NEW ARTS ACADEMY THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN KENYA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 17 September 2021)

 Nimo Mathenge left Kenya more than two decades ago with big dreams and high hopes, many of which she managed to fulfill over those next twenty years.

And in the last two years since she’s been back, Nimo has confirmed she’s no less ambitious about her latest set of dreams becoming realities here at home. That includes starting a school specifically dedicated to training Kenyan youth in the arts.

“I’ve always been interested in education and the arts,” says the Moi Nairobi Girls graduate and Daystar University alumni who now runs ZanArtts academy of the arts.

   

                                                                                                                                                                Nimo Mathenge, founder of ZanArtts academy of arts                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  And even when she took off for the filmmakers’ mecca, Hollywood, where she ended up co-producing documentaries, film shorts, and full-length features for everyone from Disney studios to Oprah’s station OWN, Nimo still stayed grounded in education. “I’d find time to teach kids from low-income areas of LA about creativity,” she tells Weekender.

Even when she got a job teaching film at the acclaimed Orange Country School of the Arts, Nimo still taught slum kids whenever she could.

“It’s so important that children learn to appreciate the arts,” says Nimo who felt she had a ‘divine calling’ to start the school, even though she knew it’d be an uphill battle among most Kenyan parents who still believe their children’s best interests are served if they study business and accounts or law or medicine; rather than dance, voice or acting or the visual arts.

                     Quentin Earl Darrlington with his students during finale of Broadway Nairobi

Yet parental biases haven’t deterred Nimo. Instead, she takes the Orange County school as a worthy case in point for figuring out Arts Education could work in Kenya. She also went and got a master’s degree in teaching at Harvard as further evidence she is ready to sustain the school.

“Parents need not think ZannArts neglects the academic aspects of children’s education,” she adds, noting that all the school’s morning classes are devoted to either math, science, language, history, geography, or CRE. “Then our afternoons are dedicated to arts subjects,” says Nimo who works closely with both home schooling experts and leaders at the Steiner School where creativity is a critical component of the school’s curriculum.

In any case, ZannArts’ first semester of classes which ran from January to June 2021 went well, she says. But what was also exciting is that Nimo ran a series of shorter summer classes, several of which were led by the group, Broadway Dreams from New York.

Founded by Annette Tanner, who’s got similar interests to Nimo’s in education and the arts, Tanner brought two tremendously talented Broadway stars to teach young Kenyans. Quinten Earl Darrington and Noah Ricketts only taught at ZannArts for two weeks. But that was enough to make their performances late last month at Movenpick Hotel a monumental success.

Together, Noah and ‘Q’ worked closely mainly with youth groups coming from Kibera. ‘They worked with S’Cools Sounds, a young people’s band run by Jacob Saya, the dance company, Cheza Cheza, and several youth groups that work closely with another American group, Crossing Thresholds.

At the centre of the whole program is ZannArts and Nimo Mathenge who also got serious backup sounds from Levy Wataka and his National Youth Orchestra.

Yet it wasn’t Nimo who had the highest praise for the young talents who performed recently at Movenpick Hotel. It was Annette Tanner who, during the closing of ZannArts finale showcase who gave the most credible justification for why every parent with an artistically inclined child ought to attend ZannArts Academy of the Arts.

“We travel all over the world and meet young people committed to the arts. But I’m not sure we’ve ever seen children with so much enthusiasm, energy, talent, and willingness to try out new things,” she said.

In fact, there was little doubt that Kenyan youth loved working with Noah and Q as well as their fellow Kenyan musicians, acrobats, dancers, and actors. By program’s end the two Broadway stars had sung (and taught) everything from Michael Jackson’s Man in the Middle, and The Lion King’s Circle of Life, to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed, and Delivered’ and Eric Wainaina’s ‘Diama’. And as they sang, they looked like ‘The Pied Pipper of Hamelin’ followed by scores of school children who would clearly love to attend a school like ZannArts if that was a possibility.

 

CORNUCOPIA OF CREATIVITY THIS SEPTEMBER

            CORNUCOPIA OF CREATIVE EXPRESSION ACROSS NAIROBI

                               Dennis Muraguri's Matatu at Kesho Kutwa at Nairobi National Museum                       

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published September 17,2021)

September has got my head spinning as there is so much going on.

