was also powerful, provocative, and painful to think about. But at the same time, her implicit point was that there is need to rouse awareness of such bad practices so that they can be purged from the systems we encounter in our everyday lives. Paul Otieno went on to give us a wonderful retrospective of his mother’s trendy sense of fashion, focusing the history of hair fashion and his mum’s sharp sense of trending hair styles. His story, entitled ‘Mama Onyango’s Hair’ went from what he saw as a toddler up until now when she shaves her hair and still looks chic in the process. Paul added photography to the Sosa mix as he brought out lovely models wearing fashions that trended during his mom’s heydays. Meanwhile, Lilian Majanja admitted she had grown up in many different physical houses, such that none could qualify as giving her a permanent sense of comfort and home. The one thing that gave her a feeling of ‘Home’ (the title of her story, ironically) was the table that got carried along as her family moved from one house to the next. Finally, one of the reigning ladies of storytelling, Aleya Kassam came out in her elegant Sari to share her story, ‘100 Years of Samosa’ about her family’s history of going from having little to creating a fine home out of making samosas, one by one.

NAIROBI’S CULTURAL HERITAGE UNDER SCRUTINY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted July 25, 2023)

Count on Prof Kimani Njogu and his Twaweza Communications to tackle the tough cultural questions like how to get county government fully engaged in strengthening Nairobi culture in all its diverse genres, including cultural heritage. It began last week at Kenya Cultural Centre during ‘Tamaduni Conversations Nairobi’ when Dr Mshai Mwangola gave a thumbnail history of Nairobi and her historical perspective was enhanced by Joy Mboya, (founder-executive director of the GoDown Art Centre) who noted Nairobi was culturally multi-layered, starting with the Maasai. The rest of the layers were constructed, she added. A trained architect who’s been involved with the culture sector since she was eight, Joy recalled the poem on elves that she performed in a music festival that year. She had memorized it so well she spontaneously shared it while on the first panel discussion of the day. Having teamed up with British Council to explore issues of cultural heritage and county government, Twaweza’s Irene Cege introduced the rest of the first panel which included Department of Culture’s Julius Manzi, UNESCO’s Judy Ogana, and Maurice Otieno of Baraza Media Lab. It was Manzi who reminded us the first framework best used to address issues of cultural heritage was Kenya’s 2010 Constitution. That’s because it identifies Culture as the bedrock of society and social development. He also noted there is a Nairobi City Culture Act, but admitted it needed more input from the cultural sector.

Fortunately, Twaweza had also invited Humphrey Otieno from Nairobi County government to participate in the cultural heritage conversation. Otieno has already been engaged with cultural practitioners like TICAH (Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health). It had been through his support that TICAH has a regular monthly drummers’ session in the park in front of the former Hilton Hotel. He also approved their creating murals in various parts of CBD, including the long wall across from Jivanjee Garden near Globe Cinema roundabout. Public spaces in Nairobi like the ones TICAH has already beautified were another subject that panelists and Twaweza wanted to address. That was why Sarakasi Trust was invited to attend, represented by Marion (aka Mama Sarakasi) Op het Veld. Sarakasi had formerly been the commercial Shah Cinema but currently, it is a performance centre that Marion says is mainly used to train acrobats and dancers, but it’s also available for public use by other artists. How to generate more public spaces was a key concern raised. But Otieno said County government is prepared to assist more cultural groups once they come forward and engage with him. One group that has utilized public space while also engaging at the grassroots with the local community is the Wajukuu Art Centre. Based in Mukuru Lunga Lunga, it’s a public space frequently referred to as an informal settlement. But Joy noted it should just be called what it is, a settlement.

Wajukuu was represented on the second panel by Ngugi Waweru who just got back from Germany where the Centre just won first prize from Documenta, (a leading European cultural festival) for its qualitative engagement with the local community. The panel also included Churchill Ongere from the Kuona Artists Collective, and African Art Matters’ founder and lead writer Peter Achayo. Moderated by Dr Lydia Muthuma of Technical University of Kenya, she admitted that her degrees in Art History were grounded in European, not African art. But hopefully, writers like Achayo will generate sufficient information on Kenyan and African art to create books and blogs to raise awareness of what Judy Ogana described as a vibrant Nairobi culture. One point that Joy raised was that while mapping out sectors of the city, the GoDown found that most communities are segregated from one another in the city, either by geography or choice. Despite this reality, Judy still contended Nairobi was a vibrant cultural hub both nationally and regionally. She and others suggested that having more cultural festivals was one vital way to bridge the gap between communities and rouse awareness of the city’s wealth of indigenous culture and cultural heritage. Otieno also observed that more cultural festivals would make Kenya all the more appealing. As such, he suggested cultural groups also need to engage with the Ministry of Tourism since Nairobi and Kenya as a whole have much to offer culturally, not just in terms of wildlife. In the end, what was agreed was that more needs to be done for cultural heritage, the main one being to devise a Strategy for strengthening structural links between cultural heritage and county government.

ADRIAN POPS UP IN KITISURU

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 26, 2023)

Talking about Pop-Up art exhibitions, there are very many that quietly take place around Nairobi curated by individuals who admire a particular artist and want to share his or her art with friends and family and others who may share their love for that creative. Most of these events take place without fanfare or news media. Meanwhile, the artist is usually grateful for the exposure as was Adrian Nduma last Friday when one of his collectors, George Owuor, opened his home and spacious garden to more than 30 of his dazzling paintings. Adrian does a thing with colors that is unique to his palette. He creates a luminosity with color that seems to emanate from within the canvas. Not all his paintings have that effect. At the Owuor home, there were a few create in stormy greys and black, suggesting storms about to invade. But then there’s another work in which a storm is brewing in the distance and one can see a delude of rain has already begun pouring down. But in the foreground of the same piece, that subtle sense of solarized color is still there, enduring up until the sun is overcome with rain-filled clouds.

Much of Adrian’s technique is drawn from both the impressionist and the realist schools although he also had portraits and abstract work among his 30 plus works on display in George’s garden as well as in his living room and foyer. His landscapes are among my favorites, which are often panoramic, reflecting Kenya’s true natural beauty, a beauty that needs to be protected from all the illegal loggers and miners and crooks who would rob the country of its one big asset, nature in all her diversity of color and flora and fauna. Adrian himself has a fascinating story. He actually graduated from kenyatta university in painting and graphic design but quickly went first into teaching, then advertising, then banking where he supervised other bankers first at ILRI, then at the KCB branch inside USAID, and finally at the US Embassy. He was with the bank for five years, when he was struck with the realization that he had to be true to himself. “There came a moment when I realized I had a higher calling,” he told BDLife just before his Pop-Up exhibition opened in Kitisuru.

