REHEARSALS FOR NGUGI’S PLAY IN FULL SWING

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (April 22,2022)

There were performing arts in Kenya long before the British colonizer came and claimed, as the Donovan Maule Theatre did, that it was bringing the best of London’s West End theatre to the deepest of dark Africa.

Long before a National Theatre was established in 1952, there were Kenyan people performing orature (oral rather than written literature) in the form of storytelling, singing of original songs or those handed down from generation to generation, and even dancing in rituals and ceremonies marking events like harvests and weddings and births of treasured new borns.

But a number of communities were stripped of those traditions once the new religion, Christianity, came in and deemed most of those indigenous traditions ‘bestial’ or ‘primitive’ or even ‘sinful’.

It wasn’t until 1977 that people in Central Province had the opportunity to watch an original play in their own language and in a theatre that the local people of Kamiirithu had constructed themselves.

Ngaahika Ndeenda was written by two academics, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii who collaborated with members of that community to both create the stage and refine their script to make it most relevant to the lives of the locals.

The play was a smash hit, attracting people from people from all over the countryside. It was misunderstood by some Kenyans who claimed the two Ngugi’s were being ‘tribalists’. But what critics didn’t understand was that the play was meant to inspired Kenyans in every nation, be they from the Lake, the Coast, or the far North to script their own plays and tell their own stories in their own mother tongues.

But the fact that thousands of Kenyans flocked to Kamiirithu to watch a story which mirrored so many facets of their own lives, threatened the powers that be. They had never seen such a grassroot respond to community theatre, and they felt threatened, sadly.

One Ngugi was detained. The other fled the country. But that play has never been forgotten. And on May 12^th, the English version of Ngaahika Ndeenda, I will marry when I want, will be staged at Kenya National Theatre.

The same cast will perform the Kikuyu version of the play as well; and the show’s director, Stuart Nash, hopes the public will come to see both versions of this modern classic.

It has got a star-studded cast including Bilal Mwaura, Nice Githinji, Martin Githinji, Angel Waringe, Martin Kigondu, Maryanne Nyambura, and Anne Stella as Gathoni. All of them are popular actors best known to those who watch cable television or live theatre productions.

For instance, Bilal was last seen in ‘Crime and Justice’ while Nice starred in ‘Rafiki’. Martin Githinji made his most indelible mark in ‘Sue na Johnnie’ as did Anne Stella, while Martin Kigondu is both an actor as well as a playwright and producer/director of a number of original plays. Angel was Miss Morgan in ‘Tahini High’ while Maryanne has been the backbone of Fanaka Arts.

There is also a massive cast of singers, dancers, and characters who also play essential roles to bring this marvelous play to vibrant life.

Rehearsals for both Kikuyu and English versions of ‘I’ll Marry When I Want’ are in full swing. Nash is a professional who has had decades of experience both producing and directing theatre as well as starring in it when he was abroad.

The former Artistic Director at KNT has already proven his worth by staging popular musicals such as ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, ‘Sarafina’, ‘Grease’, “Annie’, and ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle’. Nash is also the founder and artistic director of the Nairobi Performing Arts Studio (NPAS) which recognized the need of young Kenyans for professional training in the performing arts. Many of them have gone on to develop careers in theatre, television, film.

The story of Ngaahika Ndeenda is a delicate one. It is all about land and religion, hypocrisy and duplicity, class and the deep disparity between rich and poor in Kenya. It has wonderful comedic elements to it, but it also tackles hard core issues that still have relevance today such misogyny, poverty, sexuality, and the role that religion has played and continued to play in Kenyan society.

It is said that Ngugi’s play has been staged in other parts of the world. But it’s been nearly 45 years since Ngaahika Ndeenda was shut down by the State. No one expects that this time round, there will be a similar reaction from the powers that be.

“The political climate has changed a lot since those dark old days,” says Fanual Mulwa, assistant director of the play.

 

TEWA’S TURN TO EXHIBIT PAN-AFRICAN ARTISTS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru composed 22 April 22)

Tewa Thadde is one man who has made the most of his time during the COVID pandemic.

“When we saw how artists had no physical spaces to exhibit, and not all Kenyans took their art online during the lockdown, I felt I had to branch out to find artists who were sharing their art on social media,” the self-styled curator tells BDLife last weekend at the Village Market where his current group exhibition, ‘Leaking Spirits’ was extended through the weekend.

“Alternatively, artists get in touch with me, like the one from Southern Cameroon, Tomnyuy Salvador, who saw me and all the artists I promote on Instagram and asked if I could help him with an exhibition,” Tewa adds.

In contrast, the other two artists exhibiting with Salvador at Village Market’s Top Floor space have been visited by Tewa in their home studios. “When I went to Kampala and saw the huge amount of artwork that Muramuzi [John Bosco] had created during the lockdown, I was tempted to give him a solo show. But then I saw the correlations between the works of Bosco, Salvador, and Sheila Bayley, and realized their art would harmonize well in a group show,” Tewa explains.

And he was quite right. All three artists, including the one Kenyan, Sheila Bayley have much in common. The most striking thing is the captivating energy that all their artwork emits.

