SANDY GARDENS FOR THE LOVE OF PLANTS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (wrote December 2020)

Sandy Price never boasted of having a green thumb. She also had never planned to have a garden of her own. Yet in all the dozen places where she’s lived since moving to Kenya from New York over 50 years ago, she’s had a lush garden.

“Everywhere I’ve stayed, I found there were plants to be nurtured and to watch grow,” says this midwestern American woman who spent her earliest working years in Manhattan in the heart of the fashion world, being the personal assistant to one of the leading fashion designers in the US.

‘Bill Blass designed elegant clothes for high society and celebrities,” says Sandy who admits she had once dreamed of becoming a fashion designer herself. ‘But the next best thing was working for the best of the best,’ she says. But since coming to Kenya in 1969, she has evolved into a leading interior designer whose accessories are easily found at Spinners Web in Kitisuru.

Before that however, Sandy wore several professional hats, the first one being the founder-mother of the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya. “It wasn’t my idea actually,” she says modesty. “It was Richard Leakey’s. He was director of National Museums of Kenya at the time and had this idea of starting wildlife clubs in Kenyan schools. But he knew no one to implement his plan until he met me. I started with three clubs and watched the numbers swell into the thousands that exist today.”

Sandy stayed with them for nearly two years, after which she joined African Wildlife Foundation, first as a volunteer, then eventually as director for all sub-Saharan Africa. But throughout those busy years, she always came home to her garden. “Wherever I stayed I had to be surrounded with plants,” she says. “The more the better.”

Having lived everywhere from Langata and Karen to Syokimau and Ngong, Sandy says her current cottage in Muthaiga is perfect for now. Already having stayed there for six years, she has turned a portion of her three-acre grounds into a manicured jungle garden. The rest, beyond the trees which were planted long before her moving in, grows wild.

She might never have taken to gardening if a friend hadn’t given her a seedling to plant. Then, practically overnight, this former urbanite was transformed into a gardener. For she had witnessed the miracle of nature when the seedling grew to a size and shape she could hardly recognize. She was hooked on gardening from then on.

Asked where she gets most of her plants, Sandy describes herself as ‘an accidental collector.’

“I have friends who bring me plants they pick up from various places,” she says. But she adds that she’s not fussy and doesn’t care if they’re indigenous or not. “I’m more concerned with whether they are beautiful,” says the woman who was picked by ‘Glamor’ magazine as a teenager to feature in the magazine as one of ‘the ten best dressed high school girls in America”.

Her garden is filled with her favorite plants, some of which she can name, like her Begonias and Bromeliads; others she cannot. She also has scads of aloes, many of which she has potted and kept tastefully grounded on the edge of her veranda. Others are all over her intensely green garden.

“I also have loads of succulents since I know they are resilient and hold up well in drought,” she says, pointing to one giant pot with a glass top covered in miniature pots filled with her favorite succulents Each tiny pot has a clay chameleon crawling up its side.

On the far side of her veranda, Sandy has filled the land with broad-leafed plants, including assorted palms, ornamental banana trees, and several lovely Birds of Paradise.

Sandy can’t identify many of the trees on the grounds by name. But she’s not bothered by their anonymity. They simply give her tremendous joy. And since she often entertains friends on her veranda, they all have a fabulous view of her Ficus tree, red, white, and pink bougainvillea’s, and countless leafy green shrubs.

Sandy is also a big fan of indigenous arts and crafts. To illustrate her taste, she has a life-sized hand-carved leopard stationed at the top of her driveway. It’s the first thing you see after catching a glimpse of her jungle garden. But the leopard is also there, Sandy says, to commemorate a time-gone-by when leopards walked freely in Nairobi National Park. Sadly, they don’t anymore.

 

UNLOCK ART KENYA HIGHLIGHTS ABUSE THROUGH DANCE

 DANCE SHOW TO HIGHLIGHT GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (20 March 2021)

Unlock Art Kenya has been on a mission for the last five years.

“We gave ourselves that name because we literally want to unlock the talent of young people in Kenya that we know is already there,” says UAK’s founder, Joel Akweyu.

Evidence of that objective will be available this coming Saturday afternoon, 27 March, when the company will give a premiere performance of ‘Her Son’, an original dance theatre production at the Catholic University Auditorium from 5pm.

Choreographed by Akweyu who cofounded the company in 2015 with David Kim Khisa, the lead dancer in the troupe, the production aims to dramatize the many challenges that women face in society leading ultimately to one mother’s empowerment.

“It’s the mother’s story as told by her son,” says Akweyu who adds that through a series of dances, the dramatic action will aim to portray the main trials a woman faces in life, from poverty to gender-based violence including female genital mutilation.

Khisa was also instrumental in developing the theme and structure of the story. “David was raised by a single mother who struggled to bring him up and send him to school. He told us her story and we realized that hers was reproduced by many women, not just in Kenya but around the world<” Akweyu says.

Lilian Nyambura, 21, will portray the mother and Kim Khisa, 25, will enact her son.

Theirs is also the age-range of the 10-person dance troupe, with only their main mentor, Akweyu being 27. As the senior member of the company, he also has several more years of professional dance experience than his youthful troupe.