So all that banking and advertising was cast aside when he made his radical move in 2004 to his own studio and chose to become a professional painter full-time. That was the same year Adrian established his own Bonzo Art Gallery on Ngong Road, where he displayed his own art as well as the young students whom he mentored, like Coster Ojwang and others. Unfortunately, he had to close Bonzo down when COVID came to Kenya. But COVID didn’t shut down all the commission requests made on Adrian which he has had to complete for clients coming from all over the world. When asked about where he has exhibited in and outside the country, he says he doesn’t exhibit in other art galleries since he has had his own. But he has participated in numerous pop-ups like the one that George created for him last weekend. Otherwise, he says his outreach is sweeping. “My art is everywhere,” he admits. “It’s in the US, UK and in countries all over Europe, in Australia, and Japan.” He adds. As for last Friday’s event, George has large high walls which accommodated Adrian’s giant landscapes, seascapes, and his wonderful chameleon, a work which reveals Adrian’s uncanny means of conveying the creature’s keen intelligence.

His marvelous sense of perspective gives a realism to a work like ‘The Migration’ which gives us both a foreground filled with wildlife and a background where the skies are threatening heavy rains are coming and which are already pouring fast in the distance. But he also gives an impressionistic, almost abstracted image of his wildlife which he barely outlines. He only paints them as curved colors so that you know what they’re meant to suggest. And as to why George handed over his house and garden to Adrian to present his latest works, he says he had been waiting for this time as he’s been an ardent of the artist’s work ever since he first saw it several years ago. “i knew practically nothing about art til I saw my first painting by Adrian,” George told BDLife. “Ever since then I’ve loved his paintings and wanted to have a show like this in my home. I’m delighted its finally happening.”

EATING HEALTHY CAN HEAL

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 7.20.2023) What do you do when you know you have a physical problem but you really don’t want to deal with it? Before you respond, let me give you some advice: do something about it now, not next week, next month, or next year Don’t procrastinate or pretend it does not exist. I did all those things and I’m regretting it now. My situation got so bad (this was pre-COVID) that I finally had no choice but to go get myself checked out. Sure enough, I was informed I had a condition. The diagnosis took sometime and speculation on the MD’s part. After multiple tests and x-rays, they finally found a name for it. But it went by a set of letters that disguised esoteric medical terms that I didn’t even know how to spell. Finally, I was told I had an auto-immune disease. A what? That’s a disease that basically is an admission of ignorance on the medics’ part. I say that because it doesn’t get close to specifying what the problem is, how it came about, or how it can be cured. I was left with my five letter, C-TEPH and an assurance that it wasn’t COVID-related. It started long before that. But as I said, I waited a long time to address my situation, and it got worse as a consequence. In any case, I was left with several prescriptions and told they would help but not cure my chronic condition. Chronic, I discovered meant it would never go away, meaning there was no cure, according to medical science. That’s when I got down to researching foods, especially as the hematologist told me I could no longer eat my beloved greens, my spinach, sikuma wiki, and terere. After that, I realized I had to figure out what was good for me to eat and what was not. I also discovered that the right kind of food could help to improve my condition, and maybe even cure it. I have learned to love researching foods and finding out what they contain. I even discovered I don’t need to eat red meat or lots of carbohydrates or processed foods. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes (like ndengu) and beans are generally the best things to eat. Not everyone will want to become a vegetarian, and even I occasionally eat fish or chicken. I know eating proteins is essential to staying strong and making sure my immune system is being fortified. But one doesn’t need to eat red meat to include protein in your diet. Meat eaters won’t want to hear about how beef, mutton, and even mbuzi aren’t the best foods for you. So I can only tell those nyama choma lovers that their lives are likely to be longer if they slow down on those foods. But I can eat veggies until they are coming out my ears, I love them so much, and I know how healthy they are. I believe many Kenyan communities had very healthy diets in pre-colonial times. For instance, the Kikuyu love their githeri (maize and beans) and also their mukimu (potatoes boiled and mashed with peas, maize, and greens of all types), both of which are extremely healthy foods. The Luos eat lots of fish which is also extremely good for the protein and all sorts of vitamins and minerals. Every Kenyan community learned what vegetables and fruits were edible and restorative, which herbs to take when they had specific maladies. But Western food habits introduced all sorts of fattening, processed foods as well as sugary drinks and even chewing gum which are so destructive to teeth. In any case, many of those indigenous and ancient food practices have been lost and forgotten, displaced by Western eating practices, some of which are delicious, but some are expensive, and non-restorative to the body. One of the discoveries I have found is that simple spices and delicious flavors can be found in natural foods that are also nutritious. You may already be consuming them, but again, I must advise that the use of too much cooking oil can destroy the progress one might be achieving. I confess, I am an extremist when it comes to eating fats. I don’t, as a rule. I boil and bake and cook with various spices, starting with garlic and ginger, tomato and onion. They go into all my hot meals. There is much more to say. Just get started eating and enjoying healthy foods.

PAN-AFRICAN ARTISTS UNDER 30 ON SHOW AT VILLAGE MARKET

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted April 18,2023)

The internet has become a global art gallery where artists both interact with one another and with the public and prospective clients. Its main channels of exchange and public display are Instagram and What’s App. It’s most effective among the ‘youngsters’, those ingenious generations who have grown up with WIFI and cell phones and Instagram. They are also the ones who find Facebook passe, the space where their parents, and occasionally their grandparents, go because they think they can spy on the youngsters there. They’ve never heard of SnapChat which is one that an eight-year-old introduced me to and where I’m hearing from increasing numbers of artist friends who are mostly under 30.

It was online, mainly on Instagram, that Thadde Tewa met all fifteen of the under-30-artists whose works he curated and is currently exhibiting at Village Market in the large assembly hall on the top floor next to the parking area. The exhibition, ‘Unbound: A Glimpse into the Future of Figurative Art in Kenya’ is actually a Pan-African affair, showcasing artists from Nigeria and Angola as well as Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya. The majority of paintings are by Kenyans. And while he’s met them all face-to-face, they still find the quickest way to communicate is online via What’s App. “I wanted this show to be about the so-called emerging artists, the ones who may be young, but gifted and eager for the exposure I want to give them,” Tewa tells BD Life the day before the show’s official opening.

And while many might want to be showcased in the older, more established galleries like One Off, Circle, Red Hill, and Banana Hill, that time is likely to come if their talent endures and their techniques polished and proven. Actually, there is lots more attention being given to young gifted artists than ever before. There are more ‘Open Call’s’ being sent out from various platforms from all ‘round the world. That includes the galleries referenced above as well as institutions like the Nairobi National Museum, Kenya Museum Society, Mukuru Art Club, Wajukuu Art Centre, Brush tu Art Alliance, Kuona Artists Collective and also the newly-revived Kenya Arts Diary.