All display an electrifying intensity that has obvious differences. But they all are painters who cover their canvases with meticulous images that require scrutiny, not just a passing glance. This is true especially of Bosco’s and Bayley’s works which combine detailed draftsmanship with colorful contrasts.

Further contrast comes from Salvador who identifies as an immigrant roaming in Morocco where his art reflects his uncertain style of life. It’s all black and white. But there’s a similar entanglement of lines, curves, and what Kenyans call ‘panya paths’ leading to who knows where? Amidst the lines he’s stationed miniature images reminiscent of those found all over Africa in the ancient rock art of many millennia ago.

More timely and relevant to the present are Bayley’s and Bosco’s. But from Tewa’s perspective the three have something else in common. “They are all in transition from place to place,” he says, referring to not only Salvador’s shift from Cameroon to Morocco, but also Bosco’s move from his western Ugandan village to the big city of Kampala a few years ago. Sheila’s movements are more cerebral, transitioning from former psychology student to so-called self-taught artist and mother of a seven-year-old.

It is Bosco’s art that greets you upon entry to the Top Floor art space. The curator made a wise decision to station his art at the only entry into the hall. If you are not overwhelmed by it, as a few prospective shoppers said they were, you have to be captivated by its charm. Caught up in the interwoven branches, roots, and other replicas of Mother Nature in all her rich, luxurious entanglement and glory, one also catches glimpses of skyscrapers and cars and other facets of urban life.

“I try to express all my experience in my art,” says Bosco, who grew up tending his fathers’ sheep and goats and watching the way his mother always wove grass and banana fiber mats. Coming to Kampala in 2014 after completing secondary at home, he was drawn to artists’ studios where he felt as if he’d found his calling. “I spent two years with Yusuf Sali and Kaspa while I was also studying art at the YMCA Institute,” he says. Being mentored by two of Uganda’s best-known artists served the 30-year-old artist well.

Like Bosco, Sheila Bayley reflects her life experience in her art. But unlike his, her work is more inscrutable. She clearly seems to be telling stories in her paintings, even as her characters emerge from what often seem like high-rise flats. The biggest difference between her and Bosco is that her works have more geometry, more parallel and perpendicular lines while Bosco’s elongated lines are always curvaceous like subterranean roots of a tree.

One of Bosco’s most distinctive paintings proves what the artist says about including his life experiences in his art. That one is of his wedding, with he and his bride being the centre of the painting’s attention. Yet both bride and groom as well as members of the wedding party have an almost caricature-like form. But again, in contrast, the tone of Bayley’s art is more sober and reflective.        

STAND-UP FEMALE COMEDIAN GENERATES NONSTOP LAUGHS

 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Stand-up comedy is not a genre of theatre that I’m well informed about. The only stand-up comedians I know are Churchill, Eddie Murphy, and Chris Rock, and that is it.

But when I got the invitation to watch Madam President aka Esther Kahuho in ‘The Man-Made Woman’ at Kenya Cultural Centre, I was intrigued. I’d never seen a female stand-up comedian, so I was hopeful she wouldn’t let me down.

One reason I shy away from stand-up is because I feel humor and comedy are so culture-specific that one joke that’s hilarious to one group can easily falls flat for another.

Humorists themselves will tell you they have to sweat to figure out the jokes that their audience will lap up. He or she has to be highly attuned to their audience which is why some comedians take years before they develop the kind of rapport with their audience that can tune in to their sense of humor and wit.

A group like Heartstrings has cultivated that kind of rapport. But I had no idea Esther Kahuho had it among her fandom as well. What I saw and felt last Saturday night was a rising tide of the audience’s love and adulation for Madam President who gave an electrifying two-hour performance.

She’s a brilliant storyteller whose series of hilarious will-threaded tales kept her full-house crowd in stitches from beginning to end. Ever-engaging, she directed her stories straight at her audience as if she knew they were fully-attentive to all her jokes.

One reason her stories went down so well is because in them, she was speaking about what she knew best, namely herself. But she did so in such a self-effacing yet confident style that we appreciated all that she had to say about what in effect is ageism.

Yes, she just turned 40, but she still had all her faculties. It was true she didn’t know where the time went. But then she proceeded to prove that she hadn’t lost any of her memory marbles in the course of time.

Even as she did, she was in non-stop motion, illustrating the energy she proceeded to boast about. Ever-animated, one couldn’t take their eyes off her since she told her stories with both body and soul.

Admitting that she had put on weight since she was last seen on stage, she never explained that five-yr ortold us where she had been Bt neither her weight nor her age hampered her from dancing throughout the show. And starting off with the story about why she was looking forward to go to school. “It wasn’t to study; it was to play,” she’d said; and that spirit of playfulness was consistently confirmed throughout her show.

Admittedly, her playfulness often got her in trouble, but she even took delight in telling those ‘criminal’ stories, like how she got expelled from Sunday School!

In Loresho Primary, she said there were two types of children in the school according to her teachers. There were the bright ones and the criminals. She had a sister who was considered bright, but then there she was, cast among the criminals.

She admits she deserved the status. But she seemed to partly attribute her perfect sense of mischief and play to her reacting to her mother whom she described as a ‘house-wife-aholic, meaning she was super-big on her children doing so many household chores that Esther never had a moment at home to have fun and just play.