One could chalk it up to COVID protocols which all the art centres take seriously. But the surge of showcasing art is not just filling the galleries and museums. It’s also occupying bookshops, country clubs, foreign cultural centres and new boutique cafes.

The abundance of Kenyan artistic expression has even registered internationally. It’s elicited comments recently from BBC, Financial Times; and just last week, Kenyan artists were featured on German Television.

                                                       Gakunju Kaigwa's wood root mirror frame at Noir Gallery

The reason Nairobi especially is getting noticed is because of what’s happening right here and now. Part of it could be that the Kenya Government has finally aligned itself with artists committed to building a National Art Gallery.

To advance that effort the Nairobi Museums and Ministry of Culture launched an exhibition last Friday night entitled ‘Kesho Kutua’ and featuring five of Kenya’s most globally acclaimed artists. They include Peterson Kamwathi, Beatrice Wanjiku, Michael Wafula, Dennis Muraguri, and Peter Ngugi.

                                  Peterson Kamwathi's precarious positions at Kesho Kutwa

It’s a lovely exhibition, but it overlaps with two other shows that are underway. One is in NNM’S Creativity Gallery where John Kariuki and Jimmy Githeka both explore aspects of Nairobi life, only together theirs has a chiaroscuro effect, with Kariuki’s art filled with bright blue equatorial light while Githeka paints beneath the shadows of night. Then next door, the Uber Hall features both ‘Kesho Kutua’ at one end and the Ministry’s other-supported showcase of works. It includes newcomers, elders like Zarina Patel and Kibacha Gatu, and mid-lifers like Etale Sukuru and Ndekere Mwaura, the KU art lecturer who helped coordinate the whole symposium and show. So here is more proof that Kenya needs a National Art Gallery, just as former Vice President, Joseph Murumbi had insisted back in 1966.

                                 Beatrice Wanjiku's art at Red Hill Gallery, also in Kesho Kutwa and at One Off Gallery

Further evidence of the vitality of Nairobi’s visual art scene is that all the galleries are filled with exciting exhibitions. It starts with Banana Hill Gallery where a new exhibition opens tomorrow featuring KU lecturer Anne Mwiti, Kenyan-Jamaican Mazola wa Mwashighadi, and Nigerian painter Adesina Ademola. Then, at One Off, both of their major galleries are filled with new works by either Beatrice Wanjiku or Anthony Okello.

And at Circle Art, another brand-new solo exhibition opened night before last. It’s entitled ‘Magic of Forgotten Places’ and features works by the young Sudanese artist, Miska Mohmmed whose paintings will be at Circle Art through 28^th September.

Meanwhile, at Red Hill Gallery, Hellmuth Musch-Rossler is pulling out all the stops to showcase some of the best of his vast collection of original works by mainly leading contemporary Kenyan artists. They include artists like Shabu Mwangi, Paul Onditi, Peterson Kamwathi, Beatrice Wanjiku and Michael Musyoka among others.

                                                      Bushkimani Moira at Alliance Francaise

Then there are artists like Evans Ngure, Nikita Fazel, Milena Weichelt, and Usha Harish who chose to make the new Bookworm Library (which already blends books with a ‘Pot Pourri’ of  Eastern fashions) their art venue of choice. It’s at the Gigiri Craft Centre just next to the UN. Artists are there with imaginative sculptures, paintings, and photography.

And there’s a new boutique café and gallery called Noir (off Waiyaki Way) exhibiting an array of Kenyan artists, most especially Gakunju Kaigwa whose sculptures often combine beauty and functionality.

What’s fascinating is that even country clubs like the one in Karen have become venues where Kenyans are the main buyers of local artists’ works. That includes works by artists like Kamau Kariuki, Coster Ojwang, Simon Muriithi and many others all curated by Tom Siambey.