All are paying more attention to up-and-coming artists who are gifted but under-exposed and wanting an opportunity to be made more visible. “I’d been following many artists online, and I’ve seen them put their latest works on Instagram to let people know what they are currently doing,” Tewa explains. “Quite a few already have clients who are collecting their art. The collectors are especially interested in seeing what their artist is working on right now,” he adds. What seems clear is that Kenyans are increasingly including themselves in an international online art scene. They might not yet be as notable as the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. But our more established artists are already logging into the pantheon of contemporary African artists.

For now, the young Kenyans in this show are all in their 20s and they’re mostly men, including Coster Ojwang, Eric ‘Stickky’ Muriithi, Kelvin ‘Kevo’ Wambugu, James Kagima, Munene Kariithi, Rasto Blast, Solomon ‘Solosanaa’ Luvai , and Tim Ochola. Among the women in the exhibition, there are two from Kenya, Muthoni Mwangi and Njeri Kagima James, two from Uganda, Babirya Erinah and Victoria Nabulima, and one out of the two from Nigeria, Bridget ‘Bibi’ Van Grieken. The other Nigerian is Oluwatobiloba Fasolejo, the Rwandan Josue Pierre M., and the Angolan is Benigno Mangove.

The show itself is impressive, especially as so many paintings had to be shipped in. And given Tewa’s ‘art gallery’ is also virtual, mobile, and practically a one-man show, one can’t help appreciating his initiative and commitment to African art. There are many gems in this show. For instance, Bridget van Grieken’s ‘Blue Dream’ is haunting in its portrayal of an African blue-black beauty while Victoria Nabulima’s women in ‘The Waiting’ seem to tell a story that their assemblage knows too well, and Rasto Cyprian’s ‘Baptism’ seems to be filled with expectation and hope.

Kelvin Wambugu’s ‘Man, Go Unchained’ could easily be seen as the best expression of the Exhibition’s title, ‘Unbound’. “The horse in the painting doesn’t have a bridle, yet he moves freely with the saddleless [and shirtless] man riding skillfully on his back,” says the painter who looks surprisingly like the horseback rider. There is a lot more to see and discuss about the more than 40 painting in this show. One hopes Tewa will host an ‘Artist Talk’ or two before the exhibition ends.

KITFEST OFFERS CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOPS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted July 17, 2023) There were so much positive vibes that came out of collaboration between the Czech Republic artists, Mirenka Cechova and Pete Bohac and the Kenya International Theatre Festival (KITFEST) Trust. It was best seen when they spent almost a month in Kenya in June. The first big one derived from their agreement to jointly run a ten-day acting workshop for Kenyan artists who were invited over social media to apply to participate in the event which transpired towards the end of that month. The second positive feature of their cooperation was what happened as the culminating moment of the workshop. That was the performance by 15 Kenyan artists, selected on a first come, first served basis (not by favoritism, nepotism, or tribalism). Their performance was stages at Kenya National Theatre with musical accompaniment by the American cellist, Nancy Snider, who travels and works closely with the Czechs. As a rule, she provides backup sound to whatever project the Europeans are working on. An ‘Anthology of Everyday Struggle’ was an amazing achievement of the fifteen Kenyans who hadn’t worked together before. Yet they were transformed into one harmonious ensemble by the time the ten days were up. “We agreed that at the end of the Workshop, we would produce a show to reveal what the actors had learned during the workshop,” Mirenka told BD Life on the first day of the workshop when warm up exercises were about to begin. “I spent the first four days just listening to the artists’ life stories before we scripted the show,” She explained just at the workshop’s end. “In a real sense, everyone had a hand in the creation of the program,” she added. Coming to Kenya with a bio that tells us she is a leading Czech stage director, producer, actor, and playwright, Mirenka was asked to describe her theatre life back home, during a Q & A session held after the performance. What she shared was a sobering moment of revelation. She explained how her country held artists in such high esteem that the Czech Government helped subsidize actors’ education, theatre centres, specific performances, and even offered them health insurance. What was also striking was how organized the theatre scene is in the Czech Republic. That might have to do with the fact that the Republic’s first President was award-winning poet and playwright, Vaclav Havel. One point that Mirenka made elicited an important response from one of Kenya’s leading female actors, Marrianne Nungo. She noted that Mirenka told us she writes her own Grant proposals to raise funds for her forthcoming productions. “I understand KITFEST conducts workshops, so I would like to suggest that they run one on how we artists can learn to write Grant proposals so we can fund our own production and not expect someone else to do it for us,” Marrianne proposed. That put the onus on KITFEST Chairman Ben Ngobia and Workshops Director Dickens Olwayl who kept that possibility open. Meanwhile, the performance itself was a rich blend of mime and mimicry, contemporary dance and acrobatics interspersed with a cascade of complaints about the way artists are neglected, undervalued, underpaid, and often cheated at the end of the day. Yet what Mirenka managed to infuse into the production was a beautiful sense of a unified ensemble. Backed by a rhythmic drum beat and mellow cello accompaniment by Nancy Snider, the entire troupe moved onto the stage like a magnificent wave. They looked like an organic ensemble of fish as they swirled and swarmed around one another as if they were one united body. The beauty of their performance was that they never lost that sense of unity, even when they hemmed and hawed about the injustice of the status quo who didn’t give the artists or the arts the respect and pride of place that they should be due. But their first utterances in the show were their life-long dreams and aspirations. Each one in their turn told of ‘when they were little’, they used to dream. One wanted to be a dancer, another a super-hero, another a super-star, and so on. But then came the disappointments, the negative stereotypes to quash those dreams. Meanwhile, there was always a feeling of defiance as they danced to the dreams they retained. They also mimed parts of their stories and struggles. And they even mimicked a government’s spokesman who promised so much, but ultimately came up with nothing much other than a flash in the pan. In short, their Anthology encapsulated so many aspects of performing artists’ life struggle, from the competition among them to the pittance they get paid to the rejections that can lead to depression and a loss of hope. Yet through it all, the actors were clearly pleased to have this rare opportunity to be mentored by Mirenka, Pete, and Nancy, courtesy of KITFest.