Having graduated from Chesamisi High School in Bungoma, Akweyu came to Nairobi wanting to work in the performing arts. That is how he found his way to Kenya National Theatre where he says he met members of the Kenya Performing Arts Company. Founded by a group of Dutch artists intent on assisting Kenyan youth, KPAC embraced Akweyu who had a natural talefor dance. His potential was so promising that he was given a two-year scholarship to study dance and choreography in Utrecht, Holland at the Jongeren Theatre Link.

“It was a great learning experience for me. I especially loved choreography, but when I got back to Kenya in 2014, I realized the company was moving out of Nairobi, so I stayed one more year and then resigned,” he says. Admitting he wasn’t keen to accompany NPAC back to Western Kenya, Akweyu had met young Khisa in his last year at Kenya National Theatre and saw he was one of the most talented dancers in the group.

“Joel became my mentor, but then we decided to team up and start Unlock Art Kenya,” Khisa says who shared his personal story with Akweyu during the lockdown days of the pandemic. It was such a heart-wrenched story that the Elder decided there and then that their next production had to be based on gender-based violence, with Khisa’s mom being the unsung heroine of her son’s life.

‘Her son” is not the first production that the two have staged together. Practically from the outset, they have managed to create winning productions with captivating stories and dances. They have also had success in putting together a winning team of young dancers.

“We’ve auditioned all over the country. So our troupe consists of dancers from Nairobi as well as Kisumu, Bungoma, and Siaya,

The troupe has lost some members during the pandemic, but has gained others. A few of them will be performing with UAK for the first time on Saturday while others are more seasoned.

“In 2016, we won the Sanaa Theatre Award for best dance production for our performance at Alliance Francaise of ‘Souls’,” says Bruno Owiti, who’s a dancer as well as the group’s Business Manager.

After that, they performed ‘Shepherds of the Night’ at the Caeli Catholic Church in Karen in 2017, followed by “Souls: Rise from Sorrow” also at the Caeli Church and at Kenya National Theatre in 2018.

But in the case of ‘Her Son’, this story has extra-special significance, not only because it mirrors the life and struggles of Khisa’s mother. It is also important because it reflects a partnership that Unlock Art Kenya has with Mother’s Hope, an NGO dedicated to assisting vulnerable women, be they single mothers, abused women, or widows and orphans.

“Women’s empowerment is central to Women’s Hope mission, which is another reason we wanted to highlight the theme through dance,” Akweyu adds.

 

 

EDWARD NJENGA INTREPID ARTIST AT 99

                                     AT 99 NJENGA IS STILL A BUSY MAN

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted April 1, 2021)

At 99, pioneering Kenyan artist Edward Njenga is a busy man. He’s been slowed down just a wee bit due to a leg problem that ultimately led to a portion of it being removed.

But otherwise, Njenga is easily as robust, sharp, and involved with the art that has occupied his life for many decades as a man half his age.

Granted he has several artisans who help him carry out some of the more arduous aspects of his work. But his biggest helpers are his grandson, Edward Junior who assists with Ngenga’s online communications, and his lovely wife, Hannah.

Claiming that healthy living, nutritious foods, and Mungu are key factors in his longevity, it’s indisputable that the main force keeping him strong is his dedicated wife of 60 years.

It is Hannah who has seen him through his years in detention for being deemed a Mau Mau as well as years when he was studying overseas, both in UK and in Germany. She’s stood with him when they had little up until now when they have retired comfortably in their Gigiri mansion where Njenga has both his gallery and workshop-studio.

Today he is world-renowned as a sculptor whose art has been inspired first and foremost by his mother and grandmother, both of whom were potters working in clay. Growing up, he used to help his mother prepare her clay. At the same time, he learned the material’s infinite possibilities. for not just shaping pots, but also modeling stories about working people whose lives he encountered every day as a social worker in Eastlands for many years.

It’s those people whose lives of struggle, hardship, and endurance have provided the main subjects of his carefully crafted sculptures. Everyone from the mkokoteni handcart driver and street boys digging into dustbins for food to the sick mothers, babies and beggars are all portrayed in his three-dimensional sculptures and social scenes.

It is these humble folks who preoccupied Ngenga’s artistry for decades. What may be even more of a wonder is that the artist had the foresight at the time not to sell the vast majority of his clay figurines despite pressure from collectors over the years.

“I always knew I wanted to hold onto my sculptures so they would remain in the country and so people would know it was I who had made them,” Njenga told DN recently.

Nonetheless, he plans to have an exhibition of his art later this year at the Nairobi National Museum. “I had donated several of my sculptures to the Museum with the understanding I could have an exhibition there whenever I wanted,” he says.

Nonetheless, not all of his art at the Museum will be made of clay. In spite of his being best known as a clay master whose biographer, Lynnette Kariuki even entitled her book on him, ‘Telling it in Clay’, Ngenga’s upcoming exhibition is bound to cause a shift in public perception of the man and his art.

For his latest museum exhibition, he plans to present few if any clay pieces. Instead, his most formidable works will be made from wood, and especially from giant tree roots.

Njenga doesn’t disclose when his graceful root sculptures were made, but he does admit the roots were picked up some years back when road construction was underway and giant trees had to be downed to make room for the roadways.