Again, in self-deprecating style, she admitted she was ‘notorious’ for her ways of having fun. But then, she got to secondary school and found the scene stricter. This was also a time for learning about boys and also learning about being a girlie girl.

One of the funniest bit in her show was when she had to struggle with her flat chest. She felt she needed boobs, and finally discovered tissue paper to use as padding. That worked fine until she met a boy and then the tissue slipped and that was the end of that.

After graduation, there was job hunting and working mostly for Asians. But she got sacked by her first Asian boss who she claimed passed the word to the whole network of fellow Asians.

These and many other stories told with a brilliant sense of timing and bouncing flare, Esther framed her whole show around her arrival at age 40. She got two standing ovations from her fans, and she promised to perform again on My 31^st.

 

 

 

 

MERU MAMA’S BRING RURAL WOMEN’S LIVES TO NATIONAL THEATRE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 29.4.22)

During the early days of COVID, when everything was supposed to be locked-down, there was one thing that refused to be contained. And that was the spirit of theatre.

You may not have seen it on stage anywhere since all the theatres and performance centres were technically closed. But that didn’t stop Kevin Kimani and his KITFEST [Kenya International Theatre Festival] team from conducting theatre workshops in several counties in 2020.

“We weren’t able to host the festival that year but we managed to run training workshops for theatre groups in five counties, namely Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa, Meru, and Nakuru,” says Fedari Oyagi, KITFEST’s chairman.

That was when the trainers encountered the group of Meru women comedians who called themselves Nyota ya Meru.

“Out of all the groups we met during those training days, these women [most of whom are grannies] were the most impressive,” says Kimani who has subsequently been appointed Creative Arts program director of Kenya Cultural Centre.

They were impressive enough to be selected to stage their own show on Easter Sunday at Kenya National Theatre.

 “But this wasn’t just their first time being at KNT. It was the first time they’d ever performed on a professional stage anywhere,” Kimani told an appreciative audience, many of whom were Kimeru speakers who emitted billows of laughter during most of the women’s performance.

The eight-women troupe (whose ages ranged from 24 to 67) blazed across the KNT stage in a non-stop series of skits that they had refined during a six-day residency that they’d attended with the American Fulbright scholar and former Kenyatta University theatre lecturer, Dr Karin Waidley.

Dr Waidley came to Kenya initially in 2017 as a Fulbright Fellowship scholar based at KU. She returned early this year, still with Fulbright, both to work in community theatre and also conduct research with women thespians like Nyota ya Meru. So the residency, training, and Easter day performance of the women transpired through the collaborative arrangement between Kenya Cultural Centre, Fulbright Foundation, and KITFEST.

“I felt as if they were training me more than I was training them,” Dr Waidley told a rapidly expanding audience in her introductory remarks that night. The fact that she didn’t know a word of KiMeru had been a slight handicap, but as she was accompanied by her former KU student, Essy Gicheru, who shared Kiswahili with the mama’s, it was the language of theatre that ultimately became their best mode of communication.

“The women had actually worked out their storylines long before Essy and I arrived,” says Waidley, who gave all the credit to the women who in turn, thanked her and Kimani for the opportunity they’d been given to perform in Nairobi.

The women explained that the trip itself has been a validation of their work in theatre, which they said some people back home scoffed at and said they had been ‘wasting their time.’

The unrelenting energy that the women threw into their performance was enough to show how self-assured they were about the stories they had to share. It was Lydia, Waidley says who founded the group in 2015, but their scripts were collectively devised. All their stories, they said, were based on their own life experiences.

The first one was all about the diverse type of work that rural women do round the clock, but which is largely unacknowledged and unappreciated. One didn’t need to know the language to understand their skillful mimes, which implicitly was a cry for change to rectify the gender inequality.

The second skit was about a woman gossip who went around bad-mouthing the local pastor, but ultimately got caught for not just spread false rumors but also stealing from her supposed friends.

The third was about a woman overburdened by life, and chased away from home by her husband. Her luggage (symbolling her burdens) was so heavy, she couldn’t even board a bus. But all her friends came around, helped to unburden her, and illustrated their solidarity with their friend.

Finally, the last skit was about a woman farmer who’d planted her field, but found it trampled upon and blamed her neighbors. Thereafter, she went to a local mganga (witch doctor) to have him curse those responsible for the damage. The problem was it was her own grandchildren who had played innocently on her land. They were hit by the curse, and nearly died. But in the Easter spirit, the granny witnessed the ‘resurrection’ of the kids and everyone learned their lesson.

The women are hopeful KNT is their first step towards performing on an international stage.

 

 

NO EASY WAY TO REBUILD HEARTSTRINGS

 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted April 16, 2022)

Making the best of a challenging situation has been Sammy Mwangi’s job ever since there was an exodus from Heartstrings Entertainment of some of his finest and funniest male cast members.

I loved his recent shows where his women actors ruled the stage in shows like ‘3 is a crowd’. But apparently, Sam is seeking to redesign gender-balance in his longstanding troupe, so he brought on board mostly new male actors for last weekend’s production of ‘Easy Way Out’ at Alliance Francaise.