PROFESSIONAL CENTRE SLOWLY REGAINS MOMENTUM AS A THEATRE VENUE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (7.17.23) Top Security Ventures (TSV) are a rag-tag bunch of theatre novices who nonetheless thrilled Nairobi audiences last Saturday. Staging ‘Jesus, While you were Away’ at Professional Centre, they are among several theatre troupes that are attempting to revive the former landmark which once represented theatre excellence, but those days are gone. Quite unceremoniously, the Centre as a leading cultural venue died several years ago due to indefensible mismanagement. But this past weekend, the Centre saw two productions premiere, one of standup comedy entitled 'A ThousandCuts' and featuring Generale aka George Thuku, and produced by Renegade Ventures. The other, by TSV which brought a comedy to the stage that never said a word about Jesus, except as vaguely referenced by the bogus Pastor who paid conmen to pretend his word healed the sick and raised the dead. One has to appreciate the initiative to revive Professional Centre as a site fit for commercial theatre, especially since Nairobi is short on performance venues. Admittedly, the Centre is a shadow of what it once was when the likes of Anabel Maule, John Sibi Okumu, Stephen Mwenesi, Ian Mbugua, Millicent Ogutu, and James Falkland put on productions there. On Saturday, the front stage was shrouded in shreds of semi-transparent curtains that were held together literally with safety pins. The set itself consisted of one table and a kanga used to cover up what was assumed to be a dead body, and what also became the reception desk for a bogus hospital office opened to delude a public that was in need of medical care. Otherwise, there were several paintings strewn haphazardly on and off the stage, presumably as a sort of product placement ploy. Written and directed by Bonnie Lukunza Kisada with assistance from the co-founder of the company, Erick Chuma, the company’ producer Batso Sadikini told BDLife that they are intent on only improving with time. One just hopes their motive isn’t comparable with that of the hustlers in their play, keen to make a fast buck by any means possible, including embarrassing themselves on stage. But even if it is, what’s more important is whether they can spin a good story. And while there were several hiccups in this, their very first performance as the group corelate at several points with many young people’s life experience. As this story unfolds, we meet two guys who had been drugged by ladies they’d picked up the night before and foolishly brought home. Home is a small flat that they owe three months’ back rent on. As such, they are harassed by the caretaker (Kelvin Mwongi) acting on behalf of his boss, the Landlord. We don’t learn much more about the flat since the ladies were like locusts after having laced the rice they’d cooked with a knock-out sleeping pill also known as rice or mchele. When one of the two wakes up, he finds his flat striped of everything apart from the undershirt he is wearing and the pants they let him keep. The rest of the story has little or nothing to do with Jesus, and more to do with young men’s exploring various hustles that might earn them some quick cash. First, they try starting up a fake medical centre which ironically has some success. Then, they hear about a pastor who is paying Sh50,000 to anyone prepared to conjure some disease or disability, and then bear witness to the Pastor’s healing power. The hustlers are keen to present themselves to the Pastor in public covered in disabilities just as long as they are assured of the payment. But when they see that it is not forthcoming, they have to think fast. It’s not complicated since the Pastor just got platters for donations passed around the congregation for his supposed healing ministry. So, Plan B consists of snatching the money bags where donations were placed and dashing quickly out the door. Kaboom, the end. It’s an abrupt ending but one the audience approved of. It’s also one that could have been followed with a humble ‘Q & A’ between the actors and the audience since Batso, the producer told BD Life this was the first ever production by the new group, and they would have benefitted if they’d gotten feedback. For instance, I would tell them there needed to be less shouting and more thoughtful consideration of how they might use the feedback to improve their game.

NGARTIA’S BACK, TELLING MORE KENYAN STORIES

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 15.7. 2023)

It was worth every penny he didn’t ask for. Ngartia is one of those ‘one-of-a-kind’ artists who need no second name to be identified. He is renowned and he’s displayed why he earned that acclaim from the time he first performed with ‘Too Early for Birds’ during the Storymoja Festival back in 2017. Much has changed in the theatre world since then. But one thing hasn’t and that is the theatrical wizardry of Ngartia who gave a mesmerizing one-man performance last Friday night in the upstairs library of Alliance Francaise. Whether it was because the Alliance Francaise didn’t charge the public or the artist a penny for attending Ngartia’s storytelling session, or it was simply that the actor has such a huge following despite having been away from the stage for quite some time, the library was packed to the gills.

Coincidentally, the Goethe Institute which is just next door to the French, also had scheduled a performance at the same time and also in its upstairs library. The only difference between the two was that one was for storytelling while the other was for the play reading of Sitawa Nambalie’s ‘Room of Lost Names’.

BDLife wanted to attend both shows. But since Sitawa’s story was in the paper the same day, and since one can stream the play reading online at Goethe Institute’s Facebook page, we were prepared to watch Ngathia’s performance, especially after he has been silent for far too long. We weren’t disappointed with the choice to watch one of Kenya’s most natural, engaging, and entertaining storytellers, the kind who makes you feel he is speaking to you personally and directly. His first story was a familiar one, the Kikuyu Creation story of Gikuyu and Mumbi and their nine beautiful daughters. It didn’t matter that the vast majority of audience members were well informed about the subject. What mattered was the way Ngartia told the story, how he moved gracefully from side to side of his make-shift ‘stage’, swinging his limbs enthusiastically and sharing heaps of vivid details that gave the theme greater context and depth. Then came the pivot and the crisis that Gikuyu felt. Not that he didn’t love having nine beautiful daughters, but his not having a single son disturbed him immensely. How would the family line (which would have meant the whole of humanity) come into being if there weren’t young men to marry his girls? Then he recalled what Ngai told him to do in the beginning. Ngartia then detailed the procedure, the prayer, and the outcome being nine attractive young men who easily paired up with the girls, and after that, harmony prevailed over Creation. Ngartia gave a spell-binding rendering of that familiar story. But that wasn’t all. He’d written a piece that he wanted to read. It was the story of Them Mushroom, the popular band from the Coast, one of whose members composed the international hit song ‘Hakuna Matata’ but has never gotten credit for it.

Talk about the gullibility of these six musicians. The group had been so thrilled to be recognized by a big music production company that they inadvertently signed away all their rights of ownership and revenue from their one global hit because they didn’t read the small print embedded in the contract they had been handed. Them Mushrooms got hoodwinked not once, not twice, but three times. What’s more, to this day they have never received a pittance from their simple tune that was initially snatched by Germans. But then, even Disney ripped off the Kenyan crew whose ditty, ‘Hakuna Matata’ is the one song most easily remembered from the populist animated classic, ‘The Lion King’. Disney may not even know about Them Mushrooms who actually toured the world singing their signature song. But still, the problem is both chronic and acute. They did well during live shows, but royalties never came their way, nor did recognition for their role in its creation. In fact, Ngartia told the tale of the tourist who asked one of the TM members how to say basic greetings in Swahili. The storyteller’s imitation of the American tourist’s mid-western accent was uncanny as she asked about Swahili words for terms like Hello? Jambo. How are you? Habari Gani. No problem, Hakuna matata!

What we saw on Friday night was that Ngartia still finds his fellow Kenyans fascinating and still seems committed to exploring their stories and chronically them for now and for posterity, performing them in the process.