Finally, it was at Alliance Francaise that I found new works by all but two of the members the Brush tu Artists Collective. Sadly we missed one of the three ounder members, David Thuku who started off with Maina Boniface and Michael Musyoka. But both Thuku and the other absentee member, Elias Mung’ora are alive and working elsewhere. (Mung’ora just had a show in New York with Montague Contemporary.) Meanwhile, Boni and Musyoka (the other Brush tu cofounders) are two of Kenya’s most dynamic, imaginative, thoughtful, and expressive visual artists working actively right now. But they are not alone. If truth be told, Brush tu has attracted some of the most creatively curious young artists around. They include Abdul Kiprop, Peteros Ndunde, Lincoln Mwangi, Sebawali Sio, Bushkimani Moira, and Emmaus Kimani.

                                John Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery,Nairobi National Museum

In all, you can see Kenyan artists are seriously on the move, both locally and globally.

CAMILLE INVITES TOP ARTISTS TO TEACH RURAL YOUTH ART

CAMILLE BRINGS TOP ARTISTS TO LEWA TO TEACH RURAL YOUTH

                                                      Camille's mural at Lewa Conservancy 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 10 September)

Since moving up to Nanyuki seven years ago, Camille Wekesa rarely comes to Nairobi. But one of Kenya’s leading landscape artists had news she needed to share that has been simmering up at the Lewa Conservancy for many months.

Camille is best known for being a fabulous muralist although the walls that she has transformed into exquisite works of art are mainly housed upcountry.

Six rooms, inclusive of walls, ceilings and floors are up at the Ol Jogi Wildlife Conservancy. These gems of Camille’s creativity are museum-quality work and deserve to be on display for the world to see.

Her more recent murals are up at the Lewa Conservancy where Camille has been running a series of weekend art workshops with teens from the territory and a consistent flow of leading Kenyan artists teaching the youth everything from the basics of painting and woodcut printing to photography and ceramics created out of local clays.

“The children come from two of the twenty schools that Lewa has built as gestures of good will towards the community,” says Camille who initially proposed the idea of conducting art education classes to the Lewa board who endorsed her idea readily.

                                                  Camille's other mural at Lewa Conservancy

“The conservancies have realized that the best way to work with local communities is by assisting them in solving their problems,” says Camille, who adds the schools Lewa constructed were in remote areas of the Valley where no secondary schools existed before.

“The Lewa Art Education program have 30 teens from Lokusero Secondary and 35 from Ntugi Secondary,” she adds. Admitting that she isn’t one of the art teachers herself, Camille prefers to coordinate the program since she has several projects of her own underway.

“Since the art education program began, we have invited two professional Kenyan artists to come at a time,” she explains. “I send a taxi to their homes so they arrive by midday on a Friday. Then they work with the youth a half-day, then a full day Saturday, and finally, another half-day on Sunday, before the taxi takes them home by early evening,” she adds.

Thus far, Camille has invited a rich variety of local artists who she stresses get a stipend for their artistic labor. “We don’t believe that artists are always meant to be donating their skills,” she says. Nor does she go along with the notion that artists are always meant to be poor.

Art education is something that Camille believes in strongly, and hopes that programs like hers will stimulate greater interest in the Government to revive an ‘examinable’ arts program in the national curriculum soon.

“I’m told that arts education has been partially restored to the school syllabus, but it is not examinable,” she says, recalling how fortunate she was to attend Kenyan schools that had arts programs. They prepared her well to go to Italian art colleges, first in Florence, then in Rome and Milan. “It was six years in total,” she says.

Among the artists who have given hands-on art classes at Lewa are a long list of local luminaries: Patrick Mukabi, Peterson Kamwathi, Kevin Oduor, Beatrice Wanjiku, MaryAnn Muthoni, Justus Kyalo, Tonney Mugo, Beatrice Wanjiku, King Dodge, Allan Githuka, Fitsum Behre and his wife Nicole, John Silver, Syowia Kyambi and her colleague Kibe, among others.

Meanwhile, Camille has a range of other projects she’s pursuing at her home outside Nanyuki. One is a new Primate Protection Program that she and her neighbors just started. “We have been re-planting trees so extensively that the wildlife has returned to the area. Thus, we wanted to find ways to work with people like the National Museums of Kenya to protect our revitalized habitat,” she says, having just come from a meeting with a NMK primate specialist before she met with BDLife.