“I used to find them laying on the side of the road. Then their shapes would inspire me to create based on what I could see in them,” he says.  In one instance, Njenga ‘saw’ a giant dragon; in another a wistful mermaid; and in another, a semi-abstract being.

These are in radical contrast to the ensemble piece of Mau Mau detainees that he agreed to sell to a British bidder who was keen to pay for the installation, including the bullish British colonial ‘overlord’ and several African homeguards.

These got shipped out of Kenya contrary to Njenga’s original plan to keep his best works in the country for his own people to appreciate. But as artists must also put food on the table, Njenga gracefully released his Mau Mau collection, knowing it will be well cared for by the new owner.

In the meantime, Njenga plans to celebrate his centennial birthday during his forthcoming show. We look forward to being there with him.

 

 

 

EXILE A NECESSITY NOT A CHOICE

AFRICAN JOURNALISTS ‘HOUNDED’ INTO EXILE

Revised Review By Margaretta wa Gacheru (22. 3. 2021)

For anyone having an interest in investigative journalism, and especially investigative journalism in Africa, then ‘Hounded: African Journalists in Exile’ is a must-read.

Stories of 16 African journalists who had to flee their countries often for their lives can be painful reading. But it’s also revealing of the underbelly of all these African countries where simply doing their job as journalists could make them be deemed ‘traitors’, ‘enemies of the state’, and even criminals who could be literally hounded both inside their home country and out.

The 16 stories are all very different. Some are bloggers like Makaila N’Guebla of  Chad. Others actually founded their own newspapers, like Wilf Mbanga of Zimbabwe, while others were popular TV anchors like Mimi Mefo Takambou of Cameroon or guerilla radio programmers like Dapo Olorunyomi of Nigeria.

Yet their stories also have some similarities. For one, they all have a passion for truth telling and ‘doing their job’ as journalists who cherish accountability, transparency and freedom of expression. All are critical thinkers who weren’t prepared to equivocate or indulge in self-censorship as the one Kenyan in the book, Pius Nyamora, says many of his media colleagues did during the Moi era.

Yet Nyamora, like others in ‘Hounded’ who had to literally flee for their lives, paid a high price for refusing to turn a blind eye on corruption and other abuses of power they sought to expose through their media. For most of them, exile was not a choice. It was a necessity since their whistle-blowing was too much for the thin-skinned Big Men in their countries to tolerate. They were often targeted, and in some cases, detained, tortured, or interrogated for hours until they found means of getting out of their countries.

Many left their families behind, and few knew what kind of life they’d encounter in exile. Some were able to continue their crusade against their government’s corruption like Togolese blogger Farida Nabourema. Meanwhile, at least one, Abdalla Ahmed Mumin chose to move back to Mogadishu after years in exile because he felt compelled to tell the world the Somalia story with his ear to the ground.

One vital feature of ‘Hounded’ is that the journalists have each told their own story, unfiltered and only edited by Kenya’s own Joseph Odindo during these days and months of the pandemic. Yet their stories are never without context so their writings also reveal the political, social, and economic dimensions of their struggles. At the same time, their stories are deeply personal even as each one sheds light on the ‘media blackout’ that had hit their countries due to the repression, corruption, and insecurities of despotic leaders.

The countries represented in the book include Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Published by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, one hopes the KAS Media Program will come out with a second volume of ‘Hounded’ so we can read more revelatory reports defying Africa’s other ‘media black-outs’.

BALLET MEETS CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN DANCE AT KNT

 

Sarakasi Dancers at Kenya National Theatre 13 March 2021 at Kenya National Theatre

_{By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 20 March 2021)}

_{It wasn’t a fair fight!}

_{Not that last Saturday’s ‘Dance Extravaganza’ should have been seen as a battle between two different dance companies and two different schools of thought.}

_{But inevitably, once Ballet Kenya Studio chose to team up with Sarakasi Trust to stage a performance highlighting the best of both groups, comparing and contrasting the two was bound to take place.}

_{One troupe being prime and proper, the other wild and raucous, it was clear from the moment we got to see first, the ballerinas and then, the contemporary dancers that the show would alternate in high contrasts.}

The main difference between the two sets of dancers is that one set are students while the other are seasoned professionals. What they have in common is that both are technically made up of dancers and both deserve to have a higher public profile for all the hard work they put in to training young Kenyan talents.

_{But after that, the differences are glaring and sharp. BKS is deeply grounded in the Western tradition of ballet while Sarakasi has specialized in developing African contemporary dance for well over a decade.}

_{The ballet emphasizes grace, poise, carefully measured movements, and elegance of form. In contrast, the choreography of Sarakasi focuses on fast, percussive, rhythmic, and perfectly measured but apparently wild body activity as every muscle, sinew, and limb seems to be in constant high-speed motion.}

That brings to mind the choreographers who are all experienced dancers as well as dance designers. But again, ballet director Charmaine Smith is steeped in the Western tradition, having performed all over the world before becoming a teacher, choreographer and founder of BKS just a decade ago.