EVERYBODY’S COMPROMISED IN THIS FUNNY FRENCH FARCE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (COMPOSED jULY 10, 2023) Don’t dress for dinner is a really fun British farce that fits in quite well with our contemporary Kenyan social scene where infidelity seems rife among both men and women. Originally scripted back in 1996 by the French playwright Marc Camoletti, it got translated into English and ran for six years on London’s West End. It was revived in 2012 when it went straight to Broadway. It was even staged by Phoenix Players many years ago. But it wasn’t revived in Nairobi until Washington Obwanda called Ben Tekee to come direct the play which was staged this past weekend at Kenya Cultural Centre. Tekee also had a cameo role in the comedy when he played a boda boda taxi driver who had come to the home of Bernard (George..) and Jacqueline (Mbeki Njoki) looking for his wife. Suzanne aka Suzi (Eileen Anona) is a professional chef who Bernard had called to come cook for him and his girlfriend Suzette (Lynette K..) while his wife was away looking after her ailing mom. But from the moment Jackie picks up her hubby’s phone to receive his call, she knows something fishy is going on. Why is a catering service sending a chef out to their house? From then on, the lies begin to pile up, mainly from Bernard’s end. But also from Jackie’s side since Bernie’s buddy Robert is also her secret lover. So when he shows up, coming at Bernie’s request, Jackie is thrilled. She has already decided to stick around and see what’s happening with Bernie and the chef. Bernie’s a fast talker and an imaginative cheater so intent on spending time with his sexy girlfriend that he corrals his best friend Robert into covering for him with Jackie so she won’t figure out that his plan was to spend the weekend alone with his side-chick. Unfortunately, when Bernie informs Robert that his role for the weekend is to be the lover of his girlfriend Suzi, so Jackie won’t suspect anything, Robert adamantly resists the plan. But he also sees that if he refuses Bernie’s plan, his friend’s marriage will probably fall apart. But if he goes along with his buddy’s game, he’ll disillusion is own girlfriend, Suzi. So Robert is stranded and Jackie is shocked and disheartened by what she understands to be Robert’s betrayal. But the levity of this silly story arrives in the form of the cook, Suzi. She is hardly the alluring model type that Bernie has described. But when Bernie asks Robert to wait at the house for his sweetheart to arrive, he never described what she looked like. Nor does he note that another woman is coming, that is chef from the catering agency. So we’ll have a case of mistaken identity wherein the cook arrives first, only to be mistaken by Robert to be the woman that Bernie currently adores. Here is where the fun takes off since this Suzi quickly sees that she holds the winning cards in a set of games she didn’t come to play. She came to cook, but since she’s basically being asked to cover for a cheating spouse, she sees there are no barred. And she is not shy about squeezing every penny that she can out of both men. Robert obediently claims this frumpy-looking mama as his girl, which Jackie finds devastating but also quite strange. Her disillusionment doesn’t last long, however, since there are more complications to come once the real side-chick arrives, only to be told that she now has to play the cook while the real cook is busy boozing and being Robert’s girlfriend. Simultaneous to her arrival, Jackie discloses that she has found receipts for a very costly coat fitting the description of the one that the ‘cook’ has just walked in the door wearing. Now she’s got more of a complete picture of what’s going on. But rather than shout and demand a divorce from her cheating spouse, she simply stands back and watches what comes next. That is the arrival of the taxi driver who has come to collect his wife. By this time, Suzi the real cook has acquired a bundle of money from both Robert and Bernard. But now her departure is going to explode Bernie’s game. But that apparently is not a problem anymore. Both Bernie and Jackie are cheaters, so neither one has grounds for accusation or blame. So we are left with a sort of moral ambiguity as the story ends there, whether you like it or not.

PAWA 254 TAKES PHOENIX STAGE WITH POETRY AND SONG

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted July 10, 2023) PAWA 254 went silent after Boniface Mwangi chose to run for a seat in Parliament. Fortunately, it has been revived by his wife Njeri who has been running master classes in the arts since early this year. The most fruitful one thus far was run for young women poets and led by the award-winning poet, playwright, and actor Sitawa Namwalie. Among the fruits of it are a book of poetry, entitled ‘Give the Woman her Flowers’. The book was thereafter transported to the stage this past Saturday night at the Professional Centre. There is sweet irony in the fact that the same stage was once owned by Phoenix Players. The phoenix, of course, is a bird known in Greek mythology for being regenerative and capable of rising from the ashes of its predecessor. We who used to watch plays at the Phoenix were saddened when the stage shut down due to gross mismanagement. But theatre groups, particularly the one formed by Njeri and Sitawa are revitalizing that stage with poetry and stories of eight young women poets, four of whom performed on Saturday, accompanied by instrumentalist Muthama Kioko (aka Stingothao) whose bongos and guitar picked up the poets’ powerful vibe as if he’d been with them from the start. In fact, he’d only got to know them a few hours before.

The vibrant message of the four women, Ann Mumbua (aka Mombuh), Just Wairimu, Sylvia Mongina Onyonka (Singvia) and Freshiah Wanjiru (aka RJ), was stirring and strong. Their poetry revealed their awareness of the way their mothers and grandmothers had been socialized to be seen and not heard, and to be satisfied with the status quo in which men ‘ruled the world’. That painful awareness came out so clearly in Wanjiku Gicheru’s bitter-sweet poem, ‘Mother Wound’ about a mother disappointed that her daughter couldn’t fit into the traditional mold of women’s second class status. Fortunately, this generation of women have heard the clarion call of Beyonce, that “Women rule the world” not men. They seem ready to make that be not simply a slogan or a lyric from a popular song, but a reality that they intend to make come true for their own and for future generations. Singing, writing, and speaking both in Swahili and Sheng as well as in English, the four couildn’t escape telling stories of their vulnerability and heart-break at the hands of ex-partners. You could hear that in poems like Just Wairimu’s ‘Did you feel it too?’ and Spontaneous’ (aka Rachel Stephanie Akinyi)’s ‘He broke my heart. Ati! Akwende Kabisa!’

But then their poetry snapped out of that phase of ‘romantic love’ lost with a poem like Freshiah Wanjiru’s echo of a Bob Marley tune, ‘Everything is going to be alright’. But then again in their book, you will find Sylvia Mongina announcing ‘It’s not going to be alright’, but actually, after all the trials that women will go through, they will see that “it will be alright in the end.” There were poems announcing a woman’s confusion, with words like ‘She just don’t know which side She is supposed to hold onto… She is like a lost child in the desert Calling out for help… But there is no one around to help’, Again by Freshiah (aka RJ

But then we find a ring of self-confidence and assurance in a poem like Sylvia’s sassy lines entitled ‘Look at me’. She writes: ‘I have everything you want to see I have all that you seek Just look at me And you will see.’ Then again, a poem lieke ‘This Ain’t Love’ reveals women’s susceptibility to a charming, smooth-talking man, even when they seem to have a more militant attitude against the ‘old’ way of being a conventional woman. That’s one message that one finds in RJ’s poem. But the difference is that her friends rouse her by telling her, ‘Open your eyes and see That this ain’t love, this ain’t real So stop living in a fantasy.’