In the past, Heartstrings’ strength was its cast’s cohesion and actors’ keen ability to play spontaneously off one another. That was cultivated over years, so it’ll take some time to see that intuitive edge reappear

In the meantime, Easy Way Out was all over the place, from the street to suburbia, to finally the village where the comedy erupted into a soap-opera saga of messy interpersonal relations.

There was no dearth of edgy topics tackled, especially by a trio of homeless shoeshine guys (Paul Ogola, Tim Ndissi, Fischer Maina) who talk about everything from poverty and inflation to how best to maximize their meager profits by charging whatever the Market would bear.

Two of the three (Ogola and Ndissi) are even prepared to keep funds that don’t belong to them after Joshua (Maina) finds a client’s bag filled with cash. Joshua has another plan, so when his client (Adelyne Nimo), a gynecologist, returns looking for the bag she forgot, he hands it to her intact thus endearing himself to her.

What we don’t foresee is in Act Two when the doctor invites Joshua to her home, only to inform him she wants him as her lover! He’s the one who raises that delicate issue of class. He points out she’s a high-flying doctor while he’s a lowly shoe-shine guy. That crossing of class barriers rarely if ever happens.

Now talking about the fluidity of class in Kenya today, she tells him she’s originally from Dandora, a so-called slum comparable to where he’s staying now. Her mother (Mackrine Andale) managed to get the family out of there, but only after her father fled the scene, leaving her feeling abandoned by him ever since.

Fortunately, before the scene gets too sober or romantic, the other two shoe-shiners swoop in ostensibly to celebrate the doctor’s birthday. But the act ends with their attempting to move in.

The tricky business of act two is when the doctor’s sexy mother shows up, only to corner Joshua. Now we hear a whole other disconcerting side of him. Is he really a Casanova, lover-boy? Certainly, the mom is a Cougar who preys on younger men like him. It’s an issue left unresolved at act two’s end.

Now in act three, Joshua has called the doctor as well as her mom to his rural village to celebrate his grandmother’s 102^nd birthday. By now the shoe-shiners are deeply embedded in the story, even as Paul has never stopped scheming, scamming, and taking short-cuts to survive and line his pockets. In the process, he’s made a mess of Joshua’s party.

But Paul has nothing to do with what comes next

The last half of act three is a ferocious shouting match, worse than the one in act one when Paul and Tim were blaming Joshua for being soft, foolish, and naïve about money.

This shouting match nearly killed the case for calling Easy Way Out a comedy. That’s because the doctor’s long-lost dad arrives on the scene and ends up explaining why he left the family unceremoniously. His story doesn’t tally with what Mom told her daughter.

Dad’s second wife, a long-time neighbor from their shared Dandora days tells how she hooked  the doctor’s dad. She was prepared to accuse him of philandering, just as her mother was trying to do. But his explanation for his flight, namely her mother’s loose morals and his finding too many indicators that other men had occupied his matrimonial bed, was why he had to go.

“And after the mom had left him, she decided not to let this good man out of her sight. That is how she’s got a child nearly the same age as Docter.

No jokes are available to break these inflammatory moments. One wonders all this can come to and end, given the show’s already over three hours long.

The answer comes swiftly, [but it’s not savory or sweet.] Mom says she’ll never allow her daughter to wed Joshua since she is pregnant with his baby.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

 

 

 

STICKKY’S SHIFT FROM THE STREET TO NATIONAL MUSEUM

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted April 16, 2022)

Erick ‘Stickky’ Muriithi has an affinity for sweaters and shoes, especially shoes.

Even before he started painting shoes on canvas or drew them with charcoal on straw paper or spray-painted them on stone walls, he was actually painting colorful graffiti designs on people’s walking shoes.

One can’t be sure what sparked that passion for footwear, but it might have something to do with his growing up playing Lifundo football barefooted.

“Nobody plays Lifundo anymore since we used to make our ball with plastic bags. But since plastic bags are outlawed in Kenya today, the pastime is dead. But it was really fun,” recalls Elvis Ochieng, a Kenyatta University art student and intern at Nairobi National Museum where Stickky’s second solo exhibition opened late last week.

BDLife was at the Artist Talk with Stickky and Elvis last Friday where Stickky had managed to include one Lifundo ball painting in his show together with one of a Lifundo match where one could almost feel the youthful vitality of the boys at play.

That same vibrant dynamism is also present in paintings like ‘B-boy’ and ‘Kick-Push’, the first portraying a lad who displays the agility of a dancer and the energy of a hip hop artist, and the second is of a skate-boarder just about to take a spill off his board but struggling to hold his balance, assisted by what look like turbo-jets fired up on the back end of his board.

Stickky’s show, entitled ‘Watu, Viatu, na Mavazi 2’ isn’t only about shoes, despite his featuring everything from hiking boots and a ballet slipper to Nike sports shoes and well-worn Bata sneakers. It’s also got its share of second-hand sweaters, each one a part of his ‘Stolen Sweaters’ series.

“I call them ‘stolen’ because they tend to come and go, depending on which of my friends decides he (or she) feels they need one of my sweaters more than I do,” says the artist whose sweaters tend to be big, bright and multicolored.

In fact, Stickky’s use of color is nearly as emblematic of his style as are his shoes. Some might find his mix and clashing non-match of hues a pain upon their eyes. Others might feel the colors juxtaposed in a work like “Kick, Push” are garish and disturbing. But that would be fine with Stickky whose paintings often require the viewer to do a double-take in order to see what he is doing in his art, which is essentially having fun.