_{Sarakasi’s team of choreographers are both Kenyans. Oscar Mwalo and Aggie the Dance Queen are seasoned dancers who have been with the Trust for years. But their specialty is fusing extreme athleticism and acrobatics with contemporary African dance to bring a style of performance that is uniquely Sarakasi’s.}

_{Then comes the costuming. BKS dancers were dressed simply in leotards, tights, and tutus for the girls and tights and white t-shirts for the young men. The girls were mainly in black which probably would have worked well for the young males as well since their white shirts looked too casual for a KNT production.}

_{Again, in contrast, Sarakasi dancers wore brightly colored African designs and changed their costuming for nearly every single number they performed. Thoughtfully designed so as to not get in the way of their rigorous dance workouts or acrobatic flips and splits, their costume changes caused interruptions in the flow of the production. But an eager audience was pleasantly patient with the lapses and minor waits.}

_{One of the biggest contrasts between the alternating performances was the music. One was utterly Western with songs like ‘I could have danced all night’ from “My Fair Lady” and Adele’s James Bond theme song, “When the sky Falls.” Beautiful music and graceful dance.}

_{But the pace quickly picked up once Sarakasi’s percussive selections, mainly West African sounds, introduced another hot number, performed by youth prepared to pour out all their passion and love of storytelling using their bodies to narrate their various storylines.}

_{Finally, the age of the dancers also made a difference in the presentation of the alternating sets. The majority of BKS dancers were youngsters and early learners of ballet with no more than six or seven in their teens and early twenties who often shared the stage with the youth.}

_{Meanwhile, Sarakasi dancers were all probably in their twenties and possibly a few a bit older. The point is they are prime-time young dancers whose priority in life (it could be surmised) is to dance in the most dazzling and eye-popping style. And to dance professionally is probably their dream of a lifetime.}

_{So the Dance Extravaganza was an opportunity to see two very different genres of dancing right here in Nairobi. Both dance centres are run by remarkable women. Charmaine Smith is originally from down south and moved here in 2010, while Marion Op het Veld is from Holland and has been based at the Sarakasi Dome for over two decades. Her dancers perform both locally at the Dome (former Shah Cinema) and privately at corporate functions as well as abroad when invited to festivals and international fairs.}

PATRICIA BIFANI: LONG-LOST ARTIST RETURNS TO KENYA FOR A SHOW

Patricia Bifani sculpting at home outside Geneva in France. Her art is at Kioko Gallery after almost 50 years when she first showed at French Cultural Centre

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 20 March 2021)

Patricia Bifani came to Kenya in 1974, the wife of an environmental economist, Paulo, who had come to work with UNEP, the United Nations Environment Program. Yet this mother of five was much more than a professional man’s wife.

Patricia is a fine artist trained in Chile, Spain, and France, and a woman who held her first exhibition in Kenya in the late Seventies at the formerly named French Cultural Centre (now Alliance Francaise). The Chilean artist had left her homeland in the early part of the decade after the democratically – elected leader Salvador Allende had been overthrown in a coup d’etat orchestrated by a General named Pinochet who’d been backed by Western forces.

Politics aside, I found Patricia’s style of painting magical at the time. One of the most serious and prolific artists I had ever met. Her powers of artistic performance seemed to run on a non-stop basis. Her show presenting paintings, etchings, and even sculptures, all of which proved to be a fraction of what she had created and left behind in her home studio.

The Dancers

In the years since then, Patricia has continued creating nonstop and exhibiting wherever she, with her family, have lived. Currently resident in France not far from the Swiss border, Patricia has never lost touch with Kenya over the years. Her oldest son Andres spent his teen years growing up here and eventually moved back to Nairobi. So his mother has frequently returned, coming to sketch and paint even when her crew has taken her on safari to the Mara or to Lewa.LO

On March 13th, Patricia returned to the Nairobi gallery scene. Her exhibition opened at Kioko’s Art Gallery in Lavington, and it filled the huge hall with paintings, drawings, etchings, and other multimedia designs that confirmed that the artist is just as prolific today, nearly half a century later, as she was when she as a young mother first arrived in Kenya.

I was stunned to hear that ‘Patricia Bifani’ was having at exhibition in Nairobi, not realizing that she had quietly been in and out of the country for years visiting her son and creating artworks, some of which are currently on display in Lavington. In fact, out of the more than 40 works on paper, bark, and canvas, a fair number are part of her ‘Lewa Series’ created while seated under a tree equipped with her pens, pencils, crayons, and paints.

What had always amazed me about this artist is that, irrespective of the commotion going on all around her in her home, she was never distracted from creating and generating new works of art. According to Andres who coordinated his show with Kioko and his mother, she still operates with that same intensity of focus. And while she still works in sculpture, collecting found objects to reassemble with chicken wire, cement, and ultimately bronze, none of that art form made it to this show.

Understandably, this exhibition is mainly made up of paintings, etching, mixed media and prints on paper, simply framed by a local carpenter-friend of Patricia’s son. And while the artist herself could not be in Kenya at this time, I had the good fortune to have a conversation with Patricia thanks to her son and an easy What’s App call.