The other project that Camille is involved with is painting a series of eight iconic landscapes in Kenya that are World Heritage sites. Her plan is to house each set of eight murals in a separate cottage as a form of documentation and possibly viewer attraction.

The eight sites that she will be painting are the Aberdares, Mount Kenya, Maasai Mara, Samburu, Tsavo, Tuurkana, the Great Rift Valley, and the Taita Kaya Mounds. None of this series will be for sale, she says.

         

                                                                      One of Camille's murals painted at Ol Jogi

“I will paint similar views in oils on canvas which can be exhibited and sold. But I am concerned with documenting the beauty of this country as we see it today, so the murals will remain intact.”

ORINO'S MEN OF AMBITION PART 1 NEEDED 2 & 3

                        MEN OF AMBITION PART 1 NEEDES PARTS 2 AND 3

                                                                The new Radini Dynasty

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 3 September 2021)

‘From the Journal of Orina’s production of ‘Men of Ambition Part 1’, staged last weekend at Kenya Cultural Centre, had a lot going for it.  It had some powerful acting, provocative dialogue, and thematic issues of power, greed, and murder which tend to attract a crowd curious to find out ‘whodunit?’ And how.

The production also didn’t make the mistake that many companies do at KCC, which is to mess around with colors in their lighting of the stage. We’ve seen shows that use red lighting to signal scenes of either passion or murder or both. We’ve seen green lights meant to indicate emotions like envy and greed. And when something sinister is about to happen, the lights can go down low so you can barely see the actors. There is always a spotlight to rely on, but often the spot lands out of place.

In every one of these cases, the lighting is not just a distraction. It renders all photographs taken during a show useless and unacceptable for publication or other professional use.

The ‘Men of Ambition’ lights-man/woman didn’t resort to red, green or black lights.But they did have a fixation for blue lighting, which fortunately wasn’t used throughout the show, but enough to make me wish colored lighting would be reconsidered for use by the stage director.

The big problem with Men of Ambition Part 1 was not so much the plot, acting, or directing of the five-person cast. The big issue is the playwright Orina’s planning to script a three-part play, but only present us with Part 1 last weekend. How come? Perhaps he hasn’t scripted Parts 2 and 3. But then he might have been wiser to wait until his three-act play was complete instead of leaving his audience mystified at the end of Part 1.

The mystification was evident when nobody applauded at Part 1’s end. It required the director-playwright to come out and confess, the show was over. One could hear grumbles that the show was too short, which it was. But there were other problems related to leaving us with an inexplicable cliffhanger.

I don’t want to spoil audience enjoyment which will undoubtedly come once Orina completes all three parts, and stages ‘Men of Ambition’ as simply an intriguing three-act play. But the way Part 1 ended was incredulous and unbelievable.

The storyline centred round the Radiri ‘dynasty’ and the issue of succession. The founding father of the family had just died, but mourning was quickly ruled out by Duke (Odhiambo Gadwil), the second son who claimed that he should be next in line since the first-born son, Cliff (Orina Brian) was weak despite their father having decided he should be his successor. The adopted daughter Vanessa (Brenda Kinya) also aspired to be head, although her intentions were much less clear since she was mainly fielding verbal abuses from her step-brother Duke.

The matriarch of the Radiri home, (Mary Kamantha) also felt her role deserved to be reckoned with, and the executor of the old man’s will, Esquire (Clinton Mwiti) was also on hand, apparently because he was both the father’s and the company’s barrister.

Quibbling among themselves ended as Cliff took charge to offer a toast to the new family arrangement. Unfortunately, someone had poisoned the wine that only Cliff drank. Now the scene cleverly switched into a murder mystery. Who would have wanted Cliff dead? Duke’s flamboyant style of having tried to grab his brother’s seat effectively set him up to be Suspect Number one.

Duke was right to protest that he was being set up. But no matter. While the stage got turned into a kind of family court, with Esquire serving as the presiding judge, Duke challenged all three critics, exposing the flaws of his mother, step-sister, and even the barrister. Nonetheless, the three ganged up on him. Thus, he was ‘charged’ and convicted for his brother’s murder, disowned from the family, and banished for good.