For instance, one might look at his paintings of a pair of sneakers or low-cut boots, and not instantly notice the two shoes don’t match. You couldn’t easily miss the fact that the ballerina wearing his ballet shoe is only wearing one. The other bare foot looks battered and bandaged.

“I have many friends who are dancers, and they often struggle to deal with their feet,” says Stickky who also includes several lavish portraits of lovely African women, each decked out in elegant gowns made with bright, unforgettable colors that seem to radiate with an incandescent glow.

At the same time, there’s a whole section of the gallery in which only hang Stickky’s charcoal drawings. So while most of his works are painted with acrylics or spray-paint, that one section is devoid of color apart from blacks and browns. Yet here one can see Stickky’s real skill in draughtsmanship as he draws fingers touching tenderly and delicate feet elongated as in a ballerina’s pose on her toes.

When asked why he has charcoal works in his show, he explains that his first mentor and art teacher was Patrick Mukabi who starts everyone out with charcoal which he says teaches them many lessons.

“One of them is patience,” says Stickky who told the crowd who came to his Artist Talk the day after his show’s opening, “Patrick Mukabi taught me everything I know.”

But he adds a caveat to that. “I learned about graffiti from Uhuru B who by then was based at the GoDown as were we and Patrick,” says Stickky. It was 2015 that they all shifted from GoDown to the Railway Museum and after that, Stickky finally moved to Karen Village (as did Mukabi) where they are all based today.

Stickky actually spent most of his childhood in Western Kenya since that’s where his mother worked. Then he went to secondary in Nyeri, and finally came to Nairobi for college at Kenya Institute of Mass Communications.  But he says meeting Mukabi changed his life.

 

 

CRUELTY OF A CRIME OF PASSION:THE CASE OF RYAN KIOKO

 By Margaretta wa Gacheru (April 14, 2022)

Ryan Kioko was sleeping soundly in his bed on the night of March 28^th when he was rudely wakened by blows raining down on his head, arms and chest. Before he could clear his eyes, he got a blurry glimpse of three thugs wielding baseball bats and shouting obscenities at both him and his girlfriend who by now was wide awake but unscathed.

“It was only because the neighbors heard the commotion and came running out and banging Ryan’s door,” says his mother, Alice Mueni who adds she feels fortunate her son is alive. “They beat him bloody, and unfortunately, this would be the first of three times they came after him.”

The cause of this cruelty is complicated, but in large part, it comes down to a woman, Ryan’s girlfriend, who was formerly the girlfriend of thug number one, who apparently wants her back. “She doesn’t want him,” says Mueni. “She says she only wants Ryan, which is a big problem for him.”

Friends have said there is too big of an age difference to find this whole situation acceptable. Ryan is 24 while the woman is 30, and thug number one is 35. But that hasn’t stopped him from trailing the young man who has been advised to let go of this girlfriend for his safety, and even his survival.

But she is said to refuse to let him go. He initially didn’t listen to his advisers, including his older brother Mwanyiki, and sister Mutheu. But Ryan’s second assault convinced him to leave her alone, only now, she’s the one who calls him night and day and is unrelenting in her pursuit of this attractive younger man.

It was the third attempted assault late last week in the evening hours that convinced Ryan to lay low. “We have been advised to send him away for his own protection, but he stays with me,” says his mother. “Who will pay for his moving and setting up a new home in another town?” she asks?

Ryan was minding his own business, having gone to the local kiosk to buy milk for his mom when a car drove up and the three thugs jumped out. This time thug number one was wielding a knife. So Ryan begged the kiosk owner to let him into her tiny stall which at least could have been locked while he called for help.

But no, she refused. So, Mike turned on his heels and sped straight home. At that stage, it was 11pm at night, so since it was a distance to walk between their house and the police station, the mom suggested they sleep and report the incident in the early morning. “I didn’t feel safe taking that walk all alone,” Mueni said.

But the thugs beat it straight to two different Eastlands police stations to report an injury of thug number one which they claimed was inflicted by Ryan. It was a clearcut lie, but since mother and son delayed, it looked like evil had the upper hand.

“There is a warrant out for Ryan’s arrest,” says Mueni who is deeply disturbed, especially as she knows the family of the ex-boyfriend. “The ringleader doesn’t have a job, but he gets money from his father,” she says.

After the first assault, Mueni and Ryan were able to claim damages and make the family pay for the thugs’ smashing of all of Ryan’s electronic equipment, including his computer. It seems the family vowed to get their money back by means of claiming bogus damages by Ryan and maybe even getting him thrown into jail.

The situation is even more complicated since it seems the thugs have been stalking Ryan who has moved out of his mother’s house and doesn’t plan to surface until the situation is right. The thugs have apparently gotten inside Mueni’s compound and taken photos which they have circulated on social media.

One advice that Mueni has taken to heart is that she and her son should hire a good lawyer to protect and defend the young man’s life and interests.

What started out as a crime of passion has turned into a senseless mini-war. One only prays that bullies and bad boys don’t win the day since no good can come of that.