Ultimately, the messages that had the most ground-breaking impact were ‘How to be an African Queen’ by Wangui Kimani, which echoed the same ring of entitlement that one finds in both the title of their performance and the name of their book, namely ‘Give the Woman her Flowers’. In other words, women are not just coming into their own space, demanding it as their rightful and natural entitlement. They have already claimed that space and that’s the real tsunami that the world is feeling right now.

TWO UGANDAN ARTISTS IMMORTALIZED AT Red Hill Gallery

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written posted July 10, 2023)

Geoffrey Mukasa passed on in 2009 while Professor Pinkerton Ssengendo left us in 2015. Yet as Ugandan artists of tremendous skill, initiative, and wide-reaching imagination, neither will be easily forgotten or surpassed. That will be evident to anyone able to reach Red Hill Gallery where they will see an immortalizing exhibition of these two brilliant men, both of whose art has been carefully collected and curated by Hellmuth Rossler-Musch.

With his wife Erica, their Red Hill show is exceptional for several reasons. One is that none of the illustrious artworks on display can be bought. A big bad ‘NFS’ stands beside every one of them. That’s because while all have a fascinating story and style, all belong to the owners of the gallery whose vast collection of contemporary East African art cannot be contained at once inside the gallery “I was casually collecting art back in Germany, having no idea that I would find such a vibrant art scene once I came to work in East Africa, particularly in Kenya,” Hellmuth told BD Life.

A FAMILY ON FIRE IN ‘DEPUTY PARENT’

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 7.6.23) Deputy Parent, the play scripted, produced, and directed by Martin Odongo and Hall of Fame Entertainment, posed a complicated psychological problem to the first born of an apparently happy family last weekend at Kenya Cultural Centre. The parents, Terry (Loveness Njeri) and Tosh (Peter Oroto) seemed not to detect that they lived in a deeply troubled household. They carried on as if all was well with their three kids despite the blood-cuddling rivalry between the two sisters who were twins. Their conflict and apparent hatred were so deep that they even quibbled about one being a hair’s breath older than the other. It made her somehow superior to her little sister, and thus, it became one of the bases by which they felt divided and hostile towards one another. The two sisters (Shila Nkonge and Shanice Mugambi) had an even more complicated relationship because they were both after the same guy (Joseph Mukunga). What was worse was that they pretended not to know the other was also dating the man. Meanwhile, he had a little trouble being in ‘love’ with both young women. The love triangle was made all the more complex by the fact that the girls’ older brother (Blaise Rukungu), the first born and only son was a therapist, Dr. Smith, whose client was the boyfriend of his sisters. Initially, he wasn’t aware of this complication, else he might have recused himself from taking on the guy’s case. But he didn’t know at first, and thus he took a deep psychological interest in helping the guy figure out what to do with his feelings. His first priority became his patient-doctor’s privilege of confidentiality. That rule of his profession became a major obstacle once he realized who he was dealing with. His sisters didn’t know his identity, nor did they seem to care about their boyfriend’s fitness for falling in love with one or more young women. They each wanted him naturally to themselves and were ready to do battle over their claim to their man’s head and heart. It's all deep drama or should we say melodrama, since that’s what came out at the Sunday production that BDLife attended. The girls were equally icky and mean, but they concealed that aspect of their character from the guy. Their parents were oblivious as well. They were just so pleased with the happy home that they believed quite blindly that all was well when it was not. The main way that the parents maintained their deluded sense was by offloading any family problems onto their first-born son, thus the title of the play, ‘Deputy Parent’. Unfortunately, Dr Smith’s job was already stressful, seeing as a therapist’s first task is to take in all the stress and trauma of his clients. Apparently, he had been successful in the past by retaining a dispassionate distance from his problematic clients. But once he realized his client was double-dealing his own sisters whom he believed he could not warn, he felt deeply conflicted. He also had a rough time knowing what to tell his client since any way he went in his advice could be construed as biased in favor of one or the other. My problem with Deputy Parent is singular. I couldn’t believe it when our Shrink decided he was defeated, and chose to swallow poison he just happened to have handy in his pocket. That was a major cop-out in my book. Sorry, but I feel deeply about individuals taking their own lives, be they on stage or in real life. I am against it, and disagree with writers believing they are offering insight into mental health when they include that avenue of despair. There are other ways of coping which begin by letting go of one’s ego. Personally, I would have advised yoga meditation or prayer or whatever way one could reach out and find someone to share your anguish with. If we go back to the play, I would have preferred the deputy parent go back to Terry and Tosh, and offload the realities of their family scene onto them. The fact that option wasn’t even addressed was unfortunate. The parents should have been kicked out of their bogus ‘bliss’ and back into the real world where their family was on fire. Then there might have been major lessons to learn about families taking care of one another and recognizing the home as the number one institution educating individuals for life.