As soon as he left, something peculiar happened. The three were clearly co-conspirators, but the master mind behind what we had just watched turned out to be none other than who? Vanessa? Then, boom, Part 1 ends.

One assumes that the characters’ motivations will be clarified in Parts 2 and 3. But without even subtle clues suggesting that Vanessa is the wily witch that she would seem to be, one has to insist that Orina present us with the whole play next time. It is only fair to his audience.

CONTRACT LOVE NEEDED ZIPPY TO HELP HER STUDENTS OUT

               KU STUDENTS SHOWCASE THEIR MENTOR’S MUSICAL PLAY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Contract Love, staged last weekend at Kenya Cultural Centre by Kenyatta University students, is a play by Dr. Zippy Okoth that is one-part musical, one-part messy love story, and one-part murder thriller.

It’s got an interesting storyline, mirroring the plight of many school-leavers, the problem is finding a job to put bread on the table. Leave alone getting a senior position or a hefty wage. Anita (Judy Nyakio) is prepared to take any sort of work. She’s had to postpone completing her law course, the times are that tough.

Her sweetheart Tom (Andy Joseph) finds her employment as house-help to his uncle, Chris (Samson Adino). As humiliating as the suggestion might be, she agrees to take the job.

As it turns out Chris, a rich business tycoon, has a terminal disease, and behaves like grumpy old man. But Anita’s prepared to put up with anything, so long as she gets paid. In the course of six months, Chris’s health improves dramatically. Meanwhile, his business partner Harry (Jeff Opondo Omondi) wants to swindle Chris out of company leadership. He enlists Tom and tries to get Anita involved too. But she and Chris have already pledged undying love. What’s more, she warns Chris about the company contract that Harry has drawn up. But before the contract gets contested, Harry panics and the rest is a bloody mess, apart from Anita’s reunion with her old beau Tom.

It’s a story with so many twists and turns that it could have been a gripping show. Director Peter Oroto had assembled a number of excellent actors. The problem was that they needed at least another week of rehearsals. In that time, Oroto could have gotten his vocalists singing on key. He had a range of excellent voices, but they needed to take the tuning of their vocal cords more seriously,

Also, during that extra rehearsal time, the scene changes could have gotten tighter so the action from scene to scene could flow without the long lapses of darkness or silence that we witnessed last Sunday afternoon.

For instance, when the narrator told us the show would begin: ‘3-2-1’ and boom! Nothing happened except that in the dark, we could hear feet shuffling, chairs banging, and we wondered: Is the noise meant to be part of the show? It’s not.

The opening scene is in a night club where there’s an open mic, and Tom sings Anita a love song. The amorous hug that follows is meant to convince us that theirs is true love. But then, once she goes to work for grumpy Chris, we don’t hear or see him again for six months.

It’s during that time, apparently that Tom has been quietly corrupted and caught stealing cash from his uncle. Apparently, only Harry knows about it and plans to use that knowledge to blackmail Tom into helping him convince Chris to sign a new contract which would leave his company shares to him.

Tom (like Anita) has legal skills, and Chris counts on him as his legal advisor. Chris paid Tom’s school fees all the way through law school, so Tom’s loyalty is being sorely tested. He agonizes not only because he lost Anita carelessly, but also because he doesn’t want to betray his uncle. Harry detects his ambivalence and beats him up badly to convince him his life is on the line.

Before the story ends, there are two fatal shootings. But that’s the much of a spoiler I will be. The two gunshots are swift, efficient, and quite final. But they make the ending too easy, and also incomplete.

For instance, we don’t know what happens to the contract that Chris did or did not sign. If signed, would it be binding? What sort of impact would it have on Anita and the others left behind?

There is so much about ‘Contract Love’ that is intriguing and endearing. For instance, the impact that Anita’s presence had on the health of that lonely unwell bachelor is impressive. It’s also touching that both Chris and Anita have great news to share just moments before catastrophe hits in the form of Harry’s murderous money grab.

But the fact that the show ends with one last shot and the pregnant heroine Anita rushing back into the arms of her gun-totting old boyfriend Tom is a bit too Hollywood Wild Western style for me.