Confirming that she continues to work nonstop on her sketches, paintings, and sculptures, Patricia agrees that she continues to be productive and moving at top speed. Suggesting that she’s in a hurry for a good reason, when I ask her what she means, she laughs as if to suggest that she is in a race with time, that time might be catching up to her at some point, and she must be fully prepared for it.

                                                         Green Moon, Oil and crayon on paper

Yet my feeling is Patricia need not worry about exhausting her artistic energies. She has soulful fuel to keep her going for a good time more. Many of the images in her paintings and etchings are of figures in motion, many dancers and many women moving gracefully as if passing through her free-flowing imagination.

Much of Patricia’s art is abstract. Yet her works are not to be classified. She can be a colorist, or painting delicately in black outline adding various crayon colors for accent. The range of her subject matter is vast. So it is well worth a walk through Kioko’s gallery where a few of his sculptures are there to offset and enhance Patricia’s works which, thanks to Andres fill Kioko’s white high-ceiling walls.

Patricia Bifani's 'Dance' at Kioko Art Gallery, Lavington, in Nairobi

GOODIE'S STORY TRAIN GOES GLOBAL IN LAVINGTON

      (L-R) Ubax Abdi of Cheche Books with Goodie Odhiambo and Iranian Cultural Counselor Aboozar Taghani at Cheche, Lavington 
 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted March 19, 2021)

The pandemic has given rise to many soulful interventions on the part of artists who were not able to sit idly by as their art forms went to seed.

That is what happened midway through last year when a group of multi-talented Kenyans got together to form the Story Train, a storytelling troupe who went round to various underserved areas of Nairobi. They told and dramatized stories everywhere from Kibera and Korogocho to Kawangware and Dandora.

John Titi, Goodie Odhiambo and Ubax Abdi performed in the open-air with masks, making social distancing their practice while purposefully telling tales in Swahili that delighted children, teens and adults alike.

Now that the lockdown has eased a bit, Ubax has reopened her Cheche Bookshop and Goodie, assisted by John, also reopened her Craft Centre which is just next door to Cheche in the InTrade Centre in Lavington.

But the three are still determined to highlight cultural activities and events at their enclave.

                  Ubas Abdi with medalion by Graffiti Artist Msale at her Cheche Books Shop

“We have been having music events and regular film screening at the Bookshop,” says John who serves the trio as a kind of go-between since he is often called to do storytelling gigs where he meets many fascinating people in the process.

“It’s John who actually introduced us to the Iranian Cultural Centre,” recalls Goodie as she switched on the Iranian sitar music that is meant to accompany the current exhibition at the Bookstore which highlights Iran’s New Year’s celebrations.

“Normally, the Iranians celebrate their new year [or Half Sin in Farsi] at Nairobi National Museum. But this year, we decided to invite them to showcase their new year’s festivities at the bookstore, and they agreed,” adds Goodie who notes the Iranian Cultural Centre is just around the corner from the Intrade Centre.

All last week, Cheche Books was showcasing both books and elegant artifacts from Iran, many of which symbolized the festivities taking place in every Iranian home during the new year’s celebrations.

According to the Iranian Counselor, Taghani Aboozar , every home creates a special table at this time of year where seven items symbolizing the seven most cherished values of Iranian culture are placed.

“The overall theme of this ritual is rebirth and growth,” said Mr Taghani who explains how each humble item signifies a larger concept. The apple signifies blessings and beauty, while the vial of vinegar represented patience. The garlic represented health and well-being, and the coins signify abundance and wealth. The other values include love, new birth, and strength or power.

The cultural counselor explais that this ritual derived from an ancient tradition established during the Persian Empire which preceded the current Islamic Republic of Iran by many centuries.

His focus is largely on the ritual. But the decorative artifacts that are also displayed around the Bookstore reveal the age-old beauty of Iranian or Persian culture.

“Iranians love to decorate everything,” says Mr. Taghani’s Kenyan cultural assistant, Athman Farsi who is clearly as impressed with the ornamental beauty of the intricately embossed trays and elaborately painted copper pitchers and vases as we are.

           Iranian cultural counselor Aboozar Taghani with Ubax Abdi at Cheche Books where Iran celebrated its New Years

Sadly, Mr Taghani explained that none of the items in the exhibition are for sale. Even the posters of the Persepolis palace (a UNESCO heritage site) from the ancient Achaemenid Empire (550-330BC) cannot be bought.

But what are available to view are the encyclopedic books on the country, history, artistry, and poetry. They are big and beautiful coffee-top table books about the many facets of Persian culture and history. They are present alongside Ubax’s batch of contemporary paperbacks written by everyone from Michela Wrong, Tony Morrison, and Kurt Vonnegut to Alice Walker, Angela Davis, and Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, the Story Train trio continues to plan cultural events both in the Bookstore and out since there are still many schools and neighborhoods in the city where children can benefit immensely from learning that good literature can be fun, especially when performed by soulful performers like Goodie, Ubax and John.