AVNI CHRONICLES KENYAN LIFE IN HER ART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 7.3..23) Avni Shah gave herself a serious challenge at the dawn of the COVID pandemic in early 2020. As if she knew it was going to be a long haul, she decided, rather than lapse into boredom, depression or despair, she would lift up her light on the easel and canvas, and get down to work creating 100 paintings to be completed by the end of the pandemic. “I knew I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t consistent and constant in my efforts,” Avni told BDLife on the opening night of her solo exhibition at Village Market entitled ’Beyond the Canvas’. One could easily see, upon entry into her show last Friday night that she had achieved her goal. But she said she stood corrected after a friend found two more of her paintings, making the complete count 102. Curating her exhibition with assistance from her fellow artist, Evans Ngure, Avni grouped her paintings according to their content. Several abstract pieces got strewn among almost every topic. Yet she covered so many aspects of Kenya during those three years that her abstract art gets lost amidst the realistic and impressionistic works that she carefully chronicled. In fact, she covered everything from flowers, the Big Five, and birds of all types to architecture, boats, and Maasai. She also painted wildebeest in migration and old dhows at the Coast. Speaking to her husband Mayur who seemed just as energized and enthusiastic about her art as his wife, he told BDLife his family loved accompanying her around the country. “I wasn’t surprised to see so many paintings of historic places in her show. We were there with her as she sketched and photographed places like the Old Town in Mombasa and flamingos in Elementaita,” he said. Avni’s good friend, Maguri Dodhia also shared her thoughts of the exhibition. “Avni’s art makes me feel as if I’m on safari with her. She puts the spirit of the place into her paintings,” she said. It is true that landscapes and iconic places are important features in her art. Some in watercolor as in her ‘Mombasa Old Town Shoreline’; others are in oil on canvas as in her view of Mount Kenya. But the majority of her works are in acrylics on canvas. Like many artists, she said she likes acrylics because they dry much more quickly than oils. Avni didn’t start challenging herself to be a fine artist the other day. She initially was inspired to study with the British artist Keith Harrington who gave her the basic skills to set her off on a journey that took her first to study fine art at the JJ School of Art in Mumbai. It’s from there that she received a diploma in Art Education, enabling her to teach all ages in art, from five-year-olds all the way up to students in secondary school and beyond. But today, she is a full-time artist who’s in love with her color palette as works like ‘Mathioya Express’, ‘Street Maize Roasters’, and ‘The Plunge’ of wildebeests during the migration all attest. In fact, many of her works have a luminosity of light that reflects a rainbow prism-like effect. That effect is in part resultant from the many layers of paint that she lays down as she strives to achieve both a deepened texture as well as coloration to her art. One area of her painting that filled several panels of her show was dedicated to what she calls ‘contemporary art’. It’s in the arena of transportation, the means by which most Kenyans get around town and countryside. Those means include everything from the country bus and big bus matatu to boda boda motorcycles, and ordinary bicycles. There are also plenty of walkers, as for instance, the women on the way to market loaded with babies on their backs and baskets either on their heads or draped over their heads and backs. Avni is clearly a keen observer of everyday Kenyan life which her art reflects not only from a realistic point of view, but impressionistically and in abstract terms as well. Her paintings have been shown all over Europe and exhibited in Kenya consistently. It was her guest of honor, the financial analyst, economics columnist, and fellow artist Ritesh Barot who fondly observed the way she “paints with a ferocity which comes with years of experimenting with colors and canvas.” He also described her as “a highly competent, incredibly skilled artist,” a description to which I also concur. Avni’s exhibition runs until July 10th at Village Market.

PROFESSIONAL CENTRE GRADUALY REGAINS MOMENTUM AS A THEATRE VENUE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (7.1.23) Top Security Ventures (TSV) are a rag-tag bunch of theatre novices who nonetheless thrilled Nairobi audiences last Saturday. Staging ‘Jesus, While you were Away’ at Professional Centre, they are among several theatre troupes that are attempting to revive the former landmark which once represented theatre excellence, but those days are gone. Quite unceremoniously, the Centre as a leading cultural venue died several years ago due to indefensible mismanagement. But this past weekend, the Centre saw two productions premiere, one of standup comedy featuring Generale aka George Thuku, and produced by Renegade Ventures. The other, by TSV which brought a comedy to the stage that never said a word about Jesus, except as vaguely referenced by the bogus Pastor who paid conmen to pretend his word healed the sick and raised the dead. One has to appreciate the initiative to revive Professional Centre as a site fit for commercial theatre, especially since Nairobi is short on performance venues. Admittedly, the Centre is a shadow of what it once was when the likes of Anabel Maule, John Sibi Okumu, Stephen Mwenesi, Ian Mbugua, Millicent Ogutu, and James Falkland put on productions there. On Saturday, the front stage was shrouded in shreds of semi-transparent curtains that were held together literally with safety pins. The set itself consisted of one table and a kanga used to cover up what was assumed to be a dead body, and what also became the reception desk for a bogus hospital office opened to delude a public that was in need of medical care. Otherwise, there were several paintings strewn haphazardly on and off the stage, presumably as a sort of product placement ploy. Written and directed by Bonnie Lukunza Kisada with assistance from the co-founder of the company, Erick Chuma, the company’ producer Batso Sadikini told BDLife that they are intent on only improving with time. One just hopes their motive isn’t comparable with that of the hustlers in their play, keen to make a fast buck by any means possible, including embarrassing themselves on stage. But even if it is, what’s more important is whether they can spin a good story. And while there were several hiccups in this, their very first performance as the group corelate at several points with many young people’s life experience. As this story unfolds, we meet two guys who had been drugged by ladies they’d picked up the night before and foolishly brought home. Home is a small flat that they owe three months’ back rent on. As such, they are harassed by the caretaker (Kelvin Mwongi) acting on behalf of his boss, the Landlord. We don’t learn much more about the flat since the ladies were like locusts after having laced the rice they’d cooked with a knock-out sleeping pill also known as rice or mchele. When one of the two wakes up, he finds his flat striped of everything apart from the undershirt he is wearing and the pants they let him keep. The rest of the story has little or nothing to do with Jesus, and more to do with young men’s exploring various hustles that might earn them some quick cash. First, they try starting up a fake medical centre which ironically has some success. Then, they hear about a pastor who is paying Sh50,000 to anyone prepared to conjure some disease or disability, and then bear witness to the Pastor’s healing power. The hustlers are keen to present themselves to the Pastor in public covered in disabilities just as long as they are assured of the payment. But when they see that it is not forthcoming, they have to think fast. It’s not complicated since the Pastor just got platters for donations passed around the congregation for his supposed healing ministry. So, Plan B consists of snatching the money bags where donations were placed and dashing quickly out the door. Kaboom, the end. It’s an abrupt ending but one the audience approved of. It’s also one that could have been followed with a humble ‘Q & A’ between the actors and the audience since Batso, the producer told BD Life this was the first ever production by the new group, and they would have benefitted if they’d gotten feedback. For instance, I would tell them there needed to be less shouting and more thoughtful consideration of how they might use the feedback to improve their game.