One word of advice: never take opinions of media critics too seriously! It’s not worth it.

BEATRICE & OKELLO BOTH HAVE ONE OFF SHOWS

 TWO ACCLAIMED KENYAN ARTISTS AT ONE OFF

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 3 September 2021)

Having two of Kenya’s artistic giants on display at One Off Gallery at once is the opportunity gallerist Carol Lees affords the public this month through September 19. Beatrice Wanjiku and Anthony Okello are two of the brightest rising stars on the East African visual horizon and their shows at One Off reveal the rich diversity that our artists explore.

                                                                                  Okello's five lovely ladies

For Beatrice and Okello couldn’t be more different in their approach to painting. Leave alone that she works with acrylics and he with oils. Beyond that, their styles, subjects and the sentiments they interrogate in their art are radically different.

                                                                Beatrice's Untitled work at One Off Gallery

Beatrice goes straight to the core of our being, bypassing the superficialities and diving into the common features of being human, like bones, blood, veins and other guts. She has a way of striping her subjects down, literally to the bare bones so one has little choice but to journey with her into those interior parts.

Beatrice has taken us into those mental interiors in her previous shows. But often I’d felt I was heading towards a ‘heart of darkness’ where some inner sadness was revealed through her art.

But there’s a radical shift in the artist’s perspective in this show that she entitles “A wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind.” Now her means of dealing with a ‘wildly shaken public mind’ is to continue reflecting on the deeper challenges of being human. Only now, there is far more brightness, hope, and possibility in her art.

In her headlining show, there is one feature of the human form that repeats itself in multiple iterations. (Someone suggested her repeated forms reminded them of Monet’s multiple beach scenes which he painted and repaints at all hours of day and night.) And that is the ribcage. I find that an apt metaphor since Bea seems to be dealing with a delicate subject, namely, what it means to be safe and secure in these times of COVID.

Yet in a brief interview with the artist at her show’s opening, Beatrice said she began this body of work well before COVID-19 hit the world stage. “I began this series in 2018,” she confessed.

The ribcage itself is a protected zone, a brilliant structure designed to protect precious organs like the lungs, heart, and liver from events that could ‘shake the public mind’.

“For me, human bodies are a metaphor for mental frames of reference,” says Bea whose art seems to have a larger, more universal message. It is that irrespective of one’s skin, facial features, body size, or gender, the human condition is one that is shared by all.

Beatrice still prefers to work with darkened hues, especially shades of black and dark blue. But now, she also includes works where the brightness of her hues literally explode on her canvas. And as those explosions take place in works where pelvic bones are prominent, I had to ask what that light source was meant to signify?

“It’s about re-birth,” Beatrice says simply. “It’s also about hope and new possibilities,” she adds. With that major hint in mind, I begin to reevaluate my views of all her paintings. All have dazzling moments of brightness, be they yellow, bright orange, blood red or even white.

                                                                                                  Okello

The blood red might suggest violence, but for Bea, it would seem that the color affirms renewed life, energy, and power. 

She has a unique was of looking at the anatomy of the mind. For instance, in one painting, what appears to be positioned like a womb, is painted in blacks and blues. But Beatrice explains that all the growth inside the womb goes on in darkness, waiting for the time to be right, and a new being is born. But that’s another phase, another painting.

So when she says her work is about journeying in life, Bea is reclaiming a life of hope and rebirth, when darkness is only a bridge to something brighter and more full of possibility.

Okello’s art is also life-affirming. But rather than starting from a dark point and emerging into light, he has already arrived and found there’s time for self-reflection. But equally, there’s joy in looking at the beautiful and the absurd, the ironic and the elegant. His colors harmonize and his spirit soars in his art.

One final contrast between Okello and Beatrice is pricing. Hers run up into over a million while Okello’s run in the several hundred thousand.

THEATRE FOR ONE FEATURES 6 BRILLIANT ACTORS

                     DIGITAL ‘THEATRE FOR ONE’ TELLS KENYAN STORIES

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 1 September 2021)

Thespians refusing to let their imaginations get lockdowned by the COVID 19 pandemic have come up with a whole new program for taking their theatre transnational, cross-cultural and Kenyan all at the same time.