                     Goodie Odhiambo, Margaretta wa Gacheru, and Ubax Abdi at CheChe Bookstore, 19 March 2021

ODINDO'S 'HOUNDED'. AFRICAN JOURNALISTS IN EXILE REVIEWED

           JOSEPH ODINDO, EDITOR OF 'HOUNDED' WITH KONRAD ADENAUER'S CHRISTOPHER PLATE AND SOMALI JOURNALIST AT BOOK LAUNCH

AFRICAN JOURNALISTS IN EXILE BOOK LAUNCHED (UNREVISED)

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (17.March 2021but not published)

Tuesday night’s book launch of Joseph Odindo’s ‘Hounded: African Journalists in Exile’ at the Trademark Hotel in Village Market attracted a multitude of Kenyan journalists who had worked with Odindo in local media over the years.

Some had been with him when he was editorial director of the Nation Media Group. Others had worked with him in his similar role at the Standard Group. And still others had been with him when he was founding editor of The East African.

‘Hounded’ itself reveals harrowing stories of 16 African journalists who were forced to flee their countries for having insisted on speaking truth to power and holding their governments to account. Their struggles have been rarely reported in the world media, which is one reason why the book is an important contribution to shedding light on what has been happening in post-colonial Africa.

The book’s publisher and Director of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Media Program, Christoph Plate noted that exile has had a long and difficult history in Germany. He recalled that critical thinkers frequently had to flee his country during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler and then during the Communist era as well.

Following along that line, Joe Odindo said Konrad Adenauer Stiftung had originally planned a conference calling exiled African journalists to come share their stories in person. But once COVID cancelled that plan, Odindo got the call.

“I was invited to essentially transform the conference into a book,” he says. “The book came together in eight or nine months despite our never meeting face to face. It showed me the incredible power of digital communication,” he added.

The 16 countries whose journalists have had to flee include Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopian, Gambia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. The stories are written all by the journalists themselves, including Odindo’s editorial touches.

The only self-exiled Kenyan journalist in ‘Hounded’ is Pius Nyamora, founder of ‘Society’, one of the leading so-called ‘Protest Press’ publications in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the ‘Second Liberation’ loosened President arap Moi’s grip on power.

Nyamora’s story is an important one because it not only reveals the deeply repressive nature of the Moi regime. It also reminds us of other fearless Kenyan journalists who suffered at the hands of Moi, such as Gitobu Imanyara of the ‘Nairobi Law Monthly’ and ‘Finance’s Njeru Gakabaki. And as Nyamora wrote in ‘A reform struggle’s radical voice’, “I believe we had made a difference by denting the confidence and image of their authoritarian machine.”

The only exiled journalist in the book who returned to his country to carry on the struggle of exposing the injustices inflicted on ordinary Somali people by Al Shabab is Abdalle Ahmed Mumin. Abdalle is also the only one who was able to fly in for the book launch to share his story of remarkable courage and resilience.

Copies of Hounded: African Journalists in Exile can be obtained through the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung offices in Johannesburg.

 

THANDIWE CREATES AFRICAN BEAUTY THAT'S HID IN PLAIN SIGHT

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 16 March 2021)

Thandiwe Muriu calls herself a commercial photographer.

She has every right to do so since, having just turned 30 the other day, Thandiwe has been taking photos and earning a living from it for more than a decade.

Yet her current showcase of photographs entitled ‘Between Image and Identity’ which she shares with fellow photographer, the Senegalese-Italian Adji Dieye, looks less commercial and more fantasmic.

“It was time for me to let my hair down,” says the Kenyan woman who has worked commercially with an impressive array of corporates over the past ten years. Everyone from Safaricom (she provided photos for their 2020 calendar), Oglivy, EABL, and AirTel to CBA, ScanAd, and even Sauti Sol!

She has had people fly in from as near as Kigale and as far as Stockholm just to work with this petite young female dynamo.

But it was 2020 that was the breakout year for Thandiwe. As dark and dreary was the year of pandemic for the rest of the world, for her the opportunities miraculously came pouring in for her to exhibit overseas. She was invited to show her art photos in UK and in France, at ‘Photo London’ in September and the African Art Festival hosted by AKAA (Also Known As Africa) and the 190 Gallery, both in Paris this past November.

And then came the invitation from Alliance Francaise to exhibit alongside the Francophone female photographer Adji Dieye who has somewhat similar interests to Thandiwe, and both could be part of AF’s international women’s month celebrations this March.

Asked by BDLife why she thought this past year was so eventful for her, Thandiwe suggests it could be because many more people seem to be working online than in the past. And many have been discovering talents online that they hadn’t known existed before.

Coincidentally, that is somehow a theme of her ‘Camo series’ which can be seen in part at Alliance Francaise through to the end of March. Just taking a quick look at her photographs and you can easily surmise that ‘camo’ is short for camouflage or for being hidden in plain sight.

Given that only six of her Camo series are up at Alliance, the rest of it can be found either at her website www.thandiwemuriu.com or at her Instagram site. But what makes the exhibition such a fun show not to be missed is the way Thandiwe has wallpapered her whole section of the AF ground floor gallery. She even got Harsita Waters to ‘wallpaper’ the stairs leading up to the Wangari Maathai Auditorium.

But not just any old wallpaper. The colorful paper designs effectively contrast yet coordinate and coalesce with the six images on the walls. And in so doing, the artist has turned the entire space into her creation. The walls become like a beautifully patterned frame surrounding each image in a rhythmic round of eye-popping colors and oscillating designs.