SLEEPING BEAUTY THE BALLET A TRIUMPH IN CLASSICAL STYLE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 7.2.23) What a contrast between Sleeping Beauty the ballet performed the first weekend in July by the Academy of Dance and Art and Sleeping Beauty: the Ugly Truth staged mid-last month at Brookhouse School. Both were largely performed by children except that in the ballet, the adult roles were actually performed by adults. For example, in the ballet, the roles of King Florestan, Queen Leah, Prince Desire, and even Princess Aurora were all performed by ‘grown ups’, meaning Brian Mulari, Sally Shaw, Anderson Omondi, and Juliet Duckworth were all well-suited for their roles. That was in clear cut contrast to ‘The Ugly Truth’ which enabled children to acquaint themselves with this classic fairy tale while making light of the story, and having fun with the original tale which got transformed into a spoof and a satire. But if you were looking for an enchanting production, filled with beauty, grace, elegance, and a whole story told in the language of dance, then the ballet staged last Sunday at Kenya National Theatre was for you. Both shows were engaging and entertaining. Both were fantasies filled with fairies, both kind and cruel. In the ballet, (where the interest was more on ceremony than spoof) the fairies were far more central to the magical realm of otherworldly elegance, grandeur, and glittering beauty. They played a strategic role, first as emissaries bringing gifts to the new-born princess, then becoming the object of the wicked fairy’s envy and the incentive eliciting her cruel revenge on the innocent child Princess Aurora, the younger version of whom was played by Jodi Andrade. The fairies also played a glorious role after the formal pre-wedding dance known as a ‘polonaise’. In fact, there are so many types of fairies, one could hardly keep track of them all. First, you had the Crystal Fountain Fairy, then the Enchanted Garden Fairy, the Woodland Glade Fairy, Songbird Fairy, Golden Bird Fairy, and finally, the most powerful good fairy, the Lilac Fairy (Rachel Kinyanjui). The wicked fairy was simply known as Carabosse (Knight Ochieng who was double cast with Charles Wiglly) and she has an entourage of ‘Dark Companions’ who were her bad fairies. Then you had a huge bunch of Fairies of Vision. Seeing that the Academy is a school of dance, it’s no wonder that their Sleeping Beauty needed to cater for all the children in the school. That meant giving even the three-year-olds their moment to dance on the National Theatre stage. According to Juliet Duckworth, (who in addition to playing Princess Aurora, is also one of the Executive Producers of the show with her mother Pernille who founded the Academy in 2009), there were at minimum 120 dance students in the cast. That goes some distance to explain why there were also so many delightful dancing children who were either Silver, Sapphire, Diamond, Gold or just Jewels or Fireflies. There were also many cute Cat children. There were not quite as many Blue Birds. But what they had was a handsome protector in the stately form of Blue Bird, Arnold Osane Onyango whose grace was matched with the Princess Florine (who was double cast as Annalise Wolf and Vanessa Kibot). One can’t name all the young ones who took part in this delightful performance, but one has to acknowledge this Olympian feat directed by Arnie Umayam, assisted by Rachel Kinyanjui, and Nadine Riehl. But one can take note of the costuming which was color coded so that every set of fairies was one color, be it a royal or baby blue, sunshine yellow, red, white or deep black. And all the costumes, be they the Queen’s velvet cape or the fairies’ crinoline skirts and the principal dancers’ tutus, all looked fabulous thanks to Josephine Kaiyu, Veronica Kitake, and Juliet who also worked with her mom Fernille as part of the Backstage crew. The set designs were also well done, hand-painted I was told by Arnold Osamu and it was impressive to see backdrops being lifted and dropped in a timely style, without a hiccup that was obvious Finally, one has to thank Arnie Umayam who worked closely with Rachel Kinyanjui, Nadine Riehl and Saidi Mwinyi to choreograph the whole show. In this age of youtube, they could have adapted quite a bit of what can be found on the internet. But the focus on both grace and athleticism meant that beauty was with nearly all the dancers in this lovely ballet.

KITFEST OFFERS CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOPS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru There were so much positive vibes that came out of collaboration between the Czech Republic artists, Mirenka Cechova and Pete Bohac and the Kenya International Theatre Festival (KITFEST) Trust. It was best seen when they spent almost a month in Kenya in June. The first big one derived from their agreement to jointly run a ten-day acting workshop for Kenyan artists who were invited over social media to apply to participate in the event which transpired towards the end of that month. The second positive feature of their cooperation was what happened as the culminating moment of the workshop. That was the performance by 15 Kenyan artists, selected on a first come, first served basis (not by favoritism, nepotism, or tribalism). Their performance was stages at Kenya National Theatre with musical accompaniment by the American cellist, Nancy Snider, who travels and works closely with the Czechs. As a rule, she provides backup sound to whatever project the Europeans are working on. An ‘Anthology of Everyday Struggle’ was an amazing achievement of the fifteen Kenyans who hadn’t worked together before. Yet they were transformed into one harmonious ensemble by the time the ten days were up. “We agreed that at the end of the Workshop, we would produce a show to reveal what the actors had learned during the workshop,” Mirenka told BD Life on the first day of the workshop when warm up exercises were about to begin. “I spent the first four days just listening to the artists’ life stories before we scripted the show,” She explained just at the workshop’s end. “In a real sense, everyone had a hand in the creation of the program,” she added. Coming to Kenya with a bio that tells us she is a leading Czech stage director, producer, actor, and playwright, Mirenka was asked to describe her theatre life back home, during a Q & A session held after the performance. What she shared was a sobering moment of revelation. She explained how her country held artists in such high esteem that the Czech Government helped subsidize actors’ education, theatre centres, specific performances, and even offered them health insurance. What was also striking was how organized the theatre scene is in the Czech Republic. That might have to do with the fact that the Republic’s first President was award-winning poet and playwright, Vaclav Havel. One point that Mirenka made elicited an important response from one of Kenya’s leading female actors, Marrianne Nungo. She noted that Mirenka told us she writes her own Grant proposals to raise funds for her forthcoming productions. “I understand KITFEST conducts workshops, so I would like to suggest that they run one on how we artists can learn to write Grant proposals so we can fund our own production and not expect someone else to do it for us,” Marrianne proposed. That put the onus on KITFEST Chairman Ben Ngobia and Workshops Director Dickens Olwayl who kept that possibility open. Meanwhile, the performance itself was a rich blend of mime and mimicry, contemporary dance and acrobatics interspersed with a cascade of complaints about the way artists are neglected, undervalued, underpaid, and often cheated at the end of the day. Yet what Mirenka managed to infuse into the production was a beautiful sense of a unified ensemble. Backed by a rhythmic drum beat and mellow cello accompaniment by Nancy Snider, the entire troupe moved onto the stage like a magnificent wave. They looked like an organic ensemble of fish as they swirled and swarmed around one another as if they were one united body. The beauty of their performance was that they never lost that sense of unity, even when they hemmed and hawed about the injustice of the status quo who didn’t give the artists or the arts the respect and pride of place that they should be due. But their first utterances in the show were their life-long dreams and aspirations. Each one in their turn told of ‘when they were little’, they used to dream. One wanted to be a dancer, another a super-hero, another a super-star, and so on. But then came the disappointments, the negative stereotypes to quash those dreams. Meanwhile, there was always a feeling of defiance as they danced to the dreams they retained. They also mimed parts of their stories and struggles. And they even mimicked a government’s spokesman who promised so much, but ultimately came up with nothing much other than a flash in the pan. In short, their Anthology encapsulated so many aspects of performing artists’ life struggle, from the competition among them to the pittance they get paid to the rejections that can lead to depression and a loss of hope. Yet through it all, the actors were clearly pleased to have this rare opportunity to be mentored by Mirenka, Pete, and Nancy, courtesy of KITFest.