“It’s all about collaboration,” says the Mombasa-born Karishma Bhagani who’s at the centre of the new Kenyan edition of a set of micro-plays entitled ‘Theatre for One: We are Here’,

The series of six one-woman plays will be performed live online from September 15^th till the 27^th, on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The six Kenyan women playwright-performers [whose original plays will premiere on the 15^th] are Mumbi Kaigwa, Sitawa Nambalie, Aleya Kassam, Anne Moraa, Laura Ekumbo, and Mercy Mutisya.

The entire venture is the result of an ingenious collaboration ignited by Karishma and including a high-powered slew of award-winning Western thespians. They are Bill Bragin, executive artistic director of The Arts Center at New York University Abu Dhabi who actually commissioned the six ten-minute plays for Christine Jones’ Theatre for One, the experimental theatre company that Ms. Jones founded back in 2010. The venture is being produced by Mara Isaacs, founder of Octopus Theatricals of New York, and assisted by Kenya’s own Rainmaker Limited and Nairobi Theatre Initiative, both of which were founded by Sheba Hirst and Eric Wainaina.

Karishma’s role in making the Nairobi edition of ‘Theatre for one’ become a reality has been, as Bill Bragin put it in a zoom press conference last week, “a matter of trust.”

Bragin, who came from the acclaimed Tisch School of the Arts at NYU to launch the University’s Arts Centre at Dhabi, met the young Kenyan at a theatre conference just a year ago. But her enthusiasm for the theatre activities underway in Nairobi sparked his interest.

Karishma has been the executive producer for the Nairobi Theatre Initiative since 2019, which is how she’s so conversant with the artistic talents who are now in last minute rehearsals for their performances. She has also worked closely with Rainmaker Ltd. since it was Eric Wainaina who she initially met and who suggested she come on board as NBOTI’s executive producer.

At the time, Karishma was producing the Ugandan International Theatre Festival as well as completing her undergraduate studies at the Tisch School at NYU. But even then, she was keen to see Kenyan theatre transcend traditional boundaries and find transnational platforms on which to perform. Since then, she’s completed both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in theatre arts, and will soon be starting a doctoral program in theatre at Stanford University.

Nonetheless, she’s been able to juggle her time and undying devotion to Kenyan thespians who she has successfully linked up with some of the most dynamic and daring theatre producer-directors in the States.

At their press conference, Christine Jones admitted she was initially skeptical about taking ‘Theatre for One’ online. But the pandemic compelled artists like her to re-imagine the way they do theatre. “We want our audiences to feel a part of our performances,” she said.

There is little doubt that the six women artists who’ve been commissioned to perform this month from Kenya are among our best.

Karishman had worked most closely with three of the six who have been actively involved in creating musical theatre with the NBO Initiative. Aleya Kassam, Anne Moraa, and Laura Ekumbo (the LAM Sisters) have been working closely with Eric and Sheba for several years. The three also worked actively with Sitawa Namwalie in ‘Brazen’, which was an original script re-examining Kenyan history from a feminist perspective. Mumbi Kaigwa is a veteran woman actor, playwright, and producer-director whose original productions have won her international acclaim. And Mercy Mutisya is a rising star on the local theatre, television and film scene.

                               Aleya, Laura, and Moraa, the LAM Sisters are among the six actors in Theatre for One

Plus the six also work with dynamic women and men behind the scenes to perfect their performances. They include Nyokabi Macharia, Esther Kamba, the Damascus-born Kholoud Sawaf and the Yugoslavian-American director SRDA.

The original scripts they will be staging online are ‘The Interview’ by Aleya Kassam, ‘The Living Ghost’ by Mercy Mutisya, ‘Aging’ by Laura Ekumbo, ‘The Beanie’ by Mumbi Kaigwa, and ‘Killer Cop Lives Fast Life’ by Sitawa Nambalie.

The scripts address a wide range of diverse topics. The challenge to the actors is large, especially as all their rehearsals have been online, just as their performances will be. Accompanying the commissions from The Arts Centre of NYU Abu Dhabi will be workshops aimed at strengthening the theatrical skills of all the Kenyan artists.