Yet as bright, bold, and cheerful as are the colorful patterns on the floor and walls, it’s the camouflaged images of lovely ladies inside each frame that speak resoundingly about what matters most to Thandiwe when she is just having fun.

“I wanted the images to celebrate and reflect the beauty of African women, African culture, and our bright and bold African colors,” she says, clearly wanting us to know how passionate she feels about African culture, and especially African beauty being well represented in her art.

Admitting that among her favorite commercial assignments is taking fashion photographs, Thandiwe says her Camo series builds on the beauty of African fashion which often includes bright contrasting colors. She even wants to celebrate African hair which she says includes hair styles that might be long-forgotten if she doesn’t revive them in photo-shoots that add modernizing touches to traditional styles. “We should remember fashions that came before and need not be forgotten,” she adds.

Acknowledging that her father is the one who first introduced her to photography, he also saw how passionate she quickly became about using his digital camera. After graduating first in her class at USIU, (having studied international marketing), it was dad who also encouraged her pursue ‘her calling’ if photography was truly what she was passionate about.

“Both my parents have been incredibly supportive and encouraging,” says Thandiwe, noting that it was her dad who wanted all his girls to be independent, self-sufficient, and self-reliant. His second-born girl is fulfilling his fatherly aspiration.

HOW DO YOU GIFT TWO ROYAL PORTRAITS.

                               HOW TO GIFT TWO ROYAL PORTRAITS

           Prince Harry

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted15 March 2021)

Leo Warigi and Lee Wamae are two young Kenyan artists with a worthy ambition. They have painted portraits of two brothers who they admire and would like their paintings shared accordingly.

What makes it challenging to fulfill their plan is the social distance that would seem to keep them far from simply calling up and making an appointment to gift their art to the brothers.

“We’ve admired Harry and William for many years and that’s why we wanted to paint their portraits,” says Leo who has been a buddy of Lee’s since secondary school when they both attended the Mount Kenya Academy in Nyeri and both studied fine art.

                                                                         Prince William

It’s true that they started their project before the apparent rift between the brothers came about. “We began work on the portraits at the end of 2018, and completed both paintings by April the following year,” recalls Lee.

But the painters are confident the brotherly bond between the two royals will endure despite whatever bumps they confront along the road. “In any case, we painted each brother individually,” says Leo, adding that they started with Harry and subsequently worked on William’s portrait.

Both brothers are dressed in military attire and look every bit a royal and a representative of the centuries-old Monarchy.  

“We were hopeful from the start that we could hand our paintings over to either the British High Commission or even someone at the British Council. But then the pandemic came along and the process of possibly having that happen ground to a halt,” recalls Leo.

“If there were a way to deliver our paintings to the right people, perhaps they might one day even reach the brothers themselves,” adds Lee.

The two Kenyans had the good fortune to study art at a secondary school where the subject was examinable and the environment was supportive. “We studied everything from painting, drawing, weaving, textile design, and sculpture and much more,” recalls Lee.

“We were especially inspired by the African American author and artist Ashley Bryan who used to come to the school every year and share his ideas and his art with us,” says Leo.

“He [Bryan] encouraged us to develop our skills and use our talents to bless other people with our art,” adds Lee who especially admired the children’s books that Bryan wrote and illustrated.”

The two have been out of secondary for several years, with Leo going to Kenyatta University and Lee to Shantau Media Arts College, so they don’t know if Bryan still comes regularly to Nyeri. But his influence on their art is unassailable. “He is one reason why we thought of painting Harry and William. We thought the works could serve as a bridge between Kenya and the UK,” Leo adds.

In fact, it was while the two men were briefly based at Dust Depo Art Studio with Patrick Mukabi that they came up with the idea of painting portraits of the brothers. “Patrick gave us great advice, especially about how best to present our art, and how important presentation is,” says Leo

Presentation was an issue that was not emphasized at KU, adds Leo who is glad he had the opportunity to do his KU ‘attachment’ at Dust Depo with Mukabi. “We learned a lot from Patrick. For instance, he spoke to us about the value of exhibiting and advised us where and how to do it,”

Lee was equally enthusiastic about what he gained from being with Mukabi whose fatherly demeanor has served to support and encourage countless up-and-coming Kenyan artists.

Asked by DN how it was possible for two people to work on one painting, Lee explains that he spent more time on the brothers’ torsos and uniforms while Leo worked on their facial features. The division of labor isn’t apparent as their styles of painting blend together seamlessly.

The portraits themselves are done in both oils and acrylics. The one challenge I posed to them was the issue of proportions since the painting of Harry is a bit larger than that of William. But the artists are hopeful that the difference won’t deter representatives of the Royals from responding to their dream of giving their paintings to the British royal family.

Ideally, the paintings could be handed over when the brothers are scheduled to meet this summer, but that is a big wish.

BALLET EXTRAVAGANZA AT NATIONAL THEATRE

BALLET AND ACROBATICS COMBINE AT NATIONAL THEATRE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted DN 11.march 2021)

Promising a ‘Dance Extravaganza’, this coming Saturday, March 13^th at noon, dancers from both the Ballet Kenya Studio and the Sarakasi Trust will combine ballet and acrobatics at Kenya National Theatre.