BROADWAY MUSICAL THEATRE ENERGIZES KENYAN YOUTH

 https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/lifestyle/art/broadway-musical-theatre-energizes-kenyan-youth-3779974

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

It was only a week-long musical theatre workshop with Chryssie Whitehead, representing the Broadway Arts Community (BAC). But the woman came determined to have an impact on all the children who had signed up since last February when Jazz Moll of Youth Theatre Kenya (YTK) placed a publicity poster in social media and got a flood of applications back.

“In all, there were around 90 children that performed,” Lizzie Jagoo told Weekender moments after last Saturday night’s showcasing of the children’s newly acquired theatrical skills.

Jagoo is the drama teacher at Braeburn School (Gitanga Road) where the BAC workshop went on for five and a half days nonstop. She’s also an advisor to YTK who, with Jazz, provided technical support for the workshop while Chryssie coached the kids. YTK and Braeburn also hosted the workshop, and the School provided an excellent stage for the hour-long performance.

“Where one could most clearly see the impact that Chryssie had on the children was the result of the one-on-one coaching that she gave to the kids who asked for it,” recalled Jazz.

In fact, the Showcase itself consisted, not of a specific musical, but mainly of memorable songs from popular musicals like Wizard of Oz, Rent, Oliver, Matilda, and Les Miserables.

Unfortunately, the sound system was wanting, up until a hand mic was found and given to the singing soloists, more than half of whom had already sung. But somehow, it didn’t really matter how audible the singers were since they all had such impressive stage presence, one could see that each child was a star-in-the-making, whether he or she was 8 or 16.

Chryssie herself wasn’t shy on the night of the Showcase at the end of the kids’ performance. She announced that most of the children, including the soloists, had never performed in front of a live audience before. (Neither had she ever performed before with a live band, especially as good as Ghetto Classics.) Yet they all displayed a poise that’s usually associated with years of experience.

As Lizzie noted, one had to credit Chryssie with spreading her own infectious love of musical theatre with all of these kids who had happily worked with their Coach daily from 9am till 6pm apart from Saturday when they had to stop early because they needed to get set for their Saturday night performance.

“We didn’t go in for fancy costumes,” Chryssie told her house-full audience. The implication was that they were too busy learned their lyrics, their dance steps, and their determination to impress their audience with their high-energy performance. “Instead, we all agreed to wear black.”

Explaining at the outset that it had taken her two years to get her act together to come to Kenya from New York City where she teaches musical theatre full time, she noted. “I had to take a five-week leave of absence from my teaching, but I had been looking forward to this trip ever since I heard about the group ‘Artists for Africa.”

AFA is a fund-raising group started by the Dance Centre Kenya founder and artistic director, Cooper Rust. The former prima ballerina from South Carolina has been fund-raising so Kenyan youth from under-served areas could get scholarships to study dance and ideally dance their way out of poverty as has already happened with a number of her former students.

Chryssie is also from South Caroline, and through linking up with Cooper, she was finally able to make it to Nairobi. “When she asked Cooper, who was doing Musical theatre, Cooper directed her to us,” says Lizzie.

“We were happy to host her, just as we’ve been glad to introduce our YTK members to artists from London’s West End as well as from……<” says Jazz, who feels once his members have the experience of working with all of these musical theatre groups, they will be better prepared to begin creating their own Kenyan musical theatre.

In the meantime, seeing almost 90 children singing and dancing in sync with one another was a marvel to behold. The performers were split between the younger bunch and the older ones. But at the end of the showcase, the whole bunch got on stage and still managed to perform together beautifully. Before that happened however, six young Kenyan dancers from DCK performed to illustrate how dance is also an essential part of musical theatre.

One must hand it to Ms. Whitehead for coming and giving so generously to Kenyan youth. But as much as the kids have gained from the week’s experience, one knows Kenya’s been stamped indelibly on the lady’s soul.

4.9.22

 

 

NAIROBI DESIGN WEEK FILLED WITH YOUTHFUL ENERGY AND IMAGINATION

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted April 11, 2022)

This year’s Nairobi Design Week offered a dazzling display of young Kenyans’ energy, versatility, passion, and imagination. It happened at Kazuri Bead Factory, which turned out to be the perfect venue for visitors to wander through over 30 diverse exhibits leisurely.

 One also saw a surprising array of small-scale businesses that illustrated both entrepreneurial smarts and creativity. Take for instance, Tiffany Ngigi’s ‘Knot Donuts’, which have sold like hot cakes ever since she put them on Instagram and Facebook. With a single knotted donut going for sh200 and a box of five for Sh800, it wasn’t just the novelty of the knot that proved most attractive to foodies hungry at all hours of day and night. It wasn’t even the 24-hour delivery service that Tiffany, 19, promised.

“Tiffany cares about quality,” says Sylvia Ngigi. “Plus the toppings are terribly popular,” she adds as she shows BDLife the billboard: Oreo Vanilla, Oreo Crumble (with both white and milk Chocolate), and Vanilla original.

Tiffany is just one of scores of young people who came to display everything from jewelry made from recycled materials, first-class handicrafts made by ‘urban refugees’, and clothes, some of which were original Kenyan fashions, some mitumba brought as part of a cash-free Thrift Shop started by Switcharoo.org and the Acacia Collective of artists.