Like all performing artists worldwide, Kenyan dance companies have also been hit hard, says BKS artistic director and founder, Charmaine Smith.

“Before COVID, we were working with 60 young dancers. Now we will have just 18 performing in ballet numbers that I have choreographed,” the former ballerina adds.

Sarakasi’s choreographers, Oscar Mwalo and Aggie the Dance Queen have only been working with nine agile acrobatic dancers since their numbers have also been affected by the pandemic. Nonetheless, the nine have been working hard and look forward to Saturday’s combined performance.

The idea of combining ballet and acrobats is one proposed to Ms. Smith by Sarakasi’s managing director Marion. Smith who has kept a relatively low profile since she came to Kenya from South Africa in 2010 and opened her ballet studio in 2011, saw the suggestion as a good challenge for her young dancers.

All COVID-19 health protocols will be followed, says Ms. Smith whose studio also teaches contemporary jazz as well as classical ballet.

“I teach from the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus in UK, and as soon as COVID restrictions are lifted, the Academy will be sending an Examiner to Kenya to examine our students,” she says. “I trust they will all pass.” 

BROADWAY MUSICAL COMES TO ST. MARIE’S

                                                   Full cast of In the Heights at St Mary's School, March 6, 2021
 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted March 7, 2021 to BD)

St. Mary’s School has a long history of staging popular musicals, and even opera. And this year’s choice of Lee-Manuel Miranda’s ‘In the Heights’ by the School’s theatre arts teacher and show director, Jackie Kasuku, was in keeping with that ambitious tradition.

Miranda was swept to international renown in 2015 when his hip-hop musical, ‘Hamilton’, about one of America’s Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, became a smash hit on Broadway and beyond. But Miranda had actually made his musical breakthrough a few years earlier with his creation of ‘In the Heights’ in 2008.

                                                                                         Usvani In the Heights

His semi-autobiographical story (co-composed with Quiara Alegria Hudes) about the struggles and hopes of first - and second - generation Latino immigrants won him a Tony award for its dazzling dynamism and stunning musical mix of hip-hop, rap, R&B, soul, salsa and syncopated Latino rhythms.

St. Mary’s production of ‘Heights’ had a lot of that same earthy energy and musical flare that was in the original show. The one big problem of this production was the acoustics in the school’s performance space which made much of the storyline inaudible. And what compounded the audibility issue was Miranda’s hip-hop lyrics which were fast and snappy and highly stylized.

          Nina at the Salon Inthe Heights

The cast weren’t the problem. On the contrary, every one of them, including the youngest (from age 10) up to the eldest (age 18) enhanced a key element of the script, that of the Washington Heights community of working-class Latino immigrants.

Director Kasuku managed to assemble up to 40 students in the cast, all of whom were quick on choreography and clearly keen to be in the multiple street scenes and party dance times.

Ms. Kasuku also created a charming street set design that not only featured the Rosario’s Car and Limo Service, Usnavi’s coffee shop, Daniela’s hair salon, and even the matriarch Abuda Claudia’s front door. There was even a space where we could see the tenement fire escape where lovers met in the moonlight.

Washington Heights is a Latino ‘hood where Spanish-speaking immigrants from Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and even Paraguay reside and share their dreams, hopes and struggles.

One struggle belongs to Nina Rosario (Joy Mungai), the first person from the hood to go to university. But she’s come home having dropped out of Stanford without telling her parents, Kevin (Tula Muumbi) and Camile (Abigail Kibe), who naturally freak out. They’re even more distressed at her choice of Benny (Allan Karundo) as a boyfriend. But all that gets sorted after Camile puts her foot down and agrees to her spouse selling his Car service so Nina can go back to school.

One of the most captivating songs of the musical was ‘96,000’ since that is the sum Abuda Claudia wins with her lottery ticket. It gets everybody wondering what would they do if they had 96,000 of their own. The beloved old woman doesn’t stick around to spend it all. But as she leaves it with Usnavi (Tinashe Mpariwa), the orphan who she’s cared for and who in turn has looked after her, he plans to use it to go back home to Dominican Republic.

But in the end, once his sweetheart Vanessa (Michelle Kituku) implores him to stay, he realizes he is already at ‘Home’ (which coincidentally is the last song of the show), and all ends on a high note.

The one big challenge to ‘In the Heights’, apart from problematic acoustics was the pace at which the musical unfolded. One has to admire the way the cast kept up the speed, never faltering, (apart from a few songs sung slightly off key). Nonetheless, the rapid clip at which the whole production moved meant that there was more synchronized movement but less passion or actors’ emotions expressed.

The one exception was the brilliant outburst by Mama Nina, Camile whose style of negotiating came across in both her body language and her animated talk.

In the end, one has to be impressed with a school production as ambitious and well-conceived as Lee-Manuel Miranda’s masterpiece come to Kenya. But there are still issues theatre groups need to professionalize. They including keeping time, preparing programs and allowing the audience to know who is playing what character, who’s produced and directed the whole show.

When the public is told a show starts at 12:30pm, one doesn’t expect musicians, however magnificent their performances will be, to meander in after 1pm. And then the show starts an hour late.