“The idea is for people to swap clothes rather than sell them,” says Kip Ketter from Acacia who explains one must come with a piece of their own donatable clothing so they can exchange it for any of the shirts, dresses, pants, jeans, coats, shorts, and sweaters they have on display.

“Plus, every day at 1pm during the Design weekend, we’ll have conversations about the ideas behind our shop, namely a circular economy and the notions of ‘reduce [waste], reuse, repurpose’,” adds Hephzibah Kisia.  

                              Design by Naitiemu for Kali.works

The big challenge of this design week is that so much is happening at once, it’s not easy to choose where to stop and engage all these enthusiastic youth, most of whom are under 30.

But we are advised by the Design Week’s founder, Adrian Jankowiak, that our next stop should be the Play Centre since lots is happening inside there.

And sure enough, he’s correct. Most is related to AR, Augmented Reality. That’s the realm where you put on special goggles only to find yourself in an unfathomable world created by the clever AR specialist who shows you how to navigate into and through it with your fingers and thumbs.

The first AR project I visited had been designed by James Kamau. It was meant to give an overview of the entire Design Week’s activities, including all the artworks, fashion, digital games, and food delights. I decided it was better to see it all firsthand.

Then came Brian Njenga’s Heritage project which aims to create 3D replicas of all of Kenya’s 32,000 lost artifacts, using AI (artificial intelligence), and onsite photography. “My problem is our [pre-colonial] culture is scattered in museums all over the world, and usually it’s in storage, so access is an issue,” says Njenga. But he’s already got 10 replicas drawn from German museums with assistance from the Shiff Collective and Goethe Institute.

But the most exciting exhibition I had time to see at Design Week was Naitiemu’s multi-media project, Enkang’Ang’. Named after the all-Maasai women’s community in Laikipia county, their village has already gained global notoriety for the strength of these women’s struggle to successfully break away from the Maasai status quo and set up their own self-sustaining society.

Being a Maasai herself, Naitiemu had a special affinity for the project she named Enkang’Ang’ which means ‘Our Home’. “The idea of the project was to discover and document Maasai culture, but we also wanted to re-imagine it, especially in light of this community,” says Naitiemu who’s a mechanical engineer by training but a painter and performing artist by passion.

Having designed a concept paper, she managed to obtain a grant from the Soul of Nature Foundation. The grant enabled her to select a team of highly qualified Kenyan women to help her document the lives of the women living together in Twale Tenebo village.

At Design Week, Enkang’Ang’ occupied a larger corner of the Play Centre with beautiful still photographs by Sarah Kadesa, several short videos, including music videos and one of a performance by Naitiemu and her dance team responding joyfully to Enkang’Ang’.

I couldn’t visit every exhibit this year, but it was thrilling to see Kenyan youth leap-frogging into the future, bringing the rest of us along behind.

 https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/lifestyle/art/nairobi-design-week-filled-with-youthful-energy-and-imagination-3779958

PRINTS AT ONE OFF

                                                                             Dennis Muraguri's Ecko UNLTD
 

PRINTS BY THE PAINTERS AT ONE OFF

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted April 11, 2022)

Prints present limitless possibilities to both their creators and the public at large.

For one, they are easily re-printed, making them more affordable than an artist’s original one-of-a-kind work. So, if someone wants a piece by a particular artist but can’t afford what their one-off works are worth, that someone can be quick to contemplate acquiring a print instead.

                                                                                                   Peterson Kamwathi

There is a versatility to print-making that isn’t necessarily available in a painting. Just look at Andy Warhol’s prints of Marilyn Monroe or his Campbell Soup cans. Warhol repeated each of these images over and again in a single work. Yet each image is slightly different for various reasons. On one hand, it could be due to the actual print-making process in which each printed image was produced by hand. But it could also be intentional on the part of the artist who may add different colors to the same etching or woodcut print as James Mweu does at One Off Gallery’s current Print show. Either way, it can be intriguing to see these subtle differences emerge when they happen spontaneously.

“One reason I like print-making is because there is always that element of surprise,” says Peterson Kamwathi, one of the nine Kenyan printmakers currently exhibiting at One Off in a show curated by fellow print-maker Thom Ogonga.

                                                                                Thom Ogonga's Double Entendre

Peterson was suggesting that between the time the artist puts his or her ink on the plate and the moment when they see the outcome of the printing process, one never knows what exactly their print will look like. That for him is a thrill, even if he is only working in black and white as are his works at One Off.

It has to be very different for an artist like Dennis Muraguri who prints with multiple colors, each one of which must be applied and printed separately and precisely. I assume that is why the sometimes sculptor asks for big bucks for his prints. There is so much labor required to achieve the effect of a work like Ecko UNLTD, Ongata Line Trans.

That magnificent print serves as a sort of centre piece for the whole prints show, given that it’s the largest, most colorful and has the pride of placement at the entrance into OneOff’s Stables gallery.

                                                                                               Mandy Bonnell

Muraguri’s Ongata Line Trans may be a print, but it’s unlikely that there will be many editions of it, given there is so much labor and detailed precision involved in creating such a print masterpiece.

Yet every print is different, as one will see at One Off where one will find all sorts of prints. You’ll see etchings and aquatints (by Kamwathi), etching and collage (Mandy Bonnell), silkscreen prints, (Wanjohi Maina), relief prints (James Mweu), collagraphs (Patrick Karanja), and woodcuts carved on MDF board (Thom Ogonga, Mari Endo, Dennis Muraguri, and Abdul Kipruto) which is slightly different in effect from an actual woodcut.

                                                                                         Wanjohi Maina

The quality of paper and the kind of ink involved in the process also make a different to a print’s look. For instance, Muraguri and Ogonga both used process ink to prepare their prints while Mari Endo used Japanese ink. And as for paper, Wanjohi Maina worked with embossed paper while Mari with Mulberry paper. Meanwhile, Abdul Kipruto used neither paper nor ink since what he’s brought for the exhibition was his carved MDF board, a woodcut plate entitled ‘Bow 1’.

Abdul is not the only artist who is displaying more than just prints. Several others, including Muraguri, Ogongo, and James Mweu are also selling the plates they carved to create the prints that are for sale. To me, that seems like a major sacrifice since the beauty of creating the plate is that it serves as the key to creating a few or many more prints.

                                                                                        Abdul Kipruto

The plates are like incised sculptures, each one being precious and practical to keep. I suppose that by selling the plates, all the prints produced before a plate was sold will be more valuable.

Otherwise, prints are tricky. As long as an artist holds on to his/her plates, they can sell more prints, making what the buyer once thought was a limited-edition could become a common image splashed all over the internet.

In fact, in this age of social media, it is virtually impossible to claim exclusivity to images that one can easily find on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. Still, to have a print of one’s own is still valuable if it was bought because you like its look, not if you saw it as a prospective investment.

                                                                                                 James Mweu

 

 

WHEN 'LE CRIMINAL' IS INNOCENT AND THE COPS ARE CROOKS

 By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published April 11, 2022)

Liquid Arts latest production, Le Criminal, staged at Kenya Cultural Centre last weekend, is essentially about trust and truth, or rather about trust and deceit, truth and duplicity.

But at the outset of the play, one can’t figure anything out. All we hear is high-pitched, high-speed shouting between Felicity () and her business partner Kababa ().

All we hear is that she wants out and he says there’s no way she is going anywhere since she’s already in it up to her ears. But what is ‘it’? Why did she get in ‘it’ in the first place? And why now does she want out?

When the ten million get mentioned, we get a clearer picture. Apparently, they are both involved in embezzling government funds. Kababa is a senior government employee, so he’s the one who had access to the cash. How Felista is involved is unclear except that she’s connected with the man they made the fall-guy for their crime.

Much of what we surmise in Le Criminal is not clearly stated. Some of the issues are never clearly spelt out. What we do understand early on, is that’s Felista’s fearful that this man named Drew is supposed to be released from prison after ten years. And if he gets out, he is bound to figure out who framed him for the embezzlement and got him put away for a decade.

Apparently, she and Kababa preferred he stayed behind bars for life. Once we figure out who Drew is, namely her husband and the father of her child, we realize how nasty and self-serving this girl is. Physically attractive, she clearly knows how to manipulate men. But the fact that she wants her husband to remain jailed for life is stunning nonetheless.

Still, we are never sure why she wanted out of her deal with Kababa. Is it because she believes she already has her cut of the cash, and doesn’t need him anymore? Is it because she wants to plead innocent if and when her husband gets out of jail? Or is it simply because she wants to skip town so she won’t get nabbed if the truth is ever known?

There’s too much speculation for me in Le Criminal, especially as it doesn’t stop there. How is the prison warden Jim involved with Kababa? He apparently works for him but why should that entitle him to brutally beat the ‘criminal’ Drew. His beatings are excessive, to the point where Jim nearly strangles Drew to death, causing Drew to speak the same words as the late George Floyd, “I can’t breathe.’ That reference is intentional, and police brutality is under scrutiny in the play. It’s horrifying, inhumane, and mean-spirited. But again, we don’t know the rationale for Jim’s conduct.

Then there’s the Inspector () who appears out of nowhere and sings along with Drew. That’s apparently a hint of the kind of relationship she has with Drew. As it turns out, she is the truth-seeker who ultimately looks into Drew’s case, follows the money and finds it transferred into Kababa’s bank account.

But then there’s the missing file that Felista had sought, initially to hide so Drew would be stuck in jail for life. But then, once Kababa informs her he’s cheated her as well as Drew and taken all the stolen cash for himself, she apparently ‘repents’ and goes to tell Drew about his son. She even promises to look for the missing file which we now know has information in it which can clear his name.

Did she have a change of heart because Kababa left her penniless? Or did she really see the error of her ways and want to finally get her husband out of jail?

It’s the Inspector who finally arrests Kababa and Jim, and throws them into the jail cell that’s there on the Ukumbi Mdogo stage. She also has the power to pull Drew out of the cell and make him a ‘free man’.

By the end of the play, Felista has apparently come clear. Drew has already told her he’d never forgive the people who put him in prison, so she knows there’s not much hope once he finds out what she did. Better that she tells him, which she does. That gets her thrown behind bars with the two real criminals. It also leaves Drew devastated, and we too are still slightly mystified by Liquid’s Le Criminal.